CAPITALISM FOR ALL W/ JOHN HOPE BRYANT, DC YOUNG FLY, & KARLOUS MILLER

First of all, we got to heal. So, we got to stop the bad things, right? Drugging, drinking, dealing, you know, uh uh uh uh texting, texting, shopping, not dealing. There's probably a bunch of other things. Everything in balance is cool. Got to keep [ __ ] on on the table. [laughter] We got [laughter] [ __ ] but I got I got I got paper, dude. You going to leave smoking? They got to do smoke now. [laughter] All all things in balance, man. Okay. Thank you.

No, hold on. I got I got to get get first. So, those are handmade in Japan. Oh, the boy went overseas. Got them. All these by man. Mhm. Oh, you just ain't say that, [ __ ] All B man aren't the same. I know who B man is. Yeah. Okay. Guess what? These ain't nothing but the blue version. [laughter] $4 guy. The blue version. I've [clears throat] had those for four years. Oh, yeah. They're good. They're handmade. Uh and Oh, okay. I mean, it cost, you know, 800 bucks or whatever, but they feel great on my face. It doesn't, you know, nothing worse. You put some glass on your face and your nose are you hurt. Your nose are hurting, your ear your ears hurting, your head's ringing. I'm just saying if you buy it right, you buy it once. Unless it don't matter. Yeah, it don't matter to me. So the glasses don't matter. Then you And I've been thinking he give a damn. He'll just take them shits off and leave. I'm like, bro, you left them glasses. I know. My wife has 10 pair of readers for that same exact reason. She'll buy she'll buy cuz it doesn't matter to her.

No, don't get me wrong. I am a Cardier collector. [clears throat] Shall I pop it? I will pop just once. Yeah. I got about 15 different different cards from different places around the world. But as you wear them, three, four usage, they loosen up. So in my head, it don't matter the number that you spend. I just spent $1,400 on some on some shades that's uncomfortable. I spent $20 on some shades and I'm still getting the same [ __ ] that I was getting [laughter] with the other shades. Hey, I just wanted the experience. The experience didn't get me what I want. What's your What's your restaurant about? You guys are very I'm just in the club. So when [ __ ] say I ain't in the club. My next question. I'm in the club. Why would you be a collector of some [ __ ] that you know ain't going to last? It's not that. When I was young and I was doing it, I was young, bro. I'm like 25. You know when [ __ ] 25, bro. I ain't never had [ __ ] Up on this [ __ ] 25 years old. I ain't never had [ __ ] I got six Cardier, boy. I always wanted the Cardier. The Cardier I bought back in the day. They were $30. I know they want to fish. Them [ __ ] was young caught [laughter] them little Wayne had to hit me. So now that I'm in the club I'm like I got but I'm like you buy them. That's why [ __ ] don't have them. You buy them and you know that they high as hell. But you know the type of lifestyle you living they not conducive. They going to get loose and fall out. I'm not buying them to wear them at this point. I was buying them to say you can't grab these because they only made these in Puerto Rico. Oh, I got these [ __ ] cuz they was over there in goddamn police. You don't wear them? I don't wear these cuz I know another [ __ ] ain't got them. I I want to have them. That mindset is [ __ ] up. That's why. So when a [ __ ] say some [ __ ] I be like, "Bitch, I know you ain't with the B and get these." These [ __ ] up. That's why they was on there arguing about the AP and the swatch collection. It ain't that you give a [ __ ] about an AP. You just didn't want other [ __ ] to have this [ __ ] It ain't that, bro. when you ain't have it and then you start getting it and then you realize what it takes to get it. You like, damn, when I didn't have it, you ain't reach me. You ain't make sure I had AP. I waited till I got real AP gang. Sure. Now you like, you know what, but see, it's not about that AP going to make a make a killing, [ __ ] And plus, they just dropped a little pocket watch. [ __ ] actually thought they f to get a bust down uh collaboration, bro. The [ __ ] made a pocket watch that hang off your belt. [laughter] Had all them [ __ ] like, "Y'all did all that arguing for what?" Agaborate, man. They made a pocket watch, not a wristwatch. Man, they got a $300 AP. They didn't put all these fake ass pictures out, different colorways and everything. They ain't never even said that. The internet goddamn [clears throat] It's a market. It's a market. We gonna fake like we f to put something out there for them to buy. get them to come in the store and buy something else cuz they gonna do it every time. Cuz they gonna do it every time. Consumers is crazy. It's about the money, man. I can trick you into buying some [ __ ] Hey, where them $300 ones at? They like, "No, they ain't in here." But we got them $900 mother. Okay. Oh, we sold out of them. You sold out. All good. Bad order. Cuz you know how [ __ ] is, they don't want to come out the store without nothing. I got to look like I'm doing what I'm doing. [ __ ] spit everything just to look like you do. Don't nobody give a [ __ ] about nothing. What's in your bag with $20? Nobody cares. Nobody care.

I was looking through my glasses last night. I got some metal glass. The one to record, right? I ain't recorded [ __ ] on there. But I recorded so much on my glass. You have an official start for your interviews or you just We going to have an official start. You just you just flow. Yeah, we we just be popping. We gonna start off with the glass and then get the voices warmed up and then Mhm. Yeah. See, we start off with the glass. That's how we pop it off. Just show people that we still humble. We talking about capitalism. Mhm. [laughter] Here we go. We are humble. [laughter] We don't want them to be expecting too much. [laughter] We'll we'll pop every blue moon, but we Oh, guys, welcome back to the 85. Now, we the hot sauce packets we don't use. You put them in the refrigerator. [laughter] Yeah, we'll have an official start here in a minute. It's better to underestimate and overperform than overestimate and underperform. Say that again one more time. It's better to underestimate and overperform, right? Than overestimate and underperform. For sure. For sure. For sure. That's what you said. Lower expectations. Yeah. Then people don't know what's coming and then you then you slam them. Slam in the head. We hit them with the surprise. Yeah. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing. They didn't think we was going to make it this far. They had already underestimated us way from the beginning. And then they see us do great things. And they were like, "Man, we're so proud of y'all." I'm like, "Proud of what?" Right. We ain't even did what we really about to do yet. I'll tell you, man. Congratulations on all your success, [ __ ] What success? They just happy we still together. But I can't believe y'all can sit right there and just be free. 10 years. That's a long time. Ain't nobody got shot. God damn, y'all boys on the Well, y'all doing some good [ __ ] Keep doing what you're doing. And in my mind, I'll be like, what gave you the inclination that I wasn't right? What made you feel like I was about to stop doing what the [ __ ] I'm supposed to be doing? This ain't even it. This just the beginning. Wait till they give me the money. The very fact that you guys are in the same building with the same crew with cameras you own with a building that don't have a red notice on the door. Some of these going to get fired, but keep going. I mean, with lights that are on. I mean, about this is success here in and of itself. I don't know many brothers who have their own platform, their own effectively your own studio. Oh man, Jay, don't don't don't do that. You going to blow our cover. Don't do that, man. Don't tell them the thought, man. They thought we was rude. They said we the white folks did this. We rent this [ __ ] White man, don't don't come back. Don't Don't show the home, man. Don't do that. Don't do that. White man record out of a crack house. [laughter] Actually, come on. In the in the worst part. In the worst part. We still can't. We still can't. Now, that mean a lot though. We sat down and we talked about it like we got all this money. Ain't no nothing you can walk up and touch though. Ain't nobody got no building. We didn't supported all these underground rappers and said that they was the CEO. We should have been able to go take a picture by the wall like you can in Mottown, right? Turn them up studios at. Not saying they don't have one, but we need to see that. We need to see how people owning some [ __ ] Yeah. Yeah. Especially in the city like Atlanta, right? I'mma pull up and support whatever they got going on. Yeah. Bankhead Seafood and Hookah Lounge or you know all the all the places that they say got the grass on the wall. I that's all I want to go to. Fact. Yeah. I went to TP Studio. I just walked around. They thought I was up there. I want to be here. Beautiful out here. I like the grass. I'm going to the back where they don't nobody go. Yeah. I'm going all I'm seeing all this [ __ ] See the grass. He got a little pond over there. [ __ ] got an army base in. It's real. He kept the building. Got some ducks. You same lights. It's orange as hell in there. You seen the ducks? No, I a see the ducks. Got some ducks over there. Real really living. Damn. I couldn't know who it was. I could have [ __ ] with the D. I don't know that name. You said TP. I said, "Oh, TP." He know him like that. He didn't know. I said Tyler Perry, my [ __ ] Oh, you didn't know who the [ __ ] I'm talking about. I ain't know who he is, man, you need to get the [ __ ] out, man. What the hell? That's your partner. What the hell you thought I was saying, [ __ ] I don't know who that TP is, [ __ ] [ __ ] you got to know the names out here, man. [laughter] You a guess. You didn't guess T pay or nothing. I ain't guess one of them [ __ ] [clears throat and laughter] Hey, and talking and talking about owning something. I mean, that could be our that could be the black version of Disneyland or or or what's that in uh in um Los Angeles and uh there's a studio Universal. It could be the black version of Universal Studio. There should be there should be tours. There should be, you know, family tours through there. I mean, it is he he's got a huge piece of real estate there. And I mean, he's a friend. And he's done he's he's done an [clears throat] incredible job. And history has not has not given him the respect that he deserves. over. I mean, he's right here in Atlanta. Nobody talks about it. It is. It is unbelievable. For sure. He definitely doing his thing. He doing it. Definitely need to be like a tour. Some tour [ __ ] going around. And you guys are doing your thing. So, they need to bring that tour on down here too. You guys can do your own tour. The hood tour for sure. Now, we want to brand the hood. I already know. I think by the time we get to the hood, the second. Yeah. When we get our second studio, that's when we really get we'll get our own exit and all that, too. Oh yeah, this the starter one. Then we'll get to the big one. Yeah. Then we'll really get They already got 85 South got this real interstate. Absolutely. But they need to have like 85 South exit where like 85 South Studio. I don't think I don't want to be that that flagrant though. You don't want to be out there. No. I want you to have to be with somebody who know where it's at. Like yeah, it's right over there. I don't want Yeah. Don't you don't want no side. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You got to be invited. Yeah. Mhm. Invitation only a destination location. Exactly. I don't Chris was like that. See, you had to go to Minneapolis. He didn't want to be in Hollywood. You had to go You had to go out of your way. You went to Minneapolis. Of course. I've got offices in Minneapolis. That's not the point. I'm saying I'm saying Prince Paisley Park. Prince Paisley Park. If you want to go see him, you had to be intentional. You didn't just show up in Minneapolis. No one's just rolling through Minneapolis. You had to be intentional. But he wanted to separate himself intentionally. He didn't want to be part of the Hollywood scene. Even when he changed his name, that was a brilliant deal. He changed his name to a symbol. That was not We thought it was artistry. That was about intellectual property rights because his name Prince was tied up with his contracts. The crazy part is he never named the symbol. He didn't name the symbol. Legal victory. Damn. [laughter] They said he could play basketball, too. Yeah. Good. It was it was like that.

All right, well, since you like introductions so much, welcome back to the 85 South. Okay. Now, DC, we got a special guest in here with us today, bro. Cuz this going, this is the crazy part. Every time he come, I don't never have no questions. I just want to hear about the I just want to sit back and shut the hell up and really take some notes cuz he know what he talking about. And he got a new book out that's already a New York Times bestseller. Not New York Times, USA Today bestseller. today. Oh, my bad. Not just one steak, [ __ ] 49 of them [ __ ] [laughter] My bad. Whole 50. I lost two, [ __ ] Yeah. You don't get to be on a bestseller without hitting all the list. You on the list. They'll send you your certification in a minute. Capitalism for all a black man. Come on now. We getting ready to get our money up this episode. None other Mr. John Hope. Yes, sir. We getting out of paper today. Hey man, go to that shoe box. All my real [ __ ] go to that shoe box. [ __ ] going to get real. Sit real close to the to the TV, man. Take care. Shut the [ __ ] up. Not pull your notebook out. Get your notes together. [laughter] Shut the [ __ ] up and go to bed. Yeah, this this real serious business right here. Come on, take some notes, man. Try to get some money. Yeah. He ain't talking about what he heard. He actually doing it, right? Exercising it. And And look, he done gave you the game in a whole book, man. So, make sure you go check that out. How you doing, brother? My pleasure. Pleas, you know, I I I must tell you out of all the stuff that I that I do, and most of it is pretty forgettable. Like I, you know, you do it, you know, but I don't think about it again. I've thought about being with you guys. I think it was a year and a year and a half ago, and it was one, it was really like one of my most special moments, and it was so proud to see all these brothers in here trying to do it right. M and and I'm honored to come back. So, you guys are really killing the game and you're doing it right. I watch you I watch your stuff online. You're funny as I mean just I'm so glad that Charlemagne put me together with Chad and everybody and and you guys just you're make you're you're making smart sexy. It is. We've been making dumb sexy for way too long. We've dumbed down and celebrated it and you're making smart sexy again and I appreciate that. and you're talking in a way that our community can relate and put information where they can get it so we can climb that ladder and climb up. So, I love that. So, let's get at it.

