Does Marriage Make You Better Off Financially?

Historically, marriage was the surest route to financial security for women. Nowadays it's men who are increasingly getting the biggest economic boost from tying the knot, according to a new analysis of census data.

The changes, summarized in a Pew Research Center report being released Tuesday, reflect the proliferation of working wives over the past 40 years — a period in which American women outpaced men in both education and earningsgrowth. A larger share of today's men, compared with their 1970 counterparts, are married to women whose education and income exceed their own, and a larger share of women are married to men with less education and income.

"From an economic perspective, these trends have contributed to a gender role reversal in the gains from marriage," wrote the report's authors, Richard Fry and D'Vera Cohn.

 

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Obama’s Fed Chair Makes some Unfortunate and Possibly Racist Remarks

• Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke listens to businessmen following an address in Chatham, Mass., Friday, Oct. 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Last spring when Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke visited Morehouse College, an undergraduate student asked him what accounts for the enormous racial disparity in wealth. Bernanke responded that the source of the problem was the lack of "financial literacy" and "financial education" on the part of blacks, particularly with respect to savings decisions.

He said nothing about the lack of access to inherited wealth, such as inheritances and other intergenerational transfers. Most wealth acquisition today takes place by such asset shifts. Even more astonishing, Bernanke never mentioned the notorious history of white violence that included the seizure, destruction and appropriation of black property.
Acknowledging this unfairness is not an excuse but a powerful truth; remedying it requires straightforward government action, rather than lectures on the value of saving. In fact, the racial wealth gap can be decreased - and without using a race-specific strategy of wealth redistribution.

We propose Children's Development Accounts, an expanded and non-incremental version of what Manning Marable of Columbia University has called the "Baby Bond" plan. It would provide an endowed trust fund for all children born into families with a net worth below the national median, progressively rising to $50,000 to $60,000 for children whose families are in the lowest wealth quartile. The program could be structured like the Earned Income Tax Credit, which uses a benefits phase-out schedule.

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Your Black Money: Entrepreneurs Push their Own Recovery

Back in August, Federal Reserve officials suggested that the Great Recession was ending and the U.S. could expect "a gradual resumption of sustainable economic growth." But even with stock market indexes and the bottom lines of large financial firms bouncing back, small businesses can expect a longer slog to economic health.

"Small business performance is a lagging indicator of recovery in the same way that unemployment is," says Villanova University business school professor John Pearce II.

And it's likely that small businesses will find this recovery even slower than previous ones. The downturn has especially hurt construction firms, retailers and food service providers, the vast majority of which employ fewer than 20 workers. To make matters worse, more than 110 banks have failed since early 2008, most of them community thrifts catering to the financial needs of local firms.

 

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Love or Money? Divorcing Just to Stay Alive

from The Huffington Post

For Mary McCurnin and husband Ron Bednar, money trouble has followed health trouble. In 2003, the couple declared bankruptcy after their insurance covered only 10 percent of treatment costs for her breast cancer and his intestinal bleeding. In 2004, McCurnin’s breast cancer returned, and Bednar underwent open heart surgery.

Now, after repeatedly refinancing their house to pay medical bills and living expenses, they’re broke. To improve their chances of growing old together, they’ve filed for divorce.

"It occurred to me that I could get my first husband’s Social Security," said McCurnin. Her first husband, to whom she’d been married 20 years, died in 1989. When she turns 60 in November, McCurnin said she will be eligible for $1,200 in monthly survivor’s benefits from the previous marriage. As the Social Security Administration told her, she can’t have the survivor benefit if she’s married to someone else.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/16/loving-couple-divorces-to_n_287094.html

September 17, 2009 Posted by Staff | african american health, black healthcare | healthcare reform | No Comments Yet

The President Speaks Harshly to Wall Street

The bailouts have largely stabilized the financial system, but regulatory reform is needed to prevent a similar crisis from happening again, said President Obama in a speech delivered Monday on Wall Street.

Marking the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, which set off a series of events that led to last fall's financial crisis, Obama cautioned Wall Street to step lightly as the economy and financial sector recover.

"Normalcy cannot lead to complacency," Obama said. "Unfortunately, there are some in the financial industry who are misreading this moment. Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we are still recovering, they are choosing to ignore them."

"They do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation's," the president added.

 

Click to read.

Dr Boyce Watkins Talks Money and Love on ABC News

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University

I recently appeared on ABC News to talk about Financial Lovemaking, and the link between sex and money. I've discussed relationships and money several times on AOL in the past, but I think that I should quickly lay out some very interesting similarities that may not have crossed your mind. As I teach my Personal Finance Class at Syracuse University this semester, I am reminded that managing our money is linked to managing our love, which is critical to the ultimate goal of effectively managing our lives.

