Can We Trust The Government To Protect Our Money?

By Dr. Boyce Watkins
www.BoyceWatkins.com

Media reports show that many Americans are not quite sure of what to do with their money. Watching banks fail left and right, people are logically afraid of what might happen to their savings. This fear is justified, as we are seeing our accounts beaten and stomped by the global financial meltdown.

This grave concern is magnified by the fact that those we’ve trusted are the ones who’ve left us vulnerable. Our most cherished financial experts handled our retirement accounts like flashy vehicles on a Nascar speedway. Our elected officials allowed executives in the banking industry to run rampant like 3-year olds with dirty diapers. Then, when the crash came, a massive bailout package was created for those most responsible for the damage, while the rest of us were left holding the tax bill.

This begs the question: Why in the hell should we trust the government?

I recall that during the failure of Enron, one of the most respected companies in America at the time, the firm made several statements designed to create confidence in the company’s financial condition. Like captains of the Titanic, company leaders explained that there was nothing to worry about, even as they themselves were preparing their lifeboats. When the company failed, those who did not protect themselves reminded us of one grim and fundamental truth: when the “you know what” hits the fan, it’s every man for himself….and every woman too, in case you’re wondering.

In response to such sentiment, the American consumer has been working overtime to protect his/her resources: people have (against my advice) moved their money away from the frightening stock market, they are diversifying money into different banks, and some are taking their money out of banks altogether. All of these actions are occurring in spite of government calls for calm in a world on the verge of financial panic.

The honest to goodness truth is that I don’t blame Americans for being afraid. I don’t blame them for not trusting the government right now. Trust must be earned in any relationship, whether it is a tough marriage of the relationship between a government and its citizens. Our government must work to regain that trust through sound and efficient financial management. It will NOT regenerate the public trust through excessive spending on meaningless wars, selfish pork-filled bills being passed through Congress and budget deficits that strain the resources of Americans everywhere.

I can’t tell you if the government is lying to you, but I can tell you this: There was a time when government guarantees such as FDIC insurance were as pure as the driven snow. There was a time when the United States Federal Government had pockets and resources so deep that even God himself could be bailed out with our cash. The sad truth, however, is that no empire lasts forever, and there is destined to be a day in the future when we are no longer the unquestionable economic super power that we once were. A country that can’t even afford its social security obligations is hardly a nation that has risen beyond economic risk.

Another sad truth is that if the financial world really were coming to an end, the citizens would be the last to find out about any such crisis. We would, simultaneously, be the first ones asked to suffer the burden of irresponsible behavior by our leaders. If that doesn’t justify a bit of skepticism, I am not sure what does.

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

USA Today: College Athletes Guided to "Beat the System"

Greetings.

As people of color, we should make ourselves aware of the continued exploitation of college athletes and their families, many of whom are African Americans. The article below is out of USA Today, which cites the clustering of majors and serious violations of academic integrity taking place for the sake of excessive commercialization in collegiate athletics. The money is serious - ad revenue for March Madness exceeds that for the Super Bowl and the World Series COMBINED. This is a major wealth extraction out of the Black community (since coaches earn millions while many star athletes have families in poverty), and athletes are not even getting the educations they are promised.

I am working intensely on this issue with Richard Southall at The College Sport Research Institute at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (where I am a faculty affiliate). I would also like to invite all of you to join our Coalition for the Fair Treatment of Athletes, where our long-term goal is to a) establish a network of faculty across the nation who agree to mentor athletes toward true academic achievement and b) Work with a growing coalition of attorneys, journalists, parents, coaches and former athletes to convince Congress to review the non-profit, tax exempt status of the NCAA, as well as their anti-trust exemption, which appears to constitute a serious violation of labor rights for the families of college athletes. The article is below if you'd like to read it.


Sincerely,
Boyce Watkins

www.BoyceWatkins.com

Please visit our sponsor, GreatBlackSpeakers.com to find high quality Black speakers for your next event.
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Athletes Guided to "Beat the System"

By Jill Lieber Steeg, Jodi Upton, Patrick Bohn and Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY

Steven Cline left Kansas State University last spring with memories of two years as a starting defensive lineman for a major-college football team. He left with a diploma, credits toward a master's degree and a place on the 2007 Big 12 Conference all-academic team.