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It's good to be right. You built like a burp. Big ass thing got stuck like that. They That's your girl. Ah, she ugly too. [ __ ] wrong. [laughter] Get here. Talk about my head. Well, one got too much [ __ ] We heard about Alabama. I grab a chair on your stupid ass. What the [ __ ] Hey, I just had to set the record straight. She's like, I'm not that kind of white, baby. No, live to earth in heaven. Let amuse you. Hey, that what we f to do, ball, we f to give [ __ ] 10 ways to help during men's mental health month. Number one, food on your stomach before you drink. Yeah, that's one. Mhm. Oh, what's two? Oh, wrap it up if you having sex with somebody. Scratch that off. Hell no. No, no. Now, now the [ __ ] stressed. He ain't got money for the condo. Hell no. [ __ ] wrong. [ __ ] wrong. Get that real [ __ ] So that help with your mental health. The juices on the tip. Oh [ __ ] That go straight to the mental. No, the [ __ ] probably got X. Uh, good. Sometime now you stressing about something. Getting the chami out yourself. Scratch that off. Put food on your stomach before you start drinking. That's one. All right. Work out, bro. There you go. I like that, bro. Don't you ain't got to overdo it. You know, something just something to be active. That's it. All right, Joe. Try again. Have sex with multiple women in a week. Good job. All right, Joe. Hell yeah. Yes, please. Sorry about that. Let's go. That's how you come back, Joe, with a strong ass mental health moment. Uh [music] They say uh the game is meant to be sold, not told. But I'm like, but if you tell it, you get people out the way and let them figure it out for theirel. You still trying to sell a recipe that don't work. Yo, that [ __ ] don't work. Just tell it. I'm still focused on your $4 glasses. Yeah, man. [laughter] You should have saw me, boy. I'm telling you, man. So, all the compliments I get. Who? I like them. Boy, you don't understand. Amazon [laughter] get that free shipping. It going to take a minute, but you pay $5 today. [laughter] [ __ ] You didn't know they died on the screen. You like, I had to get it from China today. An hour. [laughter] Like you want today, I can get through the day now. Five out. That's my partner though. Yeah, my partner. You guys and you guys have each other's back, which is just really rich. Um, a lot of, you know, you get a lot of black folks together. I hate to say it and it just it gets interesting. It be one hater that always [laughter] doing it for the bunch. We can be 900 deep. It's always going to be one [ __ ] one. I've not seen one in your group. If if it's here, I I I mean, there's drama everywhere. But when I was here for a half a day last time, it was harmony. From the moment I hit the door, the moment I let nothing but positive energy and black men who are who understood this one thing. God gave you two ears and one mouth. Mhm. So you listen twice as much as you talk, right? And so when people hear somebody that makes sense, they they they as I'm my phrase, they shut up and listen. When I hear somebody who knows stuff that I don't know, I shut up and listen. Uh and so I just, you know, just much much respect. Can I can I can I drop a couple? Absolutely. Come on. Go ahead. Been looking at this table cuz I was he was here before. Yep. And I know this table is very symbolic for you guys and it's in all your shows. This actually a new one. Is it? Yeah. We my guy he made he remade it for us. It's a black guy. We sent the other one so he can repair it. And we going to It's like you said, it's a piece of history. But this Put that in Put it that in your museum. This the new updated version. Yeah, it's hot. This is not a table. What is it? This is negotiation point. This is So I'm about to unpack capitalism. So in this example, you're the consumer with your $4 glasses, right? And you're the capitalist. Right. This is negotiating table. All right. Your job as a capitalist is to extract as much money as you can from him while giving him the least amount of value. That's your job. Okay. Got it. Your job as a smart, educated consumer, cheap as you are. What? Tight. Tight. Tight. Your job is to pay him the least amount possible. I can do that. While extracting the most value. [clears throat] That's your job. Mhm. The table's job is to be the place where you come together for this negotiation. And a good negotiation is when everybody leaves slightly annoyed because that means nobody got everything they wanted, right? So when you are in Africa or you're in a third world country, it's an act of negotiation. Yo, yo, I'll give you $20 for that. No, no, no. I want, you know, how about 15? How about eight? You, you know, it's back and forth. Now you you're negotiating on price, but you're wasting time. Mhm. So poor people value price above everything. Wealthy people value time above everything. So wealthy people want to save time. Mhm. When I was coming up, folks would haggle over that dollar for half the damn day. Now, going back to this point, when you have a good negotiation, everybody leaves slightly annoyed because no one actually won. But the first point I want to make is if you're trying to extract as a capitalist, the producer of those glasses, you're trying to extract $10 from him while giving him those glasses. and he's trying to to pay you $2 while getting those glasses. You're both doing your job. You shouldn't be mad at him. Mhm. And he shouldn't be mad at you. It's not personal. Mhm. At the end of the day, you end up paying, I guess, $4 for the glasses. Maybe your cost on it was $ 250. So, you didn't make as much money as you wanted, but you still made enough be able to buy to sell them. If you sell enough of them, you pay your cost and you earn a profit. That's the simplest example I can give of of good negotiation. Now, when you go to a store, CVS, Walgreens, whatever, and you buy those glasses off the rack and it says $8.99 or the cone says $5.99. Mhm. Researchers have already determined what you and I would be willing to pay for the cone. So, the negotiation has been predetermined. Mhm. They know that you're willing to pay instant $5.99 whatever and pull that and buy and sell. So, so it's still the negotiating table. It's just the efficiency has been predetermined already taken away. So even if somebody wants to distribute money, people say I want to be a socialist. Even if you want to distribute money like a socialist, you have to first collect it like a capitalist. Did I lose you? A lot of the people don't understand what socialism, capitalism, most people don't, by the way. Right. Yeah. So, commun I I break all this down in the book. Communism is the state owning everything. Mhm. You can use it. You can use it, but you can't own it. But you can't own it. The state owns and controls everything. So, the theoretical example of this is uh China and Russia. I'm going to come back to that because that's a lot. Mhm. Socialism is people talk about the Nordic countries, Sweden, Norway, uh, that's not Nordic, but yes, it's it's, uh, socialist like, um, Finland. All right. Those are capitalist countries with a heavy taxing system. All socialism is is a capitalist country that overt taxes the system so that the poor are taken care of. So, So you so so now you bought uh you bought uh you sold know you bought these glasses. He sold enough of those glasses to be to make a million dollars as a capitalist. The state he's now lives in Finland. The state says well we want $500,000 50%. As a result of that all of your and my cousins in this environment they got their healthc care taken care of their uh roads roads food hospital. Help me out here. um sidewalls. All that's free. All that's free. Now, that's a good thing. And so, there's no poor people theoretically. All right. Theoretically, here's a problem. There's nobody there's nobody at the bottom who look like us, but there's also nobody at the top who look like us in that environment. In Finland, you won't see any black people at the very bottom, and you won't see any black people at the very top. Where they at? In the middle. They're they're stuck in the working class just below above. They're sub they're subsidized. They've been given everything and they've been put to sleep. So they're just chilling. They're chilling. They're chilling. They're chilling. Now in a capitalist system and America is a capitalist system with socialist tendencies. Social security social is a socialist tendency. these something any you know welfare these programs that help people some say that's socialist tendencies I think it's just dignity but anyway in a capitalist system it's the private ownership of assets and use of the free market system to set market prices where you own that manufacturing of those glasses and you get the benefit of selling those glasses and he gets the benefit of buying what you sold and if you don't go do a good job, somebody else is going to put you out of business by selling better glass. It's a free enterprise. It's a free enterprise system. Now, it's more brutal. Mhm. You have winners and you have losers. So, I went from one of the bottom 250 zip codes in America, Compton, California, South Central LA. In the time I saw you last, Forest Magazine says I'm one of the 250 greatest living self-made Americans. Not black. not black. Thank you. Not in 2026. On the 250th anniversary of America this year and the 100th anniversary of Black History Month, Forbes magazine came out with a list of 250 greatest living self-made Americans. And if it had been any other kind of list, I'd have been honored. But self-made is a whole other thing. And they calculated the distance traveled from confident south central improbable through done legally now up through and out the other side. Tyler Perry's on the list. Magic Johnson's on the list. I mean it's a wonderful list. Uh my friend Oprah Winfreyy's number one by the way. The historic list of those who passed on. Number one is Abraham Lincoln. get you can't you can't get this any better. Abraham Lincoln's on the historic list. Number one, the new list. Number one, Oprah Winfrey. That's us. Number 250 on the list is uh Martha Stewart. I'm 145 up from nothing. If I can do it, anybody can do it using the legal system. But if I was in Russia, China, France, Germany, Japan, almost any place else, I wouldn't have made it cuz that's a communist situation. It Well, so let's go back to that. So even the communist situation is a lie. So what did I say about Russia and China? I said that was a lie, right? So they're communist countries, but they're using capitalism. What's uh what's the uh Tik Tok? Mhm. um DJ the DJ is DJI I think is this the uh the u the drone company Chinese I mean it's a huge ch it's a complete capitalist system the government is basically government funded capitalism so the government is backing businesses and if you don't they don't like you then they silence you they take you over so you know it's like we can use capitalism but y'all can't or we can you can use it until we don't like it anymore and and then we shut you down, put you in prison or make you disappear. That's their form of capitalism. So there is no perfect in the world. I've been to 100 countries. There is no perfect. I was in Turks and Caos yesterday. There is in the Caribbean islands. I love as our people. There's no perfect. But this system has the capacity to take somebody from slavery to president of the United States of America who looks like us, Barack Obama. It has a capacity taking somebody from sharecropping and slavery which is Oprah's story and my story. My great second great-grandparents were slaves. Um George Young fought in the Civil War. RB Smith sharecropper Alabama to now I own 40 acres with my wife in Fedville that was slave property in Fedville County was an entire slave county. 90% of people who lived in Fedville were slaves in the 1800s. I bought intentionally. I bought 16 acres and then later on when the white family next to me uh they had a situation and that somebody passed away and wanted to sell, I bought 27 acres next to me. You can't make this up. 40 acres in a mule. I got 40 acres in a sprinter van. Same thing. And in 1865, Civil War ended. I I really shouldn't say this, but my address is 1856. You can't make this up. And and so I completely script flipped the script in a in a slave county where I'm one of the biggest land owners and I'm about to buy some more land next to me. But I did all that through the free enterprise system. I did all that legally. And to me, that's making smart sexy. Knowing how this system works and making it work for you versus it working us is how we flip the script. And that's what you guys are doing in your own your own way. And let me just say this one last thing. I say I was going to be disruptive tonight. I'm saying this to you. I mentioned it on a post I did this week, but I've never I haven't said it to anybody publicly. One of the reason I like you guys is that when I talk to you off camera, you really are smart. like you know your stuff. And the one area where you can be a single expert, you don't need to be smart, just a single expert, is comedy because everybody wants to laugh. Everybody needs to laugh. It never goes out of style. In good times is great. In bad times is like oxygen. But every place but comedy, being X is not enough. Being pretty is not enough. Having a big ass is not enough. Having a, you know, having a wig and, you know, manufactured body, being smart is not enough. Just make it up. Whatever it being cool is not enough. But if you look at the generation of our people who've now we're brilliant, but we are now under this mistaken perception that on Instagram or whatever platform they're on that if you're smart, if you're pretty, if you're handsome, if you're a genius, if you're a great athlete, that that's enough. It's not. And you're going to get your heart broken. This world's going to break your heart. And what I'm trying to do is to bring you into the real world because something's happened that hasn't happened ever in our history. We're in the third reconstruction right now. I cover all this in the book and I can break that down if you want me to. First reconstruction, slavery, freedom. Second reconstruction, civil rights movement, access. Third reconstruction now 2024 through 2035. In my opinion, from the streets to the sweets, from civil rights to civil rights, it's about ownership. First of all, it's about owning ourselves. You got to own your own narrative. You got to know who you are. If I don't like me, I'm not going to like you. If I don't feel good about me, I'm not going to feel good about you. Claire Hayden, if I don't respect me, don't expect me to respect you. If I don't have a purpose in my life, I'll make your life a living hell. Whatever goes around comes around. So, ownership starts with mindset. and self-esteem, which is different from self-confidence, owning your own story. And then it goes to assets. Now, we think we won. No, no, no. It was one for us. Some people think accidents are just the moment, but what comes after can last way longer than that. The recovery, the time off, the pressure. That's the part that nobody talks about. And sometimes people don't even think about talking to a lawyer. Maybe they just don't want the pressure or the hassle. But maybe they don't want people to know. Maybe they don't want to know what people going to say. But the truth is when you injured through no fault of your own, your focus should be on getting healthy and taking care of yourself and your family. That's where you can check out Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury firm. They've got more than a thousand lawyers and over a 100 offices nationwide. And they've recovered more than 30 billion for over half a million clients. They got a long track record of fighting to help the people and help you pursue your full and fair compensation. If you've ever been injured, you can check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. That's right. The fee is free unless they win. To learn more, go to for the people.com/85 South or dial poundlaw. That's poundlaw. This is a paid advertisement. [music] Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. [music] [music] Second reconstruction Ambassador Young, I just spoke to him today. Last living lieutenant for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 94 years young. We we see these people in Atlanta and we take it for granted. Seeing Andrew Young's is like seeing Nelson Mandela. Thanks. You you got the King family walking around. You got the I mean it's unbelievable what we got here in Atlanta. This is like this. My wife calls Atlanta uh Wakanda. Like it's unbelievable. And this city economy is the same size as Singapore, man. 580 billion dollars a year. And you're part of it. And it's black. Well, it's is diverse, but it's run and led largely by people of color. I there's no place in the world that this exists. 587 billion 580 billion a year in GDP, which is greater Atlanta, the same size as the country of Singapore, not the state of Georgia. Atlanta, the city of the greater Atlanta, the seven counties of greater Atlanta, is a bigger economy than the country of Singapore. I'll go one, all this is in the book. I'll go one step further. You can take the city of Atlanta, take the state of Alabama, the state of Mississippi, the state of West Virginia, and the state of Georgia absent the city of Atlanta, greater Atlanta. All inside of the economy of Atlanta, and Atlanta's still bigger. That's how amazing what we have done is. Hold. I'm going to say it one more time for the people for the people I know watching the show. It's It's a lot of We got a lot of We got the whole hood watching this, bro. You heard that? Great Atlanta. 580 billion. Don't say ain't no money out here, man. Busiest airport in the world. In the world. The the largest internet the only international city in the traditional south. The most diverse place in the traditional south. The only place where black the only color is green. Folks are too busy to hate. We picked up a business plan that really Birmingham, Alabama should have. Birmingham, Alabama should have had the airport. Montgomery, I mean the Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama was the industrial base for the uh for the whole South. That's where the railroads went through. That's where steel was manufactured. It named after Birmingham, England. They were bigger population, more sophisticated, but they were stuck on race. They were stuck on in the second reconstruction, civil rights movement. I'm going to get back to why we think we're free, by the way, and we're not. But they were stuck on race, white and black, white water fountains, and all that kind of stupid stuff. I want to say something else. [ __ ] Stupid [ __ ] Your cuss. I appreciate that. Be my translator. Atlanta decided to argue not over race but over money. Who got the contract? So Atlanta got a new business plan and those other places if you go to and again I love Memphis, Tennessee, great black mayor there now. I love Birmingham, Alabama, great black mayor there now. I love Montgomery, Alabama, great mayor, black mayor there now. But if you go to those places with all due respect, they look largely the way they looked in 1960. You with me? Yeah, fact. Take a photo of Dr. King going through the airport in Memphis, Tennessee when he was assassinated. If you go through that airport right now, it looks exactly the same. If you snap the photo of where he was when he got in the car outside and Atlanta's been rebuilt and reimagined and revitalized and remodeled, I don't know, 30 times. I'm an investor in Centennial. I'm bounc I'm jumping around here. I hope that's okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. I just feel at home. Good. I'm an investor with Tony Wrestler. This is three billionaires from the same family. Just the same Jewish family. Richard Wrestler, Tony Wrestler, and uh their their sister. They're each one of them are worth 10 bit 12 billion, 15 billion, and and 12 billion each from a middle-ass Jewish family. Whatever they were drinking, I want some of it. They two of them of the three members of that family owned the Atlanta Hawks. Mhm. as my former business partner Tony Wrestler and own across the street was now called Centennial Yards as Richard Wrestler. I'm an investor. I'm a partner with Tony Wrestler with I was a Promise Homes company which I sold I told you guys I sold that for nine figures and I'm a partner in Centennial Yards which is the largest investment in Atlanta since Atlanta. When you say Centennial Yards Centennial Yards $6 billion dollar what it consist of? This is the This is We built the downtown. Atlanta had no downtown. It had a Midtown and then had a Beverly Hills, which is a Buckhead. There's no downtown. If you want to go party, you want go up. If you want to go have a good time, a nice restaurant and go shopping, you you went from Midtown and you just went up up to Buckhead. Yeah. Now, we just snuck up on you. There's a 50 acre development that used to be a hole in the ground. It was used to be called the Gulch. Yeah. That was, by the way, the railroad line that Andrew Young rode the bus in on when he met Dr. King in the 60s. That was also the railroad rail railway line that the Union Army busted up the Confederates on in 1865. And that battle stopped the Civil War. Without the Battle of Atlanta, for sure, Lincoln would not have gotten reelected two weeks later and the war wouldn't have ended and America would be different. Atlanta literally sits at the epicenter of American history. Without Atlanta, you wouldn't have the end of the Civil War. You would not have the Civil Rights Movement and you would not have what I now call the Civil Rights Movement cuz all of it headquartered in Atlanta. So now I want you guys to go drive through mid what was now called what was Midtown, upper Midtown. I call it New I call it Town Square. You'll see the Phoenix Hotel. Mhm. Boom. It's beautiful. You'll see uh uh um Cosmo, which is a COSM, sorry, which is like uh the sphere in Las Vegas, but it's basically you watch an F1 match team, F1 game, or you can watch a soccer game, whatever, as if you're watching it in but you're in the bleachers, but you feel like you're at the event. Live Nation put an 85 seat theater that's under construction, right? 85 8500. We'll be in there. There you go. Um, bunch of restaurants, entertainment, clubs, uh, uh, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Group is putting a new hotel there. This is all across the street from State Farm Arena and Mercedes Ben Stadium. I'm doing affordable housing. I hope right across the street by Vine City and all that. Y'all took all that property over there? [snorts] Uh, no. We just we're just on the 50 acres inside the goat. We're just literally inside where the hole was. Okay. It It took 700 mill. This is gangster. It took $700 million to just bring it to street level. What you mean to fill up the hole? Just to fill up the hole. Good. Which still has trains operating so you can so you can build a city. It cost $700 million just to bring it to to street level. That's why nothing's been happening at the coach. But