1) Many people think about both sex and money every single day. Don't lie, you know you enjoy thinking about sex, even if you aren't getting any. But chances are, you also think about money, whether it's figuring out how to get what you need or how to keep what you've got. Even most rappers spend all their time talking about either sex, money or how they use their money to get more sex. It's actually a universal concept.

Click to read.

Wells Fargo Accused of Using Black Churches to Sell Subprime Loans

 

Elizabeth Jacobson, a former loan officer for Wells Fargo, filed an affidavit in the company’s charges of predatory lending and discrimination.  In the case, the company is accused of trying to get African Americans to sign on for subprime loans.  The added allegation is that they were expected by the company to use the black church as an avenue to sell these loans to the black community.  Here is what Jacobson had to say:

“The management there, would encourage the loan officers, the subprime loan officers, to go into Baltimore city and target the churches, the African American churches, to get a relationship going with the minister or the reverend at the church and try to get that person to schedule some sort of meeting. They would call it a “wealth-building seminar” to get the parishioners of the church to attend. And any loan that was funded by Wells Fargo, whether a purchase or a refinance, $350 would then be donated to the church. And so, that was the incentive for the church to want to have these seminars there.

But what would happen is the only loan officers that would attend these seminars were generally the subprime loan officers. And on these conference calls, at one point, somebody made a joke who happened to be a white loan officer and said, “Well, will I be able to go to these seminars?” And they were told right there on the conference call, unless you were of color, you could not attend these conferences, these wealth-building conferences. So it seemed me—Wells Fargo didn’t come right out and say this; this is just what I saw—is that they wanted the African American Wells Fargo loan officers to sell loans to the African American community.”

How Ponzi Schemes Work: Dr Boyce and Farai Chideya Talk on NPR

Dr. Boyce Watkins explains to Farai Chideyah how Madoff got away with stealing $50 Billion dollars in the largest Ponzi Scheme in American history. Click the image to listen!

Technorati Tags: bernard madoff,black money,african american money,black wealth,african american wealth,dr boyce watkins

Labor Report- Economic Hardship

The country tumbled deeper into recession and probably logged its worst economic performance in a quarter-century during the final three months of last year as battered consumers and businesses throttled back spending.

The U.S. economy is deteriorating at an alarming clip as the housing, credit and financial crises — the worst since the 1930s — feed on each other in a vicious cycle that has proven difficult for Washington policymakers to break.

The Commerce Department is set to release a report Friday expected to show the economy shrank at a pace of 5.4 percent in the October-December period, a much faster descent than the 0.5 percent decline logged in the prior quarter. If economists’ forecasts are correct, it would mark the weakest quarterly showing since an annualized drop of 6.4 percent in the first quarter of 1982, when the country was suffering through a severe recession.

“It was a bloodbath,” said Richard

Click to read.

Black Scholar Boyce Watkins Discusses The Scary Side of Our National Debt

Dr. Boyce Watkins
www.BoyceWatkins.com

Brought to you by The Great Black Speakers Bureau - The #1 Speakers Bureau in the world.

Hey Peeps,

I thought you guys might want to hear Barack Obama's latest pitch as he works to solve one of the greatest economic crises since The Great Depression. It is here if you'd like to take a look. I agree with the President that bold moves by our government are necessary. Where we differ is that I do not believe it to be reasonable to think that our economy, stock market, economic growth or employment numbers are going to reach prior levels any time soon. That's because much of our economy one year ago was an illusion....a mirage created by easy access to credit sparked by a poorly regulated financial system. We are effectively the great athlete trying to compete after his steroids have been taken away: The athlete might be good, but his natural talent will likely never match his performance when it has been enhanced by doping.

More importantly, it is critical that each of us seriously considers the long-term financial damage that has been done to our economy. Even worse than our financial system, our political system is one that promotes the kind of short-sighted behavior that will surely cause serious financial problems for our children and grand children. I apologize for sounding like an alarmist, but I must be blunt: Get your money together RIGHT NOW, or there may be hell to pay in the long-term. The data from my research show that this is simply the beginning of very serious long-term financial problems in our great nation.

Our money advice email list is here, feel free to join. If there is a way that my training in Finance can help you or your family overcome financial challenges, I'd be happy to share what I know.