He also left with regrets about accomplishing all of this by majoring in social sciences — a program that drew 34% of the football team's juniors and seniors last season, compared with about 4% of all juniors and seniors at Kansas State. Cline says he found not-so-demanding courses that helped him have success in the classroom and on the field but did little for his dream of becoming a veterinarian.


"I realize I just wasted all my efforts in high school and college to get a social science degree," says Cline, who adds he did poorly in biology as a freshman, then chose what an athletics academic adviser told him would be an easier path.
His experience reflects how the NCAA's toughening of academic requirements for athletes has helped create an environment in which they are more likely to graduate than other students — but also more likely to be clustered in programs without the academic demands most students face.


Some athletes say they have pursued — or have been steered to — degree programs that helped keep them eligible for sports but didn't prepare them for post-sports careers.


"A major in eligibility, with a minor in beating the system," says C. Keith Harrison, an associate professor at the University of Central Florida, where he is associate director of the Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sports.


A USA TODAY study of the majors of juniors and seniors in five prominent sports at 142 of the NCAA's top-level schools shows athletes at many institutions clustering in certain majors, in some cases at rates highly disproportionate to those of all students.


The study involved the fall 2007 student rolls and the 2007-08 rosters for Division I teams in five sports — football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball and softball.
All 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) were included, as were 22 other Division I schools with standout men's or women's basketball teams. Nearly 9,300 athletes across 654 teams were covered by the study. Among the findings:


83% of the schools (118 of 142) had at least one team in which at least 25% of the juniors and seniors majored in the same thing. For example, seven of the 19 players on Stanford's baseball team majored in sociology.
34% of the teams (222 of 654) had at least one such cluster of student-athletes.

More than half of the clusters are what some analysts refer to as "extreme," in which at least 40% of athletes on a team are in the same major (125 of 235). All seven of the juniors and seniors on Texas-El Paso's men's basketball team majored in multidisciplinary studies, for example.
Education specialists say such clustering raises a range of potential problems, including academic fraud; certain majors and classes having dubious academic requirements; and coaches and athletics academic advisers inappropriately influencing students' decisions on majors and classes.
Clustering in relatively easy areas of study is one way athletes cope with the time demands they face from participating in sports, Cline and other athletes say. It also appears to be an unintended consequence of NCAA schools' decisions to make it easier for athletes to become eligible to play as freshmen but harder for them to remain eligible in later years.


"Clustering by itself is replicated in many parts of the university. It's not necessarily bad," NCAA President Myles Brand says.


"But when you have extreme clustering … you really do have to ask some hard questions: Is there an adviser who's pushing students into this? Are there some faculty members who are too friendly with student-athletes? I'm not saying that's the case. But I think you have to ask those questions."


Brand adds that it's up to each school to do so. "There are limits to what the national office can, and should, do," he says. "Anything to do with the academic programs really falls entirely within the purview of the individual institutions."


Questions about clustering get at the basic social contract of college sports.


Instead of being paid, scholarship athletes get a free education. And, according to University of Hartford President Walter Harrison, who chairs the NCAA Division I Committee on Academic Performance: "There are many values of a college education, but among them is majoring in something that will prepare you for a satisfying career."


Cline believes that now. He arrived at Kansas State from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., in 2003 and intended to pursue a pre-veterinary program.


"The athletics academic advisers emphasized it was going to be really difficult," he says. "But I tried it anyway."


When the biology class went badly, he and his advisers discussed options, including retaking the class. Homesick and wanting to finish college as soon as possible, he says, he "dropped down" to social sciences, a program Kansas State's website says is one of four interdisciplinary majors in the College of Arts and Sciences that "provide options for those who have not chosen a specialized major."


"The athletics academic advisers said, 'This is what everybody is doing. It's the easiest major,' " recalls Cline, who emphasizes that ultimately he — not his advisers — chose his degree program.


Cline completed his degree in four academic years. Afterward, with one season of athletic eligibility left, he stayed at Kansas State and spent the 2007-08 school year in a master's program in college student personnel.


The program is designed to prepare candidates for work at college "student affairs agencies," according to the university's website. Cline says he didn't complete it and doesn't intend to "because it wasn't what I wanted to do."


He now is working in construction so he can save money and try to return to school as a pre-vet student.


"The whole time I was at Kansas State, I felt stuck — stuck in football, stuck in my major. … It was a stupid effort on my part. I wouldn't advise any other athlete to do that. I'd tell them to choose a career — a real career for their life after football and work toward it. Don't let anybody or anything take you off that path. Don't fool yourselves into thinking (you're) going to play (sports) professionally.