This is the magic of Atlanta. This is what I'm telling you. This is not happening anywhere in the South. Nowhere. Even Nashville is a minor version of what's been done here. You guys have created magic and it's at risk for this reason.

We thought we won. We were all walking around like we were chilling. Everybody's on Instagram like they won something. What did you win?

Dr. King, Andrew Young, Coretta Scott King, Dorothy Height, and all these heroes and sheroes got Kennedy, Johnson, and honorary President King to pass four civil rights laws: Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights Act, Open Housing Act, etc., etc. These are basically, by the way, enforcement actions for rights you already had in the 1800s. That's a whole another conversation. But they created these laws.

As a result of that, you now have affirmative action. You had DEI. You have set-aside contracts at the airport. Set-aside contracts, you had them with the federal government. Building wealth and opportunity, access to education, HBCUs, jobs and contracts, access to corporate jobs, basically the creation of the middle class. So, we were able to cash the check, but we weren't writing it. And when we were writing it, it's because somebody gave us a right to it. Follow me. We have the right to vote. We have the right to have access to a facility. We have a right to an education, a right to contracts.

But in an instant, when somebody came along and decided, "You know what? Take that away." I'm tired of all this. And convinced through marketing, brilliant marketing, I've got to give them credit, convinced the public that somehow this was reverse discrimination. You've seen while we are since I've seen you last, the Supreme Court just struck down something we thought would never be struck down: voting rights, DEI. We argued over DEI, we fit on the list anyway. Why argue? But the whole infrastructure of what we thought was assured, and we took for granted, we didn't go vote. A lot of Black folks stayed at home. "Not my problem." Whatever that stupid description is, it's your problem now because last year, 300,000 Black women got laid off in 3 months, and it wasn't their fault. They were in the wrong place, wrong time, wrong political environment. So, we actually weren't in control of anything, right? We didn't win. It was won for us. You following me? Somebody said, "Just kidding. You're on your own." Then now you're faced with brutal capitalism that may not be friendly to you. And here comes artificial intelligence hunting your ass from around the corner. And we're chilling.

Hey man, what's up? It's your man Carlos Miller. I know a lot of people, well, you don't know, but a lot of people do be hitting me in the comments like, "Hey, man, what you put on your beard? What you be using?" And I'm going to go ahead and give up the game. I've been using this Baskin Leather. Yeah, you want to get like me, go use you some Baskin Leather. I'm about to drop all the info for you so you can go check them out. Explore viral bestsellers and products for healthier hair of all types from Baskin Leather. Go to baskinleatherco.com. Use code 85 South for 20% off. That's 20% off at baskinleatherco.com. Promo code 85 South.

What's up, y'all? It's your girl XP and it's your girl Dre and Nicole. And y'all, we are finally here. Y'all been blowing us up every time we post anything. Oh yeah, the tour tickets are live. The tour tickets are live, y'all. So make sure y'all go to poorminds.com and get your tour tickets right now because it's going to sell out. It's going to sell out and we're not doing it again. No resales, no none of that. Go get your tickets. Poorminds.com. And we're coming to a city near you. Period.

How do we survive? We've been doing so much with so little for so long. We can almost do anything with nothing. Where the rules are published and the playing field is level, we kill it. Professional sports, we killed it. I can't remember the name of the athlete, but it was the, I think it was the 1939 Olympic Games in Germany.

Jesse Owens. He won, he won those medals, and Hitler was so upset because he said, you know, they were the only race as whatever, master race. And we kicked their rear end playing by the rules. He got up and left. Hitler got up with all his boys. They couldn't take it because the guy was too dignified.

Yeah, Jesse was winning everything, man. Jesse was winning. He won. He just won the sprint. Jesse won long jump, all kinds of [ __ ]. He just had four gold medals and he didn't curse. His brother won some medals, too. They don't never his brother, but but but he won. He won by being smart and being talented and applying his gifts. And Hitler couldn't take it and walked out.

At the end of the day, Hitler, five years later, was dead. And Owens is still an icon in the world. Light always wins because darkness is defined by light, not the other way around. Badness is failed goodness. And the devil is a punk. Lucifer is a punk because God, he's a fallen angel. And God gives him permission to exist. He ain't [ __ ]. But we give all these people, all these false prophets, all this fake authority, and we think that they're doing something because it's in that, it's short-term, immediate gratification that attracts us.

But when we come back to our core, we're spiritual people. And you know, the first person to walk face or walk upright in the world with intelligence was a Black woman. I don't know if you know that. All DNA in the world comes from us. Don't trust me. Look it up for yourself. The only word that the only word that includes the only color that includes every other color is black. And Black women are the only ones with the Eve gene.

My brother historian here, but let me slow this down. I'm going to say this again. I don't know if you heard. I don't know if you. I need you to understand what I just said. This is not a racial comment here because people are going to take this up. They're going to cut it. Somebody's going to try to take to make something out of something. I'm not making a racial comment. I like math. It doesn't have an opinion. The only color, this is science, that includes every other color is black. And if you don't believe me, look it up for yourself.

So where did all this come from? This is made up. The racial argument. The world is 5 billion years old. Organic life 4 billion years old. Neanderthal life 200 million years old. Modern homo sapiens 200,000 years old. Modern enlightenment 6,000 years old. 3,000 years since Jesus. So where did the racial word "white" come from? Jamestown, Virginia in the 1620s. Because a traitor of goods and services were using whites and Black indentured servants together. They were both indentured servants, poor whites and poor Blacks. When Blacks and whites ran away together, I think I put this in the book. When they ran away together and they were caught because they didn't like how they were treated, they were caught. They were friends. The overseer came back and said, "Boss, we got a problem. They're getting along. They're friends." Boss said, "Well, why is that a problem?" "Well, we can't have a race riot. We cannot have a class riot. We're the class, boss. And they got us outnumbered. They're going to run over us." So, they took the poor whites and they said, "You know you're white like us, don't you?" This had never been uttered before in history. You had white royal members of the royal party, royal family. You had white, I'm sorry, not Black. You had Black members of the royal family. You had Black industrialists. You had Black people in power going back thousands of years, tens of thousands of years. He told this guy, "You're white like us. Now you're in charge of them. I'm going to give you two more years running away. I'm going to give them life." That was the beginning of slavery. By the way, the word "slavery" did not start with African-Americans. "Slave" is a Slavic word.

Mhm. That's white, white, white, white, white, white Europeans were slaves. This, I'm getting too deep. I'm just saying this is a game. So for 400 years, we've been arguing. By the way, the biggest group of poor people in this country are poor whites.

Hello. Say it again. Say it again. The biggest group of poor people in America are poor whites. Now, I'm going to eat some chicken to that. Now, here's what my point is for anybody watching this going, "John don't get it. This is all about racism and the white man." Okay, now they created that. Slow your roll for a minute. So, if this is true, why didn't the rich white people come back and get the poor white people and say, "Y'all coming with us 400 years ago?" What? What? Did I miss something? Because Dr. King, who got assassinated in '68, was campaigning trying to help all poor people, including poor whites. That's one of the reasons he was taken out before he ever got to Washington D.C. So, if this is racial only, yes, racism exists. Be clear about that.

Yeah. But if this is, I think it's really class disguised as. I think it's really about class, money, and power. Race is an interesting, wonderful distraction. I guess that's the point. If this was really just about race, if race is everything, why somebody explain to me why there are poor whites in America? I don't understand it. Because the rich whites would have said, "Poor whites, you're with us." That did not happen.

Well, if you can convince the poorest white man that he's still better than the Black man, in his head, he don't give a [ __ ] where he at.

Well, because there's no critical thinking, right? There was no critical thinking with the poor white. He didn't say, "Am I wealthy like you? Do I have titles from England like you? Do I have land like you?" He didn't ask those questions. That's critical thinking. He just said, "Oh, so I'm now in charge of them." Now, them were his friends.

But this changes things, right? Playing that game. Even when they see the election in Trump, they get to the poor whites and they all vote for him. They're the first ones to complain about voting for him. So somebody is riding at the ballot box. Black people, when we get upset, we ride in the streets. We're emotional people, right? When poor whites get upset, it appears they riot at the ballot box, right? It's still rioting.

Let me tell you something. When you go to a 500 credit score neighborhood, let's just level the playing field. Think about a poor Black neighborhood. Think, think about, and I want you to think about now about a poor white rural neighborhood. You tell me if I'm wrong. Here's what you see. They hide them. Check casher, payday loan lender, rent-to-own store, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, liquor store. Yeah. Yeah. Am I lying? Nine gas stations. Like we just can't get gas from him or him. It's him. Am I lying? Same [ __ ]. Same [ __ ]. Poor white neighborhood. Poor Black neighborhood. And by the way, I'm in, and I lay it out in this book. I've mapped every zip code in America by credit score. You live to 61 years old in a 500 credit score neighborhood. Damn. 15 minutes away from every 500 credit score urban neighborhood is a 700 credit score neighborhood. You live to 81 years of age in a 700 credit score neighborhood. I'm going to make this really plain for our viewers. You're in Chicago. You live in Garfield Park. I don't know if anybody here knows what Garfield Park is. It's the hood. You live to, you live to 61 years of age on average. You don't get to Social Security. You get on the freeway and you go to Lincoln Park, which is 15 minutes away on the freeway in Chicago. You live in that neighborhood to 90 years old. What else has changed but economics? So, when you live in a 500 credit score neighborhood, you're stressed out. You got too much money at the end of your money. It's single-parent households. There's no financial services. There's low credit score, high cost of living. You fall dead: hypertension, diabetes, stroke. Black-on-black crime, poverty on poverty crime. The three groups that didn't get the memo in this country: African-Americans, poor whites, and Native American Indians. What's the number one group dropping dead in America? Poor white men dying of opioid addiction. Depression, essentially. What's going on with Native American Indians? Alcohol. Alcohol. Depression. I'm going to say something. You're not going to like it. I think that 70% of Black people, as brilliant as we are, are clinically undiagnosed depressed. Explain so much. We wake up in the morning on nine. And PTSD. And PTSD. PTSD.