Be well,
Dr Boyce
www.BoyceWatkins.com

*************************************************************************************

The Scary Side of Our National Debt
By Dr. Boyce Watkins
www.BoyceWatkins.com

As a finance professor, I become nervous when listening to the numbers being tossed around by our federal government. I hear “700 billion for this and 800 billion for that” mentioned as casually as a man tossing dollar bills at a strip club. Our government officials have been wasteful, incompetent and incredibly myopic in the way they’ve managed our money. Even conservative Republicans are spending like financially illiterate rap stars, and the Obama-mania train doesn’t seem interested in taking a different track.

Added to the $400 - $700 Billion that President Elect Obama wishes to spend on a stimulus package (not to mention bail-outs for automakers and other parts of the economy), the total amount of money our government has seriously considered allocating to solve the financial crisis has approached the $2 Trillion dollar mark. In case you’re wondering, that is A LOT of money, even for government officials who think that money grows on trees.

The truth is that, like the star quarterback who thinks his money will never run out, our country is going to wake up one morning, only to realize that we are no longer financially secure. We are going to be alarmed by the prospect that our government securities are no longer considered risk-free investments. Like the worried mother who notices she is one paycheck away from being homeless, we will see that we are one terrorist attack away from being stripped of our vast economic power.

To put the $2 Trillion dollar problem into context, consider this:

- Our government’s annual income (IRS receipts coming from money you and I pay in taxes) is about $2.5 Trillion dollars.
- Our national debt has reached the $10 Trillion dollar mark. That is like a man earning $250,000 per year, and sitting on a million dollars in debt, with full intention of obtaining more debt because he believes he is too rich to go broke.
- Roughly 42% of the Federal budget goes toward entitlements: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Another 20% goes to making sure we can arbitrarily “liberate” other countries who happen to have plenty of oil (the military), and another 9 – 10% goes toward paying the interest on the national debt.
- Our population is aging – this implies that our productivity as a nation is going to drop over the next 30 years, and our real Gross National Product is likely to drop with it. In conjunction with our decline in productivity, our obligations for the "Big Government 3" (Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security) are going to grow. So, the guy I mentioned above with a million dollars in debt is also going to see his income decline, while watching his expenses go up.

Translation: our country is in serious financial trouble. Trickle down economics (as proposed by these bailout plans) almost never works. I am amazed that we live in a country in which the same irresponsible men who caused the crisis are the first to be rewarded with a government bailout. The next time someone attempts to argue that Black males or young single mothers lack personal responsibility, I am going to point to the bankers on Wall Street and our government officials as being far more damaging to our nation. The real welfare recipients live on Wall Street, Capitol Hill and in executive suites, as they beg and plead for government assistance that is being granted at will. All the while, I hear politicians (even the great Black man in the White House) tell Black males with nearly 50% unemployment that they just “need to be more responsible”.

What are the solutions to this problem? There really are no quick solutions, but this might be where President Elect Obama can start:

First, stop declaring expensive wars that don’t make any sense. The Iraq War costs our nation roughly $340 million dollars per day and a combined total of half a trillion dollars. That’s enough to send over 10 million kids to college or to pay a year’s worth of health insurance for 100 million people. You could also provide $100,000 dollars worth of mortgage relief to 5 million American families.

Second, stop electing incompetent people to the most challenging office in the land. Choosing President Bush to run our country means that we deserve whatever consequences come from allowing arrogant Ivy League privilege to override the importance of competence, intelligence and solid leadership. With all the bogus and racist claims that Black youth are crippled by anti-intellectualism, it’s funny that nearly 50% of our nation planned to elect a Vice President who doesn’t know that Africa is a continent.

Third, stop throwing our children’s futures into the garbage. Millions of powerful minds are being wasted each year by a horrible inner city educational system. The money spent on the war in Iraq could have saved the lives of these youth and turned them into productive Americans. Instead, many of them are only going to be prepared to milk the economy for more costly entitlements.

Fourth, stop incarcerating many of our most productive citizens. We pay roughly $23,000 per year to incarcerate criminals, plus an average of $24,000 per year/per inmate for community corrections officers and other supervisory officials. Spending that money to educate and rehabilitate these individuals would not only increase our nation’s productivity, it would further reduce reliance on government support given to those who’ve been marginalized or had their families destroyed by our barbaric system of incarceration. This doesn’t count the impact on health effects that would come by simply stopping the prevalence of prison rape and transmission of disease within many communities across America. All chickens eventually come home to roost, even when they’ve been given 25 to life. The incarceration of productive Americans is an inter-generational loss, since their ill-nurtured children then become society’s worst nightmares.