"Now I look back and say, 'Well, what did I really go to college for? Crap classes you won't use the rest of your life?' Social science is really nothing specific. … I was majoring in football."


Kansas State provost M. Duane Nellis says the university tries "to be supportive of athletes to be able to pursue what they dream to have as their degree path.


"We've had starting athletes in basketball who went on to … get into veterinary medicine. Any student can get out of sequence if they're in a prescribed curriculum … and if they get out of sequence, it leads them down a different path. They also have to realize, when they decide to pursue athletics, there are time commitments and parameters around that."


'A mixed message being sent'


Cline's situation provides a window on the day-to-day machinery of big-time college sports, which can be a physical and psychological grind on student-athletes.


Basketball games, and a few football games, are played on weeknights. Sometimes games are played close to exams. It's not unusual for baseball teams to play five days a week, with games in three different towns.


"There's a mixed message being sent out here" about the importance of academics in college sports, Georgia Tech men's basketball coach Paul Hewitt said in June before the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.


Several athletes echo Hewitt's sentiments.


Former Boise State safety Marty Tadman was among the 48% of the football team's juniors and seniors majoring in communication during the 2007-08 academic year. Boise State's communication program also drew 50% of the juniors and seniors on the men's basketball and women's basketball teams.


"You hear which majors, and which classes, are the easiest and you take them," Tadman says. "You're going to school so you can stay in sports. You're not going for a degree. … It's a joke."


Like other students, athletes are influenced by their peers. Former Southern California offensive lineman Drew Radovich majored in sociology, putting him among the 58% of the football team's juniors and seniors — and 19% of USC's — in that major. "If I went back and did it all over again, I wouldn't have picked" sociology, says Radovich, now with the Minnesota Vikings. "A lot of other offensive linemen were picking sociology, so I picked it."


Under NCAA rules, schools are required to make academic counseling and tutoring available to athletes.


These services can be provided and paid for by athletics departments, which have been making them — and the facilities in which they are based — increasingly elaborate in recent years.


And because of the NCAA's complex requirements, which often differ from those of a university or individual academic department, academic advisers are involved in many athletes' course selections.


'Perfect storm' for problems


With Division I athletes, that involvement usually stems from what's known as The 40-60-80 Rule, which took effect for athletes entering school after Aug. 1, 2003.


To stay eligible to play, athletes must complete 40% of their degree work by the end of their second year of enrollment, 60% by the end of their third year and 80% by the end of their fourth year. Under previous rules, those percentages were 25, 50 and 75.


The increased demands for progress toward a degree have been accompanied by reduced requirements for incoming athletes to be eligible to play as freshmen.


Until recently, incoming athletes had to have at least an 820 SAT score or 68 ACT sum score. Now, if they have a sufficient grade-point average in a set of core academic classes, they can be eligible as freshmen with any standardized score.


"It's a perfect storm formula" for pressure on advisers, says Gerald Gurney, senior associate athletics director for academics and student life at the University of Oklahoma. "A population of weaker students with higher (academic) demands," layered upon a national trend of academic departments raising requirements for entry into certain majors.


There also is a new NCAA rule that threatens penalties for teams with too many players who become academically ineligible or fail to graduate. Based on their annually published Academic Progress Rate (APR), teams can lose scholarships and eventually become ineligible for postseason play, either of which can embarrass a school and affect a team's ability to win.


Hewitt, the Georgia Tech men's basketball coach, bluntly articulated many coaches' view of the "unintended consequences" of the APR system at the Knight Commission meeting in June. He said then that when an NCAA official came to the Atlantic Coast Conference meetings four years ago to discuss the APR system, "almost every coach said: 'You understand what you're basically telling us. We're going to encourage our kids to take the easiest path to eligibility.'


"So if I'm at a Georgia Tech, I'm not going to tell a young man he can't major in engineering," Hewitt said. "But I certainly will counsel him before he takes that first class that … if you decide to go down this road and for some reason you find it harder than you expected and you decide to change your major, you're probably more than likely going to end up being ineligible" for sports.


At Georgia Tech last year, 63% of the juniors and seniors on the men's basketball team majored in management. So did 83% of those on the baseball team and 82% of those on the football team. A little more than 11% of all juniors and seniors at the school were in the major.