Now, why am I saying this? Because the African-American experience is different from the African Caribbean experience. Exactly. Different from the African African experience. African African, African Caribbean are closer because slavery for them lasted a shorter period of time in a brutal environment. If you were a slave where I was at yesterday in the Caribbean, you, they kept your families together. Am I boring you guys? They kept your family. It was a nuclear family. If you were a slave in the Caribbean, mom and dad and kids. So now you're growing up. Yeah, you're a slave. It's a horrible thing, but it's a family structure. Now you know. And then once you get out of that, now the mayor looks like you, the dentist looks like you, the robber looks like you. I mean, everybody from the top to bottom looks like you. So your self-esteem is higher. You follow me? Your confidence is lower because you're in an effectively second or third world country economically. America, brutal capitalism. Sell your kids off so you have no hope. Hold your wife down and a brutalizer, sorry, hold you down while they brutalize your wife. So you, as a provider and the caregiver, you can't protect her. You lose your self-esteem. You lose your sense of male identity. You're emasculated. They don't want to kill you. They want to destroy your spirit. It's not personal. It's business. They want a machine.

Now, why take you all the way from Africa here to do this to us? Is it personal? Please listen to me. No one brought you all the way from Africa because they don't like you. [laughter] Why? Because we were agricultural geniuses. Who asked this? We were agricultural geniuses in an age when the gold was cotton and tobacco. Please hear me. Where was that crop best fertilized? In the South. In the South and in the Caribbean and in Latin America. By the way, the second president of Mexico in the 1820s was a man of African descent. That's a whole another story. Slavery was outlawed in Mexico before slavery, because it was for 40 years before outlawed in the United States, for sure. Back to the story. So African-Americans, our self-esteem was destroyed intentionally so we wouldn't fight back. But they needed people who could take dead soil, Africa, under harsh, heated conditions and bring it back to life. That's what we did. You know where Wall Street for a rhetorical question? I'm going to give you the answer. Where did Wall Street create? Where did Wall Street start? Montgomery, Alabama. Lehman Brothers was born in Montgomery, Alabama. Don't trust me. Look it up yourself. Why? Because that's where the slaves were. That's where the slave trade. That's where the Mississippi had more millionaires in the 1850s than anywhere in America. The richest city in the world in 1840 was not just Mississippi, in the world.

When the rules are published and playing fields are level, once again, we kill it. Professional sports, the arts, politics, from slavery to president of the United States of America, faith. I just talked to Bishop T.D. Jakes yesterday. The biggest, he's basically the Black Pope. I mean, built a global empire from West Virginia, which is where he was born. Try to give another group another thing that we've killed it, killed the game on. But I mean, that's for example, everywhere. But not capitalism, not free enterprise. And what's my point? This country is built on capitalism and free enterprise. The whole world is built on capitalism and free enterprise. So for us to argue and spend valuable time debating about whether we like capitalism or not is rearranging the deck chairs on the damn Titanic. The ship is sinking, and we're picking drapes. And I don't know about you, but I'm like Malcolm X right now. We've been bamboozled. We've been tricked. We've been fooled. We've been hoodwinked. We've been run amok. And I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

[music]

Hey, what's up, your man Carlos Miller. Chico Bean. Hey man, it's your boy DC on Flizzy, you dig? And we are the 85 South Show. Look, man, we've been reading the comments and we heard what you said. A lot of people that can't watch us, and we wanted to make sure that you know, if you can't watch us, we wanted to tell you exactly where you can go to listen to us. Hey man, and where you can go is all the platforms, you dig? I'm talking about the exclusive 85 audio shows, man. On Apple, Spotify, you dig? I stop playing, man. Man, we stumbling on all grounds, you dig?

What? Pay attention. Don't listen. Listen. If you was listening, then you know exactly what you're supposed to do in the movie, bro. I'm trying to tell you, bro. That's when I say y'all in the helicopter. You got a helicopter. I'm getting one. Why would the hell we we go through all? I'm just saying it's an action movie. Okay. Yeah. Then you jump out then you laying in the helicopter. Yeah. That's enough. What I say to people is nothing else has worked. We tried the government. They just told you you're on your own. Have I missed something? I'm talking to everybody here. Have I missed something? It's not a good feeling, is it? For somebody else to be in control of your destiny. Every other group disengaged from the government and went into free enterprise and capitalism. We hung on too long. We had too much faith. I'm not criticizing. We did the best we could with what we had. But this is probably 50 years too late. And they, and this president has done something that hasn't ever been done since 1960. He unified Black people. Yeah. We all have one accord. Now we like, "What we going to do?" Mhm. That's what you said. What we going to do? And what I think we do is this: God is on the throne. Why do I believe that? In 1952, America was 90% white. So that means what Dr. King and everybody did was nothing less than genius. That was just moral authority. 8% of Black people flipped the whole country. 70 employees, Dr. King had. Today, America, African-Americans are 40%. Sorry, African-Americans and Latin minorities are 40% of this country. Within 10 years, we'll be a majority of minorities. The economy today is 20% immigrant. The GDP of America is $30 trillion. 20% of the GDP of America are immigrants. The same people being demonized. I'll give you a strong one. It's in the book. In 1972, a white, blue-eyed, blond-haired woman, wealthy, could not get a bank loan in America. I'm sorry. Could not get a bank account in America. No woman could. It was against the law.

Right? Huh? Or a credit card. Couldn't get a credit. You mean you know your stuff. Couldn't get a credit card unless her husband co-signed it. Right? Why do I say that? Let's go back to now what I said about the second Reconstruction. Black America pushed this country to live up to its potential, to its Constitution, its Bill of Rights. That happened here in Atlanta. Civil rights movement. The civil rights movement, the four civil rights bills. So, here comes Kennedy, who really didn't care all that much about civil rights, but he was pushed to care. Here comes Johnson, who was not a very nice person, but passed all these civil rights bills. And here comes the honorary President King. Some people thought they went too far. They just, they killed them physically. Kennedy, Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin, a whole list of other players just taken off the scene politically, killed by going from Kennedy and Johnson to Nixon. Total opposite. By the way, it happens every Reconstruction. First Reconstruction, Lincoln gets assassinated. The reaction was President Johnson, who was his vice president, who is a Southern segregationist. That's why he pulled all federal troops out of the South. Stop Reconstruction. Told him that if, in order for you to win, this is what you got to do first. So what? So look at what's happening now. Don't name names. You've gone from Obama to something else. Reaction here, overreaction here. George Floyd's murder. 2000. You're living through history. If you were Black in 2021 and walking down the street, somebody would have given you a check. There was a year period where Black, where money was just flowing. Am I talking to myself? Money was just flowing to anybody Black. If you were in 2021, by 2023, woke, anti-woke, and what reaction? Some people thought, "Gone too far." By the way, I think we took it too far. I think we poked the bear. I think we antagonized. We were not smooth about how we did things. We stepped in mess, not over. It's a different conversation about strategy, but we created a reaction that we're experiencing right now. So, you're sitting in a moment in history right now, but history does not feel historic when you're sitting in it. It just feels like another day. It's the third Reconstruction.

So, the battle is no longer here. It's here. So, now why am I saying the answer to your question is capitalism? Let's go back to that woman's story. Because of Black people in affirmative action, we didn't get the affirmative action. Nixon gave it to white women. I say, "God bless them. I'm glad somebody got it." Because of white women, Black women got it. Latina women got it. Asian women got it. Today, women are a third of the U.S. economy. Women are 8 to 10 trillion or $30 trillion a year. That wouldn't have happened if they didn't get the rights that we teed up in the '70s. So bring that story to present. Citygroup put in this report here that discrimination against Blacks alone between 2000 and 2020 cost the U.S. economy $16 trillion. $16 trillion. Not Asians, not Latinos, not slavery, not the Civil Rights Movement. 20 years between 2000 and 2020. Citygroup, not NAACP, not LULAC, not some liberal group. Citygroup calculated [clears throat] cost the economy $16 trillion. And they just knock it off. We get a trillion dollars a year. And I've already told you about the power of Atlanta, but that's really the power of diversity. The most wealthy companies in America are the most diverse. The most profitable. The most diverse cities in America are the most profitable. 90% of the GDP, the economic activity for this country are in cities. I mean, what I love about this is this is just math. This country can't survive without Black people. That's really what I'm telling you.

That's what it all boils down to. It can't. This country cannot. I want every white college-educated, successful white man to be hugely successful because my success is tied to his in a free economy. There's not enough of them. There's not enough college-educated white men to drive GDP, gross domestic product, the income of the country for the next 20 years. If we don't include other people in this, within 20 years, we'll all be speaking Mandarin. You know what Mandarin is? Yeah. Chinese. Chinese. Chinese.

Now, I'm going to give you a drop mic that's going to spin your head. Now, let's say you, let's say up to now you're like, "This all sounds good, but John don't have me yet." Okay, check this [clears throat] out. [snorts] In the next 10 years, there's going to be a wealth transfer of $88 to $100 trillion dollars. Every day, 10,000 baby boomers, wealthy, 65 years of age, looking to go play golf, retire, and leave the economy. Every day. I'm going to say this one more time. Not every month, not every week. Every day. Every day, 10,000 baby boomers leave the U.S. economy. There are more people over 65 than under age 18. It's never happened before. By 2034, they'll all be gone. The money is getting transferred, by the way, that $88 to $100 trillion to wives, husbands, children, nieces, nephews, and stocks, bonds, homes, cash. What have I missed something? Businesses. Now, nobody wants the businesses. It's too much damn work. Please hear me. Black people, brown people, please hear me. There's nothing wrong with this business. These are seven-figure dentist offices, seven-figure lumber offices. Help me out here. Laundromat, gas. We can buy them. Gas station, car washes, nail salons. Help me out here. Think about what's in your neighborhood. Think about it. Medical offices. These are all businesses, people. You're not, no one's cutting your hair for free. They like you. Your buddy likes you, but he wants to be paid. That's a capitalist. I said earlier, people, "Oh, I'm not a capitalist." You're not going to work for free. If you're going to work and somebody's giving you a paycheck, you're using your human capital and you're exchanging it for financial capital. You are engaging in, help me out here, capitalism. Capitalism, for sure. If you're paying a car note, you're engaging in capitalism. You're paying rent or you're buying a house. Capitalism. I mean, knock it off. And if you live with somebody, that's socialism. Especially if you're not paying no bills. [laughter] Live with somebody, got the dirty to make two sandwiches. And that's if you're not on the, you don't get no damn two sandwiches. Did you lie to say you were going to give me some money? So that's pleasure. My [laughter] thank you for getting me off my soapbox. Look, if we just buy, I said $15 trillion of businesses which have real estate, have client lists, have brand names in their city. Let's stop. Let's knock it off of going to New York and LA. The money's already made. Go to Columbus, Georgia. Go to these second-tier cities where there's no competition for brilliant people like you. And go buy the dentist office. Got three locations or four barber shops or four. You know, hair ain't going out of style. Go find, go buy the three hair businesses, the three hair weave businesses. The guy is trying to retire, right? Get half of the, half of the purchase price is bank-financed because it's a cash flow from the business. They'll take, they'll do seller financing probably for 40% of that, and you raise 10% of it in a, what's called a GoFundMe friends round. But if you buy a million-dollar business with cash flow in real estate, it's easy to find investors.

Is businessfore.com a good website? No, I wouldn't do. Go find a business broker, a business broker in the town that you want to buy a business, and they'll tell you and they'll help you analyze it. But my point is, if we just buy a trillion dollars of that, man, I didn't say, I said $15 trillion. Just buy a less than 10%. Over the next 10 years, our net worth for Black people is scheduled to be zero by 2030 if we do nothing. Yes. If we do nothing but chill what we're doing right now, our net worth is scheduled to be, as a race of people, nothing. Zero. Zero. We own nothing. And it's getting worse. We have the lowest credit score in America. I'm just talking real talk. We have a 44% home ownership rate. Most of our businesses don't have an employee. We don't own stocks. We don't own bonds. We talk down capital.

Yes, sir. So, from this point, from knowing all those facts, how do we get, say for example, we got a community that said, "All right, Jay, I hear you. We [ __ ] up back then and we want to unlearn. We want to unlearn all the [ __ ] we learned in this condition. How do we grow in the next 10 years?" So them statistics don't work.

In the book, I have a business plan for Black America. Goddamn it. We got to read the book. Read the damn book, is what he said. I wrote waiting for somebody to talk [ __ ] to me about John. You know, you keep talking about the simp, where's the solution? I wrote the damn solution. I wrote it for Black people. I wrote one for women. I wrote one for white people. I wrote one for rural people. I wrote one for Asians. I got every group. I wrote Native American Indians, Africans. Now, here's the question. Before you go, I want to ask you this: Who financed the Civil Rights Movement?