Finally, our elected officials must stop thinking that they have a blank check. Sorry Senators, but you don’t. Money is finite, and when you keep piling up debt like MC Hammer, you’ll find yourself broke after your next album. Around the world, massive wealth appears and disappears in a flash, and by continuing our irresponsibility, we are setting the stage for the twilight of our great nation. Our officials must be more responsible and the American people must demand limitations on the use of federal debt.

Every great empire has a sunset. Many successful individuals and entities are brought down by a crippling vice, addiction or series of poor choices. America's love of debt, arrogance in leadership and unwillingness to plan for the future may be the poisons it has picked to undermine our global prominence. Protect yourself and your family, for there are bumpy times ahead.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University. He does regular commentary in national media, including CNN, ESPN, BET and CBS Sports. For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins.com.

A Black Finance Scholar Thoughts on Consumer Confidence

Black Professor Boyce Watkins Asks Who Trust the Government

African American Speaker Boyce Watkins on Credit

Black Enterprise: Bill Collectors

Your Black Money: Bill Collectors

One of the groups that was not bailed out during the recent financial crisis has been the American consumer. Congress took care of the firms on Wall Street, but they didn’t take care of the millions of Americans forced to confront the realities of bankruptcy, foreclosure and uncomfortable confrontations with menacing bill collectors. It appears, sadly, that every man and woman must find their own way through this financial tragedy.

Bill Collectors really want their money, like the rest of us. Some of them seem to feel that it’s O.K. to resort to flat out thuggish intimidation to get their money back. That might work on The Sopranos, but it shouldn't work in real life.

Part of the reason abusive bill collectors can have their way with the public is because many citizens do not know their rights. Bill collectors prey on the uninformed in a terrible way: They may threaten to have you arrested, harass your relatives, call all hours of the night, and engage in other types of atrocious behavior to get their money out of your hide.

One woman successfully sued a rogue bill collector after he called her repeatedly with threatening language. The woman, a senior citizen, was told by the man to "Stop with the sob stories and pay your god d*m bill!" This kind of behavior is not acceptable, and bill collector harassment doesn’t have to keep you up at night.

The Federal Trade Commission states that complaints against bill collectors are rising, reaching the highest level they've seen in the past 3 years. Most of the complaints focus on vulgar language, trying to collect more than the amount of the true debt, and extra fees, such as court costs.

You have rights that can protect you from bad and malicious bill collectors. You want to keep these in mind as you work yourself out of debt:

1) There is something called "The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act". If you are not familiar with this document, get familiar with it. You can read it by clicking here.

2) A bill collector cannot contact you at work if your employer does not approve of the contact. Let the bill collector know that this is the case and they must legally stop contacting you at your job.

3) Bill collectors cannot call you before 8 am or after 9 pm. The only exception is if you give them permission to do so.

4) A bill collector can only contact your friends and family if they are trying to find a way to get in touch with you. However, some of them may do this in order to harass or embarrass you. If that is the case, you may want to tell your friends to tell the bill collector, "She does not live here and I do not know how to get in touch with her. Please don't call here anymore." Then, get the bill collector's information from your friend and reach out to them when you can.

5) You can get bill collectors to stop contacting you altogether by sending them a letter telling them to stop. You still must pay the debt, but they won't be calling you during dinner.

6) The bill collector cannot curse at you or use foul language and they must tell the truth about how much you owe. They cannot threaten to sue unless they are serious about it, and they can't touch your 401k or IRA.

7) If the bill collectors call you, you can demand that they send you a written notice of the amount you owe and who you owe the money to. If you do not believe that the debt is yours, you can write a letter to them stating that this is not your debt. They must then send you proof that the debt is actually yours.

If you feel that a debt collector has violated any of these rules, you can contact the Federal Trade Commission at www.ftc.gov. Remember that you are not powerless in this situation.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University and author of Financial Lovemaking 101: Merging Asset with Your Partner in Ways that Feel Good. He does regular commentary in national media, including CNN, CBS, NBC and BET. For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins.com. This information does not constitute legal advice. For legal advice, please consult your attorney.

Your Black Scholar: African American Centered Media May Face Problems Due To Economy

SAN FRANCISCO – After 16 years and 700 issues under its current publisher, the San Francisco Bay View printed its last issue in July. The biweekly, a political newspaper covering the African-American community, has weathered many storms, said publisher Mary Ratcliff, but nothing as bad as the foreclosure crisis.

The newspaper received a good chunk of its revenue from ads – mostly from national advertisers and local hospitals groups, nonprofits and city government agencies, rather than from small businesses – but the amount didn’t cover its expenses. The couple refinanced their home loan to get enough cash flow to keep the newspaper afloat. The scheme worked during the real estate bubble, but was disastrous amid the subprime loan crisis.