Isma'il Muhammad, a basketball player who earned a management degree from Georgia Tech in 2005, said he considered majoring in international affairs, but "it just didn't make sense. I would have had to stop playing basketball," which he has been doing professionally outside the USA since graduating.


Asked why management is so popular among athletes, he said, "They want to own their own business or have other big aspirations. Also, we're not crazy. … Was management easier than engineering? Of course, but Georgia Tech doesn't offer any easy classes or easy majors. It's not like I was a basketball player majoring in pottery."


Muhammad also says he has leads for post-basketball jobs. "Finding a job is not an issue even in this economy we have right now," he says. "A lot of people are affiliated with Tech and (are) fans of basketball and Coach Hewitt."


Bob Vomhof, a former Colorado State football player also still pursuing his sport in a lower level of the pro ranks, has similar confidence in his future prospects — but with a retrospective different from Muhammad's.


Vomhof graduated with a degree in liberal arts, a program that last year had 65% of the junior and senior football players and about 2% of all juniors and seniors at the school. As a junior he wanted to change his major to construction management, he says, but decided that with the time he had to spend on football he couldn't make the move.


Speaking from his hometown of Gillette, Wyo., after spending part of the past Arena Football League season on the San Jose SaberCats practice squad, he says of his outlook: "I think I'll be OK. No matter how bad the job market gets everywhere else, you can always get jobs up here."

Finding Values of a Dysfunctional Family

By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III

In today’s political lexicon the term family values has been hijacked by the Christian political right as a way to define an ambiguous set of moral beliefs and standards that they use to further a morally defenseless political agenda. In the early 1980’s individuals such as Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson through The Christian Coalition, began to target the Republican Party as the vehicle through which they could promote their conservative religious agenda and inject that religious agenda into mainstream American politics. They successfully combined their moral conservatism with political conservatism resulting in a politics that is neither morally nor ethically based.

The agenda of The Christian Coalition of America is to, “… offer people of faith the vehicle to be actively involved in shaping their government - from the County Courthouse to the halls of Congress… Today, Christians need to play an active role in government again like never before… we continuously work to identify, educate and mobilize Christians for effective political action” The late Rev. D. James Kennedy focused his attention on members of Congress and their staffers by founding the Center for Christian Statesmanship. This Center was a Capitol Hill outreach group that offered Bible studies to members of Congress and their staffers. Rev. Kennedy believed, “Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost... we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.”

There are two problems with the injection of ideological Christianity into mainstream American politics. First, the “establishment” clause was written into the First Amendment of the Constitution to prevent the United States government from establishing an official religion for the country as had been done by the Church of England. The “free exercise” clause was written into the First Amendment to allow each American to practice religion as they see fit. It prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another. What the late Rev. Kennedy worked to accomplish, the reclamation of America for Christ, actually violates what Thomas Jefferson called the separation of church and state. This time tested and accepted political and legal doctrine states that government and religious institutions are to be kept separate and independent of one another.

The second problem with the injection of ideological Christianity into mainstream American politics is the hypocrisy that is exhibited by many of its proponents. Too many of these “holier than thou” Christian conservatives just don’t practice what they preach. As the Republican Party has anointed itself as the party of ethics, morality, and family values, these so-called “family values” demonstrate a very dysfunctional family. Take for example the following:

• Ralph Reed, former head of The Christian Coalition has been implicated in the ongoing Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
  Lest we forget the seventh Commandment, thou shalt not steal and the eighth commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
  

  
  

• According to Florida authorities, state representative and Republican Bob Allen was arrested this past July outside the men's restroom at a Titusville park after offering to perform a sex act on a plainclothes police officer. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Allen sponsored the "Sexual Predator Elimination Act," legislation that toughened penalties for lewd or lascivious conduct and created a new provision that allows some sexual predators to receive life prison sentences for their offenses. Before his 2006 re-election, Allen had received a 92 percent rating from the Christian Coalition of Florida. Bob Allen is married.
  Lest we forget the seventh Commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery.
  

  
  

• Washington state lawmaker and Republican, Richard Curtis, resigned October 31, days after he was quoted in police reports as saying a man he had sex with after they met at an erotic video store was trying to blackmail him. Elected to the state House of Representatives in 2004, Curtis has voted against bills that would grant civil rights protections to gays and lesbians. Curtis like Allen is married.

  
  Lest we forget the seventh Commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery.