Uh, it was, uh, that's a great, that's a great question. The civil, okay, the Civil Rights Movement was financed in part by Jews, slaves, I'm sure. Um, Black Black businesses, like H.J. Russell and others, but people don't know that the Jewish brothers and sisters actually helped with the Civil Rights, the, I'm sorry, the, yeah, SCLC was actually, uh, not a legal nonprofit. It was actually run out of a legal office in, uh, New York. Who was it? It was a Jewish lawyer there who quietly funded Dr. King's movement. Uh, and that's a whole. We got allies now. Don't get it wrong. We got allies. Many of which we're treating pretty badly, but that's a whole another story. Folks love seeing us argue with each other. And I mean, if, look, don't get me into this. Let me say, focus on the question that you put in front of me. What do we do?

How do we get there? Let me try and make this real. I'm going to take this and make this real plain. Please hear me. [snorts] Get our credit score up 70 points from 620 to 700. So I guess, how do we do that? I done [ __ ] up my bank account. I don't, I don't [ __ ] up. I knew that. So you come to Operation Hope. If somebody would tow up credit, credit doesn't check their credit. That's what I know. You come to Operation Hope, which our services are free because I raise $100 million a year so that you don't have to pay for our service. I have offices in 42 states, have 400 employees. You come and we say, "What's what's that on your credit report?" You say, "I don't know." Great. That's called an error. So we say, "This is financial literacy," which I think is a civil rights issue of this generation. We're going to write, you and me, we're going to write a letter to the credit bureaus. People think the TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian, the credit bureaus are the devil. No, they're repositories. They're data. They're passive data repositories, which is a nice, fancy way of saying it's lazy money that sits there with a database, and they get paid by people accessing the database. It's really a brilliant business. It's like a storage unit for data. Mhm. Now, they're not, they're not responsible for what's in the storage unit. They're just holding it, right? M. You're responsible for making sure that your [ __ ], excuse me, your stuff in the storage unit is properly accounted for. But that's what poor people don't do. They don't check. So the first thing we do is we write a letter and we say, "This is not his." The law states if they cannot confirm that's yours within 30 days, they must remove it. And 90% of the time, I need to write them a letter. That ain't my sprint. I don't know who had that. [laughter] Well, that's good for 30 or 40 points. Operation Hope. Operation Hope does that. So, so now you, now let's say you were at 620. So now you got, pop, 30 points. You're at 650. What happens to your self-esteem? Straighten up a little bit. I went up 30 points. My [ __ ]. Wait a minute. I'm about to get four houses. You're like, "Okay, I'm in." You're like, "I'm in the game." So then we say, "Okay, what's that other thing?" Oh, you know, I got, I got a divorce and it was 10 years ago and they got ran the phone bill up and I don't have $1,000. You got another letter? Nope. No, you got to call them and then ask for a settlement. No, hold on. [laughter] No, no, you're both right, but hold on. Slow it down. So, we say, "Look, slow down." That was, uh, Pac Bell. Pac Bell sold to SBC. SBC sold to AT&T. So, oh yeah. All of them been chasing you and calling you. You ain't answering no damn 1-800 number in 10 years. Right. They sold it. They got tired of chasing you. They sold it to Joe's Finance Company. How do I know? It's in the notes, right? Let's call Joe's Finance Company. You're, you're, your sister says, "I don't have, I told you I don't have $1,000." We said, "Look, shut up. I didn't ask you for $1,000. I asked you, I, shut up and listen. Let's call because I know that they didn't spend $1,000 for it. They've been chasing you for 10 years. It's called bad debt." It spent five cents on the dollar. They bought it for 50 bucks. Joe wants 150. Joe wants 100. Wants to double his money. So let's call. And Joe says, "I got Joanne here with me. We're looking for Joanne. She's looking for you, right? We want to pay you off. We want $100." First of all, lower your breath. I give you 75. Lower your voice. How about we give you $200? Uh-huh. First of all, made changing the whole psychology all the time. Why would you pay me double? Right? Because if I pay you double and I want your name to your supervisor, I want to talk to them and tell them it's a good job you did, even though you raised your voice to me. Well, tell them what a good job you did. And I want his or her phone number so I can reach them later. And I want in writing that to show them what you did a good job. And I'm going to give you double the profit that if and when this shows back up on her credit report, you're going to remove it until it stops showing up. Can I get that agreement? Yes. Great. She got an 80% discount. You got a 200% profit. Go back to what we said earlier in the beginning. Negotiation, fair exchanges, no robbery. Everybody leaves slightly annoyed. Mhm. Everybody wants. Now you get, you solve a charge-off. That's 40 points. So where are you at now? 690. You now, you're right near, you're right near the promise. Right. Right. Now we look at you. We look at your budget. You say, "Well, I don't, I don't make a lot of money." I didn't ask you that. You spend 38. You make $38,000 a year. You got three children. Okay. Ever heard of EITC? What's that? Congratulations. All right. Earned Income Tax Credit. If you make $38,000 a year and you got three kids, the government owes you a check for $7,500. It's a, it's a reward for, it's a bonus for working. And if you never filed, it's retroactive for three years. What do you mean you get back? You can go back three years to file it. Good. You get. So, whatever you qualify for, you get three years of it if you've never filed. And one out of four Americans who qualify for EITC never ask for it. Read Black people. That's about $20 billion a year we leave on the table. Yeah. So we help you file for that. We then say, "Tell me what you do every week." Well, I go to Starbucks twice a week. No, no, no. We're going to get you a Keurig machine because that's $3,000 a year. Exactly. I'm smoking cigarettes. Well, that's another $3,000 a year. That's $6,000. That's [ __ ]. That's almost. No, you got mad on that one. That's 15%, 20% of your income. Yeah, the box says this shit's gonna kill you, right? The box says it. I'm just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I'm sorry. And so we, if we just stop the, I'm just going to say it's a French word. We just stop the stupid [ __ ]. Mhm. And just get right. I mean, we just need to do the basic [ __ ]. Like we just, we're just not doing the basic [ __ ]. So you get your credit score to 700. Right? That's $750 billion of net worth in 10 years. I'm answering your question. We can do that ourselves. Mhm. Now, you take the 750 credit score. So, you take the 700 credit score, you you go to the bank. The bank don't make money unless they make a loan. Mhm. People, oh, what the, the bank won't make me a loan. Not if you have a 500 credit score. I'm not making you a loan at 500. You, this is a bank credit. So, you go there now, you make a loan, get a loan to become a homeowner. That's worth $800 billion of to go from 44% ownership to 62% home ownership for Black people. 75% is what white people have of home ownership. And the whole tax policy is around home ownership. You write off every mortgage, every mortgage payment. You get it back in a tax refund. You write off the appreciation. The appreciation's free. We're just talking about, I told you it's free. It's tax-free. Say somebody got a 750 credit score but their income on it like 40,000 a year. What type of loan are they even? First of all, if you go and buy in Columbus, Georgia, go buy in a modest city for $100,000 house. You can buy, you can qualify with a $40,000 income to buy a house. Stop trying to buy a mini-mansion when you're a postal worker. I mean, it's ridiculous. You're in the wrong area. You're in the wrong area. Go where the puck is going. Go where the. When I moved to Atlanta in 2009, there were not smartphones. I had a smartphone and I was texting. Most people were not texting in 2009. There were no sidewalks. The Palm, right? Uh, Palm, the Blackberry. The Blackberry. I had an Apple. But and I got, I went to the state and I registered a license plate that said "Entrepreneur." Now, this may not make sense to people immediately. I should not have been able to get a license plate in the state of Georgia that says entrepreneur because that plate was gone 30 years ago in New York and 40 years ago in New York and California. Very entrepreneurial places. If entrepreneurship was on fire in Atlanta, that plate should have been gone the minute I was able to get that plate, I knew. Ain't nobody have it. I'm in the promised land. I'm going to run it up. I'm going to run it up. Yeah. I got a plan nobody else has. I went and bought 700 homes between 2016 and 2021. I bought 700 homes worth $160 million. I bought them for $88,000 each. I sold them for $350,000.

Go back to your theory. I don't think they were here when you said you go to buy the ugliest house in the nice neighborhood. Buy the worst house in the best block. Hood adjacent. Hood adjacent. Buy it, rehab it, and rent it. Buy it, rehab it, and live in it. Wait for three or four years. Pull out modest equity, buy another house with a home equity line of credit. Do not sell the house. They're not growing any more land. Everybody I know who sold a house regrets it. Everybody I know who sold that house 10 years later like, damn, because they look at the value now and it goes nothing but up. Let's come back to. I want to finish answering your question. So I mentioned, so now we are at, uh, 700 billion for credit score. 800 billion for home ownership. So now we're at $1.6 trillion. And if we buy one trillion of the businesses, that's $2.6 trillion. And AI, you'll be able to start a million-dollar business for $50 with artificial intelligence. That's another trillion in 10 years at $3.6 trillion. And I didn't mention the government one single time. Why are we spending half of our time screaming at the TV set about the federal damn government when it's the largest reality TV show in the history of mankind, and every day is a new episode, and they're trying to keep you distracted from the facts? Every day. Clean your credit score up. Do what you can control. Take care of your kids. Volunteer in your local school. Take care of your credit score. Do something. I mean, damn, I'm just tired. That's why I said earlier, I'm just so tired of going to my comment section of Instagram. That's where I comment mostly. You know, I get every week, I got like three, four million views. Got like, I've had a billion views in the last two years, and I'm honored by that. But I get tired when I go to my comment section and some raggedy, ain't done nothing person wants to argue with me about success. Shut your ass up. Shut your [ __ ] up. Shut up and listen. No, I'mma say it. Shut your [ __ ] ass up, man. Shut the [ __ ] up, man. You don't know what you're talking about, man. You see the man about business? Goddamn. Get the credit score right. When I go, when I'm around Ambassador Young and I'm talking about civil rights, a range of issues, I shut up and listen, man. He'll talk for an hour. I'm just ear hustling. He's an icon. He's done it. I haven't. He's got his scars. He's got his stripes. I'm hustling. I'm listening. When Tony Rex and my billionaire friends talking, I'm listening. That's the first person who told me, "You make money during the day, you build wealth in your sleep." Now, that's one for you. Make money during the day, you only build wealth in your sleep. When Bishop T.D. Jakes talks about faith, I shut up and listen. When T.I. was telling me about how to produce an album or whatever, I'm shutting up and listening. That's what they do. I can go on and on and on. But when I'm talking to you about financial literacy and free enterprise and capitalism and business, shut the fudge up and listen. Why are you arguing with me? You ain't done [ __ ]. Have you had a $100 million credit line? I have. If you got a $200 million loan on the deal that a deal you did, I have. If you directed $5 billion worth of capital, I have. Uh, so if you have not done a nine-figure transaction or you don't have two figures in your pocket, shut up.

Tell me about that. How you, how you do that? What you have to do when you show up to get, just we start off small with the $100 million loan.

I talked on the way here. By the way, I, I, I just, I did something stupid on, I, I don't want to talk about it right now. I, I made one stupid mistake. I can't talk about it at the moment. I will be talking about it soon, but I, I made a mistake. I signed something I shouldn't have signed, which shows you everybody makes mistakes. I signed a personal guarantee to something because I trusted somebody, uh, that's now gonna, gonna cost me $1.6 million.

But the blessing is that I can afford to do that without blinking. I, I, I will pay it. I made the mistake. I can't blame the white man or the system or, no, no, no, no. My dumb ass signed it.

Got ahead of yourself.

I got ahead of myself. I should have sent it to my attorney. I sent everything else to my attorney, but I, on this particular case, I got relaxed and I was feeling all warm about the situation. How much you spend, but it's a lesson. Well, in this situation, it just takes a great transaction and turns it into a very good transaction.

But it's a lesson that, that education of 1.6, 6 million, which I can afford to pay. I will never make that mistake ever again. So it's fine.

What lesson did you learn from it though? I know. I mean, I, I understand it.

Slow down the money.

Slow down.

But business is never personal. So slow down.

Right.

If you, if you put a solution on a problem before the problem is ready to have a solution, you just create a bigger problem. Let the game come to you. Listen now. I didn't do what I just told the audience. I said, "Shut up and listen." I didn't do that. I was running my mouth and talking and these people were manipulating my good feeling about this whole situation and I agreed to some [ __ ] that I shouldn't have. What I should have done is sent that, and I was being a little cheap, probably. I should have sent that to my attorney, but I'm like, "H, I don't need to send this to my attorney." That's what that is the, that is the one time you make a mistake. People who hurt you are people who are close to you. They know you. You know them. They're not strangers.

Basically just got a consultant fee.

So, so this was, this was a slow-moving train wreck. I saw it coming. The signals were all there. All I had to do was send it to my attorney. He said, "John, you can't sign this this way. Let me restructure it for you." There have been some [ __ ] on the table, everybody leaves slightly annoyed.

Annoyed. They would have worked it out, but my dumb ass was like, "No, I trust you. It's all good."

Business ain't personal. I don't trust, don't trust nobody if it's business.

Now DC, that's what I was going to ask you. You want to go sign up at the Hope Academy? Because I talked to him and I told him when I got off tour, remember I told you he was about to go on tour. When I got off tour, I already talked to his people that I wanted to go through the, through the Hope Academy, this whole process.

Yeah.

Okay.