“We lost [our] property in a foreclosure auction a week ago yesterday,” Ratcliff said. She and her husband lived in a multi-unit building and also rented out three storefronts, which allowed them to make the monthly payments on the loan.

As a last resort, Ratcliff said they may move to Texas. “My husband has property from his parents…it has timber and ranch land…he doesn’t want to go [to Texas]. He wants to stay in San Francisco and so do I,” she said. 

For now, she’s publishing stories on the San Francisco Bay View’s Web site.

In Southern California, the KoreAm Journal, a monthly magazine covering the Korean-American experience for 18 years, recently published an open letter to readers pleading for new subscribers and donations to keep the magazine afloat. They’ve lost about a third of their advertising.

Continued:

Dr Boyce Watkins: The Real Story Behind the Financial Crisis

by Dr. Boyce Watkins

http://www.boycewatkins.com/

1) FDR had it partially right when he said that "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." While we have other worries as well, the greatest obstacle to economic progress is the HUGE psychological impact of Americans watching the stock market plummet right in front of their faces. This is going to cause consumer spending, lending, borrowing and investing to freeze like a deer in stadium lights. When people stop spending, economies start dying.

2) This crisis was a long time coming. De-regulation pushes down on the economic gas, but increases the chances of an economic crash. The dramatic growth of the past 8 years was a result of the same policies that are leading to the huge challenges we are faced with today.

3) Much of the impact of this crisis is a financial illusion. A large percentage of the devaluation in stock and home prices is driven by the fact that the original value was incorrect in the first place. When prices are out of whack, they must correct themselves. While a crisis may also be a correction, a correction is not necessarily a crisis.

4) Prepare for a period of "Financial McCarthyism" in America. Many baby boomers are closing in on retirement, and scared to death. To boot, many of these individuals have not properly prepared for retirement. When Americans get scared, politicians get nasty. We will likely see some of the most Draconian legislation in history.

5) What makes this crisis such a concern is that even before the meltdown, the economy was already quite fragile. With soaring gas and food prices, the economy was the #1 issue on the minds of most Americans. The decline of many financial services firms was, for the most part, a logical continuation of the fact that many homeowners were defaulting at the start of the year. This crisis is most certainly going to shift the political landscape and might give us our first Black president.

6) Yes, this market drop was the largest in history, 770 points in one day is nothing to sneeze at. But keep in mind that this drop doesn’t even make the top 10 in terms of percentage declines.

7) The American consumer is not off the hook. The “Wall Street Greed” angle of this story completely denies the fact that many American consumers tend to overspend and over borrow. Many Americans were buying homes they could not afford and borrowing against their home equity in order to go on vacation. It takes two to tango and banks rarely forced anyone to take the loans being offered to them. If Obama can tell Black Men to take more responsibility for our economic challenges, then he should be willing to say that to the rest of America.

Black American Money Part 1

I should begin by saying that I am not a Finance Professor who happens to be Black. Rather, I am a Black man who happens to be a finance Professor. The goal of this work was not to create yet another book analyzing money to the nth degree, discussing stocks, bonds, charts and portfolios. I see money as a tool for the enhancement of life and the liberation of a people. I also see money as part of a nexus of critical issues that drive the world in which we live.

So, this book is not going to be about money throughout. It does not contain a long list of nuts and bolts financial advice. It is a discussion, by a Black social commentator who cares about his people, who also happens to be an educator and a Financial expert. So, imagine a person who is an expert at cooking steak, chicken and carrots, but insists upon making sure the plate has a little bit of each. I have never been one dimensional in my analysis, because linear, limited thinking is how one consistently misses the big picture.

In this book, you are going to get first hand analysis of how money plays a role in critical Black issues and leadership, from The State of the Black Union to Civil Rights. I will openly and honestly share my behind-the-scenes experiences with CNN, FOX, ESPN and other networks. You will hear about academia, as I take you for a quick trip into the ivory tower for a discussion of how economic incentives impact the value systems of today’s “Blackademics”. The trip will be long and broad, and won’t just focus on money. Rather, the focus is on capital of all types, not just financial capital.

Money, like any other powerful object, can either be incredibly constructive or horrifically destructive. It can ruin families or make people strong. It can liberate, enslave and do everything in between. You can improve the lives of those you love or ruin your relationships with loved ones. Money can do many amazing things in a capitalist society. Therefore, understanding money, embracing the power of money and controlling the power of money is clearly, without question, an undeniably meaningful part of the movement toward equal rights.

This was an introduction to the forthcoming book "Black American Money", written by Dr. Boyce Watkins. For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins.com.