By the way, those the same situation I just mentioned to you, they owe me $8 million. So ultimately, net net, even in that situation, I'll be fine. But, but I'm success. All money is is freedom. Financial freedom. I paid a, I paid a, I paid a, a seven-figure tax bill before. I paid a huge tax bill to the state of Georgia. I mean, I think I think it was like $900,000 before and now I'll have to pay at some point. I, I'll have to pay this, this, this grad school education. All right. But you know, the beautiful thing is I'm at a point in my life where none of it bothers me. That's what you want. That you just, whatever it is, when you got the power, you don't need to use it. You just keep it moving. Step over mess and not in it. And you let that be a lesson and you rise to the next occasion and you never have to repeat that lesson ever again. And when you, when you are the right spirit and God's behind you, God has blessed me so much. I can't be comp, I can't be upset about that. I mean, the guy to come from nothing and 1.6 don't bother me.

Right. As a write-off. Come on. I love paying taxes. That mean I made money.

Money. Don't. In other words, we got it twisted. Don't avoid the tax man. He's coming for you. I'd rather owe my mama than the IRS. They are coming for you. And then compounding. There's nothing more gangster than the IRS and that compounding interest of 30 or 40%. No, no, no, no, no. Just, that's your, consider the IRS your partner to give it to them. Give them.

Just give them their cut. That's your partner in business. And they, they funding the schools. If you want to feel better about it, they funding the police. They funding ambulance service and hospitals. And if you want to feel good about it, think about what the government is doing.

When you pay property taxes, you funding the police and all that. So when you pay property taxes, you funing the police.

Yeah. All these taxes are funding the infrastructure. So it's a partnership. You and as long as they're doing their part. By the way, when I, when I did pay that huge tax bill, I wrote like 30 letters, uh, to get those potholes fixed from the air, from the, from the, from the freeway to my house. I said, "You going to fix every pothole. If I'm paying this money now, it's personal."

Mhm.

Put a little cement right here. I don't want rocks.

Nobody washes rental cars.

Ownership matters. Nobody washes rental cars. You be the nicest person on the planet. You rent a car, you drive it for two weeks. Come on. You don't run it through the, the car wash.

Hell no. You don't even fill it back up. You drop it off.

You drive it to drop it to the owner. You drive down the street. You tell which which houses are rentals.

Grass ain't cut.

Grass is up to your eyeballs. Mailbox crooked fence don't close.

I remember the first house we owned. 5502, 5502 South Freilley Avenue in Compton, California. I think it was 90221 and I didn't even own it. My mother owned it, but it was the first house we bought. Think about this. You can remember the address of the house you own. You don't remember your rental address? It's not yours. We have got to become owners of our mindset, of our self-esteem. We've got, first of all, we got to heal. So, we got to stop the bad ing's, right? Drugging, drinking, deal, you know, uh, uh, uh, uh, texting, texting, shopping, not dealing. There's probably a bunch of other ing's. Everything in balance is cool.

Got to keep [ __ ] on on the table.

I'm don't [ __ ] but I got.

I got the paper. Dude.

You going to leave smoking. They got to do smoke now.

All all things in balance. Alcohol in balance will lower your blood pressure, right? Um, drugs in balance are prescribed. I mean, everything in balance. Sleep in balance gives you rejuvenation for life.

For sure. For sure. In balance. What we, the, what the ing we need is healing because it literally an addiction is a response to an emotion you can't handle. An addiction is a response to an emotion you can't handle. So you're burying yourself in some [ __ ] to avoid the reality of the real [ __ ] And that's how they get us because that's when you go back to the hood. You see the check cash and the, and the, and the rental stores and the payday lenders and the, all this short termism. Liquor store, the, the fast food restaurants. It's dopamine is instant gratification to put you to sleep.

Now, this is what we were going to ask you. We me and DC. We were talking about this.

Like you. Y'all got me worked up. I don't even have no coffee.

That's what I'm saying. You don't need that. Remember we was outside talking just now and we talk about it often. You talk about the next generation of black professionals, business owners, homeowners, and stuff like that. Like we know a lot of our peers who in the space where they have taken the first three steps. They got the 700 credit score. They went and got the homes loan. Now they got the property and they don't know the next step.

Yeah.

What's the next step for those people who, who like I said, who on step three of five or three of 10?

So this is not a criticism, this is a critique.

Okay.

We confuse busyiness with business. You cannot own a business and not understand a balance sheet. You cannot own property and not own a, and not understand what a depreciation schedule is. We don't want to deal with the, with the details and we don't want to, oh, that's some boring. No, the reason that recording artists and movie stars and actors who are right, rain creative geniuses go broke is they said, "Nah, I don't want to deal with that shit." No, it's the music business, dope. The business of music. It's the entertainment business. It's the business of entertainment. You cannot get into one and not understand the other. Somebody's gonna rob you in broad daylight because business is not person. Huh.

On every turn. They're going to separate you from your wallet because you're not paying attention. As you, you and I, I don't want to. There's a certain person in boxing right now.

Yeah, we know him.

Who is in deep trouble and faking it like he's not. And look, I don't care how much money you make, you can, you can spend it. If your outflow exceeds your inflow, then your overhead will be your downfall. And if you gonna wear one set of p, set of sneakers a day and throw them away, you a fool. If you going to get a, a private jet for you and another private jet for your friends, another private jet for your girlfriend, you a fool.

In fact, you shouldn't be paying for a private jet.

Hold on. The private jet should be paid for by a corporation with a cash flow tied to it. And that's an limited liability corporation and tied to a deal you have with whoever iheart or whoever it is and you flying on a jet for free. That's how you fly on a jet.

You don't got to own it.

You shouldn't be. It should not be coming out of your cash flow. It should be, it should not be coming out of your 1099 income. Knock it off.

Stop all this blossoming.

How you get the jet on expense again?

Mhm.

My man is [ __ ].

You got to know the people. You have to have you a rich friend and then you buy in like 10% and then you advertise it for the free cuz you the superstar and then they just, you know, you split the cost and you don't really hold nothing.

So that's one of the answers. If you see yachts, a billionaire in yacht, it's, it's, it's a limited liability corporation, right? It's tied, it's, it's probably structured as a remote office, right? For their, for-profit company. They're writing it off as a business expense.

Yeah. You take clients out two times a year, you good.

And when they're not there, they're chartering it. That mean you let somebody use it while you ain't using.

Pay who pay you.

Right.

So now cuz we have a place in Turks and Caicos. It's a li, limited liability corporation. I bought it 2 million. It's now worth 4 million. The monthly mortgage is covered by the rental income when I'm, when we're not there. We made agreement with, I don't mention the, I don't want to say so much so people know where I live, but we made an agreement with the company that when we're not there, you rent it out and they said, "You can't come. We prefer you don't come on Christmas." Cuz they be the biggest time. Don't come on New Year's. Come in June. Don't come by. We're going to make you some money.

Right.

Yeah. By the way, again, no flossing, right?

Right. Don't come on fourth of July. Don't come on Thanksgiving. It's business. Don't come on Christmas. We love you, John. Don't come on New Year's because that's when we make the most money, right? And we're making it for you, right? Please don't come.

Now, we can't force you not to come.

It's your [ __ ]. It's your [ __ ] but please don't come.

So, we like, cool. March 3rd, [ __ ].

Yeah, cuz December 15th is just as good as Christmas to me. And the Caribbean is they come away 15th is just as good as New Year's to me. I got no problem staying home and chilling for sure.

So the moral of that story, the mortgage is paid, the insurance is paid, 100% expenses are paid. I just paid for a car that will sit in Turks and Caicos based on the residual leftover income from the unit. I get it for free and I go and we go there once every whenever whenever we get, you know, once every six weeks or something and all I'm not even paying for plane tickets because I travel so much. I got, uh, you know, some crazy number of points on Delta so I get first class tickets for me and my wife. The whole trip. Wealthy people are cheap people.

Using the mile.

Huh?

We t $4.

That's a hell of a. I was at, I was at, Fifth Plaza today and I pulled up and I mean, the only way to sell this right is it just doesn't sound flossy, but I'm making a point. I, I have, I, my favorite car is my, is a Bentley, uh, uh, Flying Spur Limited Edition. It's a four-door. But I love this car. The car I drive and I pull it up.

He been, he been trying to talk himself out of buying one.

No. If you got, no, if you got to think about it, don't buy it, right? No, I only bought it when I didn't have to think. I don't think about it.

No, it wasn't that cuz I was thinking about photo two though. That why.

Okay. But please before you do it, please talk to me. Don't buy a new one. By the way, do not buy a new.

Did I tell you that?

Buy new. I don't buy. I don't buy anything new. You stop listening to me, [ __ ].

I said I don't buy new [ __ ].

Do you want to hear the story or not?

Yeah, absolutely.

Go ahead. So, I pulled up and I didn't want to go to the valet, but, but I was only going to be there for 45 minutes, but they had the whole thing coned off. It wasn't nobody there. The whole thing's coned off. I, there's no place to park. So, I forced me to drive my ass up into the valet brother's there. I'm like, I saw the sign $40 for, uh, whatever valet rever. I said, "Man, you don't get, you don't get or stay wealthy giving away money. I don't want to give you $40 for an hour. I mean, you seem like a nice guy. I don't want to give you $40." And, and, and clearly I could afford it. I, and I, I went through this whole, I was literally, I was aggravating.

$40 is a triggering number for black men.

I was.

Except for when you're buying [ __ ].

I ain't got.

Nothing to do.

My bad.

So, homeboy said, homeboy said he said, "Look, I know who you are. I know who you are. I watch your videos. You just showed me, you just proved to me you're real, right? Right." Uh, you know, he said, "Look, will you, can you just take care of me?" I said, "Look, man, I'll give you 20 just because you're a nice guy." Cool. So, he parked my car at the same place where the $40 parking was, right? I'm happy. Remember, back to the good negotiate, but everybody leaves slightly annoyed, right? And I, I, you know, I went in, hit my deal, and he, I came out, he threw me the keys, I gave him his $20. Everybody had. But I'm not giving you $40. That's flossing. I don't, by the way, I don't care where you park my car. I'm not giving you $40. I'll drive around that car like, "Hey, bro. I ain't going to lie, bro. You ain't give me that 40, bro."

Funny cuz he would have gave him 10.

Oh, no. I would have gave him a dub, but he would have had to put me like right in the front.

But.

I need to be by the door.

But our broke people, our broke people will spend $40 for that valet. We'll go and spend a, a Louis Vuitton, a Louis Vuitton purse weekend. Look, look at the lines at Louis Vuitton. It's us. Do you know that 70% of all luxury goods are poor people and middle class people? 76%.

76%. Go look at the. Don't trust me. Go to the mall next time and look who's in the line. By the way, I'm not telling you not to buy it. I'm saying you, your assets cannot be on your ass. I stay. I couldn't do it for motivation. First of all, I'm not staying on anybody's mind. To be clear about that, I'm not staying in anybody's mind. It be for motivation. But if I got, look, I've got, I like nice things, right? But if I have to think about it, I'm not buying it. If I got to ask what's the payment, all that stuff. You, by the way, you never ask what the payment is when there's an interest rate attached. You ask what the interest is. I just saw this this brother bought a Hellcat.

Uh, yeah. Yeah. I just bought.

No. No. You got this kind of Hellcat. This was $3,500 a month.

No. Hell no.

No. He got that [ __ ]. No. No. For It was, it was, it was, it was like for for like 72 months.

Yeah.

$3,500 a month. Do that math. At 20% interest.

[ __ ]. Yeah. He bought five cars.

He bought a Bentley.

Should have been on Facebook Marketplace with me.

And it was a 2023.

Wow. And he was on social bragging, flossing about how how the lady who sold it to him said he put $2,000 down and $3,500 a month, the 520 credit score. And she said, "Tell all your friends to call me so they can be fools, too." She didn't say the fools part. We have got to knock this off.

Wow.

That [ __ ] crazy.

Wow.

Y'all doing me yet? No pay. Keep going. Keep going.

And they wanted, they wanted the down payment and then put the book up. When my credit got straight, they just threw the keys and like, "Yeah, you can come do that [ __ ] later on."

Let me tell you something. When I bought my.

Then when I knew the game credit, right, they didn't ask for nothing, just a signature.

But then when I knew the game [ __ ] up, this how I know some [ __ ] don't understand, right? We hear the.

Proceeds are donated to Operation Hope. So everybody knows my nonprofit.

We hear [ __ ] in the rap songs and the rap lyrics and thinking like that's where we get our financial literacy from. So all that buying [ __ ] off the lot. Woo woo. So before I even bought a car or anything, I went and bought my mama a car.

Okay.

Paid cash for it. Bought a Mercedes. I'm thinking I'm doing something. I think I did something for my credit.

No.

Cuz I done paid the [ __ ]. I was like, I'm thinking all they care about is a [ __ ] paying for the car. I went and tried to go get a car. Do you know what my interest was? They wanted to charge me 42. So my credit was [ __ ] up. But then when I was like, you know, I'm good. I just paid my mama. They like, well, that ain't got nothing to do with that. And it did nothing for your credit when you paid that [ __ ] off.

You paying 42% interest. You will never even get to.

I'm glad that you know what's up. By the way, I, I was where you were. I was, when I was 18 and my car got repoed. Well, they were looking for it. They never found it, but I was driving around. They couldn't find the repo, man. I, I had a, a repo on a Monontto Jeep when I was 18 years old. I had, was homeless. I lived in that Jeep and, and my interest rate was about 36%. So, just so you know, and my credit score was to up the flow up. It was, it was 400.

So, I have been there. I've been at the bottom and I've been at the top. The top looks, I'm just telling you, the top looks a hell of a lot better. And, uh, and rainbows only follow storms. If I had told you not to do that, if you hadn't done that and I gave you some lecture about financial literacy and you shouldn't do that, you would roll your eyes.

I would say [ __ ] what you talking about and you still would have had 36 months left.

Still.

But you know what? If I would have knew better, [ __ ] would have said, "No, don't do that. Give them half front. You feel what I'm saying? Work on the payments for a year and a half so you can build your credit." Very good.

Then you would have. I'm thinking they only care about the money. It was the system and the process. So, let's, let's deal with this right now, everybody. Money's nothing, right?

Yeah, I said it.

What are we obsessed with? I want to get that bag. I want to get that cash. I want to get that dollar. I want to make that money. It means nothing, right? Money is nothing more than an exchange of value. I could say, uh, tell you what, I'll take this. I'm going to give this this Yeti thermos for that hat. And if you say yes, we've just exchanged value, right? I could take your your your hoodie and write in the back of it, pay to the order, 50 bucks, put my routing number, my account number, sign it. You take that hoodie off, take it to the bank branch. They to go back and huddle and call their lawyers and figure out where they're under a legal obligation to cash your hoodie because it's technically a check.

Well, send your ass to jail when.

All I'm saying is we get obsessed with this money thing. It doesn't mean anything. You need wealth, stocks, bonds, homes, real estate, businesses, cash flow, gold.

Gold, precious metals. You need assets and it cannot be on your ass, right?

So, what do we do? What we have never done. Get a will.

Get an insurance policy.

Right. You want some generational wealth? My brother here, the cameraman, he's probably late 20s, early 30s. That right?

30.

30. So you're in good health. I can tell. Go. They'll give you a million dollar policy for 75 to 100 bucks a month. A million dollar policy. You have a child yet? Yes. You put that, you, you create a will, you put your, your child's name as a beneficiary of that million dollar policy. I don't know how long you gonna live. I damn sure know you're gonna die. It's not a mystery. So go. I hope you live a long time. But if you get, if something tragedy strikes you in 15 years, an accident or whatever, your child's an instant millionaire. That's generational wealth. Everybody can do that.

No more fish fry. Please.

Let's stop doing GoFundMe campaigns to bury somebody. I am tired of $25,000 GoFundMe campaigns to bury somebody. It's meant to start a business.

If, if you have a, a health policy, you work for some company. Buried in the fine print of every health policy is a death benefit.

Yep. For $25,000. I know it because as an employer, I pay it.

From the company.

Yeah. So, we're doing these GoFundMe campaigns for nothing.

If you work for any responsible company, government, whatever, in the, in the details of the health insurance policy, in the fine print is a death benefit. They supposed to give you 25.

25 grand, which pays for all burial expenses.

All of my thing they work for.

I'm just, I'm just tired, man. I miss. I mean, we not doing the basic [ __ ].

What did I miss? What?

I'm talking about our employee, but we thinking your ass get 25,000.

We'll put something on that [ __ ]. We make 25.

Okay. I said a normal employer, man. I said.

You ain't going to be having.

I didn't say hood freelance. What about freelance? That go by 20,009.

1099 is not included.

1099 is a, is a independent contractor.

Now, if all the people watching though, just let them know where they can catch up with you at and.

Yeah. Yeah.

Where they can get the book.

Uh, you can get the book anywhere online. It's a bestseller on, on Walmart. It's a bestseller in four categories on Amazon. It just came out on, um, audiobook. I, I read that myself in my own voice.

Definitely.

It's a bestseller. U, so you can go anywhere online. Barnes & Noble, black bookstores have it.

I get mine signed. Um, black bookstores have it.

Um.

And I hate to be racial here, but it's the Carlos. K A R L O U S.

All the white folks buying the book.

They, they want to see what the [ __ ] you talking about.

I want you guys to buy it.

For sure.

Want to see what John is talking about.

He knows about the civil rights.

No, no, more importantly.

Capitalism.

Capitalism.

L O U S. Yeah. L O U S. I hope this has been something enjoyable, entertaining, you know, uh.

All of the above.

Is is there something that jumps out?

We got any questions from the floor?

So, basically, capitalism is just hustling. For real. For real.

It's a legal hustle.

It's a legal hustle, right? All a drug dealer is is an illegal unethical entrepreneur, right? He's part of the capitalist. Import, export, finance, marketing, wholesale, retail, customer service, security, territory, logistics, HR.

Got to have a legend.

A, a, a drug dealer. I mean, a gang leader is a frustrated union organizer. So, we have a lot of talent in our community, right?

Focused on the wrong [ __ ].

Focus on the wrong [ __ ].

What's.

We got you some more good gifts, too.

Oh, I got some gear, man.

We got you.

Cool. Thank you. Can I get something for my wife, too?

Absolutely.

I can't go empty-handed. I got to give her something.

We got, we got something for the wife.

For sure. For sure.

I'm willing to pay for.

Small, medium, man. What happened? We got you.

Blood them over.

Is there any questions or something that jumped out at you guys from the night that made this worthwhile?

Day one. Get your credit right, fella. Ladies and gentlemen.

What you say, Bell?

Oh, he, yeah, we can get you straight.

Get your credit right, man. And then go to the bank and ask for these loans and figure out what you, what you able to get with your financial situation.

Hey, my boy who doing my camera work for, man, he, he a big fan of your work right here. He been watching a lot of you.

Oh, much respect. Jesus says he got it.

You know what what gives me hope? Um, and you guys are partially responsible for it, by the way, because a lot of our stuff went viral since I was here last, um, you guys and Charlamagne, Cam Newton. There's a lot of Stephen H. There's been a lot of folks that when I do, I do see it, you know, people stop me. When when my white brothers and sisters stop me, I know they've been watching CNBC.

But black people stop. Great. It's, it's, it's all you guys anyway.

85.

I, I can't go anywhere.

And it's a beautiful thing. People, even at the mall today, I can't go, I can't go 10 feet. But that means that our people are getting the memo.

For sure.

That means that we want to make smart sexy. That mean you got to keep coming back.

Well.

You going to be our financial, you know, say, economics teacher in in the neighborhood, guy. That really bad class.

Ken, what you got?

Brian.

Yeah, it's a great question. Uh, I'm going to subtext it and say I'm going to give you an answer in three parts. It's credit, understanding what's behind credit, which is capitalism, which we're still, what we're still having this dumbass argument about. I mean, in my, if you go to, you go to my comments, sometimes people just want to spend all this time arguing about, we want to destroy the capitalist system. You end the capitalist system.

Can we just please knock it off? Like I don't have time to go back and what are we going to do? Spend another 200 years rebuild. I don't know. I just, this doesn't make any sense to me. Like you're in the system. Let's upgrade it and make it work for us. Please. Please. I'm begging you. So we're arguing. We're arguing about money. The Bible says, by the way, this the number one thing mentioned in the Bible more than 2,000 times is money. Money is not evil. It's the love of money that's evil. It's the greed. Can we please stop it? Like you can't run a church without donations. You, you can't run anything without money. Can we please knock it off? So the first thing is, mindset. We, there's a difference between being broke and being poor. Being broke is economic. Being poor is a disabling frame of mind. A depression condition of our soul. And we must vow never to be poor again.

They got us so messed up. PTSD. We're angry. We're frustrated. We wake up on survival mode. We're distracted. And if the right side of your brain shuts down, that's where creativity, that's where, uh, that's where hope, well-being, belief, joy, confidence, empathy, love, that's where all the juicy stuff is. If you stress the fudge out, if you piss the fudge off, this shuts down. You can't get to the left side of your brain, which is where logic is. So, we don't make logical decisions because we're angry and emotional. And you should never make an emotional decision ever.

Whenever you make an emotional decision, it's going to be [ __ ] wrong. Impulse.

Excuse me, fudging wrong.

Impulse, right?

So, we live on our impulses. We're depressed. We haven't healed. We argue about basic [ __ ]. We need to knock it off. And then we need to understand money is not evil and credit is good. There's good debt and bad debt. Good debt is tied to something that appreciates. Bad debt is tied something that depreciates.

Financing jewelry is bad debt. Financing tennis shoes is bad debt. Financing vacations is bad debt. Financing a ticket to a concert, which we are doing, is bad debt. We keep asking what's his payment? You know, financing a Hellcat at $3,500 a month, which is going to depreciate like a rock.

It depreciated when you bought it. When you drove, when you bought. By the way, before I'm come to come to your question, this is a great question. When stay with this for a second, a car dealership is three businesses.

Mhm. The least valuable, the least profitable, auto sales. The second most profitable, the finance department. That's where you went. The third most profitable. Sorry, sir.

The first most profitable, I'm sorry, sorry. The least profitable, the third most profitable is sales. The second most profitable is finance. The first most profitable was maintenance.

Mhm. They can't wait for you that car to break down. They can't wait for you to drag your ass back into that dealership. So, cuz you need the car, right? And they going to hit you with a bill that's going to make your eyes bulge. And then if you default, they're gonna sell repair it for a fraction of the cost and sell it to somebody else.

Three businesses in a car dealership. So you think you're doing something when you get that price down and then you relax and you go in the finance office. You all happy and you, you think the person over there is your friend? Hey Joe. Yeah. You want a beer? Would you like some water? You know, you want some chips? They're getting you all relaxed so they can eat you alive. And what you're not paying attention to is they made up the, the discount and the price when they hit you with the interest rate because they were in partnership with the finance companies and your credit is to flow up. Otherwise, you'd have walked in with an approval.

You follow me?

So, they were going to offer you before you got the discount on the price, they were going to offer you 15% interest and what's called three points, which is a fee that they get at the dealership. The 3% of the purchase price. But because they don't like your attitude, because you pressed them, they told the finance company, "Charge them 18%." And I'm gonna collect five points. And then they say, "Do you want a, you want a warranty?"

That's another 10.

And do you want a, you want a, a maintenance contract? And do you want, you know, they got all kind of stuff. You want.

The no rim rim no rim bubble bubble.

You got to buy the car twice. And then we got these floor mats that don't get dirty, thousand. But we gonna let you get.

Accessories back. Exactly.

No. You end up a third of the purchase price. You just wrapped up in interest and crap, right? And the car is going to break down. It's not Mercedes, it's Mercedes payments.

Mhm.

Now, let's go back to your great question.

Mercedes payments.

Please hear me everybody. People telling you that debt is evil is wrong. Sorry, not is are wrong. There's no successful city. There's no successful county. There's no successful millionaire, multi-millionaire. There's no successful billionaire. There's no successful country. Please hear me. There's no successful company that did not do it on the back of good debt.

What's the difference between good debt, bad debt?

Interest rate terms. So, I had a line of credit. I don't remember what year it was, but late teens, like a $75,000 line of credit. It was lazy. Somebody offered to me. I was doing some stuff around the house. I said yes. I didn't want to use my credit card anymore. I was using my MX to pay for everything and paying. By the way, credit card is different from a from a from a a charge card. Okay? A charge card you pay every month. I, I don't want to assume anybody knows this stuff.

Mhm.

Don't show them your car, OG. No, these [ __ ] zoom in and get Paul.

Everything. I want to inspire people.

Better hide the number, man. These [ __ ] zoom in gang.

Well, they already figured that out. So that's that's you know what that is?

Black.

Black cup.

No limit on it, right? I can technically buy the building, right? So I charge every month on this card six figures, right? Uh, and then my different departments, different companies reimburse me their portions of this and then I pay it off.

The bill.

In full.

Oh, you got to pay it in full every month.

So, every month I pay six figure credit card.

What days? What days do you do you allow? You know, some folks say only you 30%. Only. Well, since you got limit ain't no. You ain't got no 30.

So, again, great question. That's a credit card, right? A charge card. I mean, in my case, there is no limit, but a charge card, they they will set, they say you have, look, you have a $3,000 spending limit or whatever it is. You can charge up to this. By the way, a debit card is not a charge card. A debit card is a I'm snatching your stuff right now out of your bank account.

Right.

You do. Anybody old enough to remember floating checks?

Or am I the only person in here?

No, I remember check.

My man. You, you know floating check. You'd write a check and you would write it and sign it and mail it and you knew it would take three days to get to them, right? They deposit it, take another three days to go. They only do deposits on Thursday. You bought yourself a week, right?

That's right. You bought yourself. You got to go run around, pick some money, posted checks. Y'all don't understand. You don't understand. So now the modern version of that is a debit card, but that's instantaneous. They take the money right away. Okay. A charge card is I'm gonna give you 30 days to pay this off. That's an Ammex card, a diner card, right? A credit card is like Visa, Mastercard. They give you a certain limit and you have a rolling balance and if you, and you make many people make minimum payments, which I don't agree with on that. You're right. You want to charge only 30% of the available credit. Now, people make this mistake. They say, "If I have a $10,000 limit, that's better than having a $1,000 limit." Not necessarily. If I have a $10,000 limit, but a $9,000 balance versus a $1,000 limit and a $300 balance, right? The person with a $1,000 credit card and a $300 balance has a higher credit score than the person with a $10,000 limit and a $9,000 balance because you have more leverage and more debt. You follow me?

Right.

Right. Right? It's a basic thing nobody teaches you.

So, I'm not sure what point was I making. I was talking about, uh, good debt and bad debt.

So, so I had this, this line of credit for $75,000. Make a long story short, my payment was about $2,500 a month on this line of credit and I was lazy about it. I didn't really paid attention to it. I just, it was convenient. I was tired of using my black card.

So, this was actually. No, credit card.

This was, no, it was a line of credit. Line of credit. Uh, uh, uh, it was, uh, I forget what they call it. It was like a, it wasn't a home equity line of credit, but it was, it was a credit card that was designed for the home.

Okay.

Okay. And I was using my MX card to do my wife was doing some household stuff and I thought it was about 50 grand and I just, I want to put this on a segregated card. It cost me $2,500 a month is my point. Now hold on to that. I'm talking to one of my very, very wealthy friends, more at that point, much more wealthy than I was. Again, shut up and listen. And, uh, I was rich. He was wealthy. Now I'm wealthy, but he was uber wealthy. He said, "What are you doing?" He said, "John, just go get a line of credit. Interest rate is 3%." Back then, two to 3%. Go get a line of credit for at this point it was a million 5 line of credit. The payment on the million 5 line of credit was $1,500 a month.

Mhm.

What did I just tell you? The $75,000 line of credit was cost me $2,500 a month. The million.

But the $1.5 million line of credit was costing me $1,500 a month.

That's the game. I'm going to get another one. And you guys should do this. Go open a stock account. You got, you got 25 grand, you got 50 grand, you got 100 grand. You're doing a concert, whatever. You get a bunch of money. By the way, think about taxes. I'll talk to you about how to deal with that in a minute. But think about, okay, but you got take 100 grand. Let's say 100 grand for you, 10 grand for you in the audience, or five grand. Go open a stock account. Buy conservative stocks. Do not do cryptocurrency. Do not do crazy stupid stuff. Go buy stuff you use. Go that. Go to Walmart. Go buy Walmart. Whatever you use, buy it. You like this is Ferragamo shoes. Buy Oragamo stock. Whatever you love. You like Gucci, buy, buy Gucci stock. If you like it, everybody else likes it. You follow me so far?

Yeah.

Okay. Buy stuff you use. You like, go look at your appliances in your house.

Black & Decker.

Black & Decker. The car you drive. Buy that. Buy Ford. Whatever it is you like, everybody else likes it. Buy that stuff. Do not sell. You then go back and ask for a margin account. Now you're the Bank of Carlos.

Right.

This is this is gangster. So now you have a, in this example, you have a $100,000 stock account.

Right. And they going to match 100.

No, they're going to give you a line of credit for 70% of your balance.

Okay? For now, it's.

70,000.

70 grand. Okay? You're not going to use 70 grand. You're not going to leverage yourself because if the market comes down, you're in trouble. But you're going to use 30,000, 40,000, up to $50,000 of that. And you're going to charge yourself, they're gonna, they're gonna charge you about four to five percent interest rate in the current environment. That's cheapest money you'll ever get and you're your own bank. And this is the gangster part. The money is still making money. Did you get that?

Right.

You're borrowing from yourself. You're the Bank of Carlos. You're getting the lowest interest rate possible. And while you're borrowing from yourself, the stock account pay.

The stock account is still.

Making money full.

Making money through the stock market because the companies are still out there performing. Did you guys get that? This may be the most important thing I said.

I got a 1.5, I got a 1.5 line of credit, but I just went and got a margin account and used my my 1.5 line of credit as, uh, leverage to get the margin account. Is that what you're saying?

Just the other way around. Let's say you have, let's say you have a million dollars that you don't, that just sitting in a bank, right?

Earning.

Nothing. Nothing. You take that million dollars and you put it in a stock account.

S&P 5.

S&P 500.

You only invest in conservative, boring stuff.

Golden Sachs and all that boring stuff. Conservative, right?

You then ask whoever sponsored the margin account, Truist, JP Morgan, Chase, Wells Fargo, Santandere Bank, Regions Bank, Fidelity.

Fidelity. Uh, uh, uh, said infidelity.

Right? No, infidelity. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. [laughter]

But now, um, whoever sponsors it, right, you ask them. So, uh, my family office is with Rockefeller, right? Uh, Rockefeller is as in the Rockefeller family. So, you ask them for a margin, a loan, a line of credit. It's called a margin account.

You then use your lifestyle, you make your lifestyle purchases on that line of credit. Mhm. Now, here's the thing, and they're going to charge you below market interest. This is a gangster move. For your loans against yourself. Meanwhile, the best people in the world on investment, while you're here doing your performances, while you're traveling, I told you, you make money during the day, you build wealth in your sleep. These people stake their whole careers on making the market go.

And you can do that, and you can do that again, once the, once you pay that loan off. It gets better. If you sell an asset, you owe taxes. Capital gains. Capital gains. But if you get a loan against the asset, you don't pay taxes. In fact, you write that loan off against your taxes and get the benefit back twice, because you're paying the bill.

That's why I'm, I'm going to tell you what, I'm giving away a bunch now. I, you can get comfortable. You ain't going to go, man. Wonder why T in [laughter] the back. Hold up. So you say, let me look, I done wrote it down. I said margin account. You don't use butter, get margarine. Margarine. Get margin.

By the way, I wish we had a, wish we had a, wish we had a knife here. Is there a butter knife here or a knife here? No knife. Yeah, we. If you had a, if you had a knife, let's assume this is a knife, right? You can use a knife to butter bread, or you can use a knife to cut somebody. We're using a knife for the wrong damn purpose. Tool and a weapon. That's it. We, we, again, if you're in survival mode, if you're angry at the world, the only purpose for that knife for you is to cut somebody. Stop being angry. If the butter knife's meant to butter bread, damn it.

Now, let me tell you the real gangster move. Wealthy people don't want income. I'm going to break this down to you. When Warren, when Warren Buffett said, "My receptionist pays more in taxes than I do." That's because he does not have an income. You need me to break this down? So, where he sending that money to? His, his secretary gets a paycheck. Remember I told you, second reconstruction was cashing the check. Third reconstruction is writing the check, right? Warren's the writer. The secretary is the casher. She gets a 1099, she gets a W2 withholding statement that has local, state, and federal withholdings. She gets a paycheck every two weeks because she's in a risk management form of capitalism. She's not taking the risk of Warren Buffett. She knows, as long as Warren Buffett's company is in business, she's going to get paid. So her risk is lower. Her income is guaranteed, but she has no upside in burial or hackway. Am I going too fast? This is really important. This is like, of everything I've said, this is it. She's in capitalism. Everybody is. But the lower you are on the totem pole, the more your guarantees of a regular something, the less your risk. The higher you go up the totem pole, the more your risk, the less your guarantees, but the higher your upside.

The greatest form of a risk taker is me. I'm an entrepreneur. I roll it all every day. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it falls back. What I can tell you, on the way here, I lost $1.6 million. I'll be fine. But there was a time when $1.6 million would have taken my ass completely out. Right. Right. But so most people like, I don't want to do that thing that John Bryant's doing. My payroll is $2 million every two weeks. Right. My payroll, and it doesn't include me. So most people are like, you know what? I admire that John Bryant guy. That's just too much going on. He works 18 hours a day, and it sounds all cool, but I just want to come home at 6. I want to go on at 5.

How Warren avoided that? Huh? How Warren avoided that? Okay, my man just wants me to cut to the end. All right. The secretary is paying taxes of 38 to 45%. See what the boy Warren did, right? Okay. Warren, Warren Buffett only pays taxes when he sells an asset. It's called capital gains. It's 20%. And he only sells assets once every five years or so. So what he doing with the income? And in the meantime, he's taking loans against his assets. He takes loans against, which are tax-deductible. He's taking loans. Are you hearing me? He got a company. Are you hearing me? Get the stock. Huh? Let me repeat this. No, I was talking about he asked what Warren do for his income. He, his income is in the, for all billionaires, all billionaires. Let me rephrase that. No billionaires on an income, right? I mean, on salary. None. Right. They hate billionaires, centimillionaires, hundred million people have $100 million. Multi-millionaires do not like income because it's taxed at the highest rate possible, 38 to 50%. We're doing federal, state, and city. Mhm. Capital gains is 20%. Automatic. Capital gains is when I buy this book for $25 and I sell it for $50. That's the capital gain of $25. That's different. I pay 20% on the gain, but I may not sell this for five years. In the meantime, I'm taking a loan against the asset to finance my lifestyle. That's the margin account. And I write off the loan because if I fail, I got to pay the loan anyway. But you, if you look, if you know who you are, you don't think you're going to fail. And you're banking on yourself. Right.

Now, some people are going to watch and say, "See, I told you those rich people don't pay no taxes." Lie. 70% of all US taxes are paid by people like me. 70%. We pay less in traditional taxes, but the big checks we write for capital gains and property taxes and sales taxes, entrepreneur are through the roof. So, so should. So they think that y'all is avoiding tax but not knowing that you got a $100,000 property tax that you got to pay. That's right. My property tax bill on my house, just one of my houses, $25,000 just on one of my houses. That's the Bay County loves that. And I got more, I mean, I got a bunch I got to pay every year. So no one's getting away with anything. You just, it's just how you decide to play this game. But people who are not financially illiterate just assume, well, why are rich people paying nothing? No, they're paying nothing because they don't have an income. They don't want an income. I am trying to transition right now from, I've built up cash flow, but now I want to get rid of it. You follow me? Yeah. I've built up cash flow. And by the way, I have enough expenses to offset my cash flow so that sometimes I get a tax refund. Really? Yeah. And sometimes it's neutral. I just have enough. Don't owe. I don't owe. But when I owe, it's six figures. I mean, it's a, you know, six figures, seven, but you know, you do it right. But my real goal is to not get to a point where I have no income. I'm working off of my capital gains, which means you've accumulated enough assets that they're always dropping every few years to sell. The whole purpose of a company is to sell it. By the way, this, we don't have time for all of this.

Well, you going to come back on a Saturday morning. We'll do a whole seminar and [ __ ]. Seminar and [ __ ] because. Yeah. And you know what? [laughter] I'm glad you brought that up because as black men, the and [ __ ] is the most important part of whatever you saying. Invite me somewhere and it ain't no [ __ ] going on. Say we having a cookout. Say we having a cookout and [ __ ]. My brother, my brother Howard Hewitt from Shalomar. We, we love this word situation. Everything's a situation, you know that situation? You know that situation? You know that got that little situation? Got that little situation. I was in a situation. Deal. But I don't know that. What about that situation? I'd be happy to come back. The last part of this interview, uh, is everything. If you can just get that as successful people. W, I, I try to give something for everybody here. By the way, this is just 200 pages of math. By the way, it's 200 pages. There's no politics. There's no emotionalism. It's just got it. It's just math. And I want you to read it. And if you don't like the book, you send it back to my office in Atlanta with the receipt and with your postage cost. I will write a check back to you for the cost of the book and your postal cost. I'll donate the book to a library and give you your money back. That's how much I believe that if you just get to the preface, the preface, which is after the forward. Just read the preface. If the preface is not have your head spinning backwards, put the book down. That's how, that's how gangster I believe it is. But there's these little hacks in life, these little success hacks, these little, these little features of capitalism and free enterprise that once you get it, once a light comes on, you, you, you can't sleep because you're like, I figured this thing out. I have finally figured out how to make this system work for me versus making the system work.

That's right. Goddamn it. I ain't never working again. No. Why you say all that? I'm just saying I ain't going to be an employee again. Well, there you go. You employees of the system. Well, I'm just saying I ain't going to have to be at, I ain't have to be there at 8:15 like they said, right? And talking about you got 15 minutes to eat a little sandwiches. So, I never. I ain't going to have to wear a shirt that match nobody else's shirt. Oh [ __ ]. No, that. But what if it's a big Fortune 500? I'm saying that it's going to have my name on that [ __ ]. I tell you that. Unless me and John O'Brien start a company or something, but I ain't. You [ __ ] with that [ __ ]? [ __ ] all that, man. You know how good it feels to tell people when you come to Atlanta, stay at my hotel? I don't know. Look, how can we do that? Is it part of the bomb war? Is it part of all that? We got to get in. We got to get in. Hotel Phoenix. Hotel Phoenix, right? The Centennial Yards I talked to you about. I'm an investor in that. Man, go tell them put us a VIP. Is an investor and Grant Hill is an investor. I don't got no comedians. [laughter] You got a little, we ain't got Grant Hill money, but I mean, between two of us, you got 1050. We can get in with it by hand if y'all get in with us early enough where we can raise some capital and let us [ __ ] with some capitalism. You know what I'm saying? We ain't going to even tell everybody we got a little piece of it. Just put our name on the cornerstone. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? And we ain't got to be our name bey. We ain't tripping. You getting your. Everybody back here want their book signed, man. Like you said, man, we know your time is valuable and we appreciate it every time you stop through there. You. Come get your book signed, man. Yeah, I'm [ __ ] with it. Oh, what's up y'all? It's your girl XP and it's your girl Jory and Nicole Clayton English, now Green Boy, Louis Belt, Justin Whitehead, Bunny Bag, Buff. Listen, if you're trying to book us for your event, [music] hosting, comedy show, whatever you got going on, let's keep it real professional. No sliding in my DM. Well, I'm not going to say that that's what they want me to say. You can still slide in my DM, but it's got to be freaky. No, I'm just playing. Let's keep it real professional. This is what you going to do. The email bookies885stshow.com. [music] That's how you make sure everything is handled right with no games. Contact the email, man. Hey, ain't no more hit me on the side. I'm professional this year. You got to talk to my people. So, one more time for bookings, hit up bookings at 85 [music] southshow.com. And that way you can get your event handled the right way because like I say, I'm not going to hit you. I'm not going to respond. So, look, no funny business. No funny [music] businesses. It's just strictly family business around here, man. We bring the funny. You just have your business straight. Let's [music] go. Yo, yo, yo, what's going on? It's your boy DC Onfly. In case you haven't heard, we [music] at the 85 South Show have launched our own independent streaming service called Channel [music] 85. And for our loyal supporters, we are currently offering 20% off for 6 months. Just use [music] code 85enter. Right, spread it out. Code 85 p. Once you sign up, you'll get access to the podcast a whole day earlier than everyone else on YouTube. [music] All of our new live shows, independent specials, new shows like Five on It, 85 Vive, and even get your special offers and discounts for 85 South merchandise [music] and the shows. It's only $8.50 a month or $85 for the whole year. And you can find us online at Channel85.com [music] or on your iPhone, Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick, Roku, and even on Android. And remember, use [music] code 85% for 20% off for a whole 6 months. That's Channel [music] 85. Subscribe.