  
  

  
  

• Former Republican Congressman Mark Foley, once known as a crusader against child abuse and exploitation resigned from Congress on September 29, 2006 after allegations surfaced that he had sent suggestive emails and sexually explicit instant messages to teenaged boys who had formerly served and were at that time serving as Congressional pages.
  As this self-righteous crusader Foley should reflect upon John 8:7 “… He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone…”

  
  

• Republican Senator Larry Craig was arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on suspicion of lewd conduct. Craig pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. He voted to ban same-sex marriage, voted against adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes, and voted no on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation.

  
  As Craig has relied on Idaho’s “value voters” for his support, he should reflect upon Luke 6:37 “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.

  
  

• We should never forget that Pat Robertson, host of The 700 Club and founder of the Christian Coalition of America, called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. According to the San Francisco Chronicle and other sources, President Bush told two high-ranking Palestinian officials that he had been told by God to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. What God calls for assassinations of world leaders and invasions of sovereign countries that are posing no threat you?
  Those self-righteous moralistic bible thumpers should remember the fifth Commandment, thou shalt not kill.

  
  

To the rest of the world America looks like a morally bankrupt country that will use any pretext and its military power to impose its will upon the unwilling. By allowing ideological Christianity to control American politics and policy, we have compromised the values, concepts, and traditions that formed the foundation of our democracy. Those family values are now the values of a dysfunctional family.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “On With Leon” on XM Satellite Radio Channel 169, regular guest on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, Producer/Host of the television program “Inside The Issues With Wilmer Leon” and a Teaching Associate in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com. © 2007 InfoWave Commuications, LLC.

Native American Heritage Day To Highlight Abysmal Plight

Native American Heritage Month

By: Julian Wolfson

Reprinted From The Civil Rights Coalition

November is Native American Heritage Month, a month dedicated to recognizing the culture and traditions of Native Americans, as well as their contributions to the U.S.

One of the most significant days this month will be the celebration of the first national annual Native American Heritage Day on November 28, which was created when Congress passed a resolution on January 3, 2008.

While this month is intended to commemorate the achievements of Native Americans, it also provides an opportunity to reflect upon many of the issues that are important to the Native American community.

One of the biggest concerns for Native Americans is education. As reported by the National Center for Education Statistics, 15.1 percent of Native Americans ages 16-24 years old were high school dropouts in 2006. This stands in stark contrast to the national high school dropout rate of 9.7 percent.

In addition, the National Association of Education Progress (NAEP) reported that 83 percent of Native American 8th graders read below grade level in 2007, as compared to 61 percent of Whites.

Native Americans have long had challenges in education due to their unique status in the U.S. Until 1926, American Indian education focused on the assimilation of Native Americans into western culture. Native Americans were forced to abandon their cultural traditions and embrace the value system of European settlers. The languages, history, and culture of Native Americans were systematically removed from their educational curriculum.

Attempts to assimilate Native Americans were coupled with efforts to isolate them. Isolation was primarily achieved through the development of off-reservation boarding schools, which Native American children were required to attend.

The objective of these schools was to remove American Indians from their native environments in attempt to further their assimilation. The schools were often far away from reservations, so children had little contact with their families.

These policies had severe consequences on the educational opportunities available to Native Americans. In 1928, a report entitled "The Problem of Indian Administration," (often referred to as the Meriam Report) highlighted many of the problems with federal policies toward Native Americans that continue today, including education.

The report was commissioned by the secretary of interior and drew upon the findings of a two year study by the Institute of Government Research, which examined the socio-economic conditions of Native Americans.

The report states:

The most fundamental need in Indian education is a change in point of view. Whatever may have been the official governmental attitude, education for the Indian in the past has proceeded largely on the theory that it is necessary to remove the Indian child as far as possible from his home environment; whereas the modem point of view in education and social work lays stress on upbringing in the natural setting of home and family life.

Today, the Native American community continues to struggle for influence over their education. Currently, education advocacy groups representing Native Americans like the National Indian Education Association, are pushing Congress to ensure that the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) increases opportunities for joint efforts among tribes, states, and the federal government to determine standards of accountability for Native American students.

In its call to the Native American tribes to develop a strategy for the presidential transition, the National Congress of American Indians said: "Indian education and job training should become a model for preparing our children and our workers to compete in the global economy while also respecting the values of local communities."

Creating Consumer Confidence Tips From Boyce Watkins

Dr. Boyce Watkins
www.Boycewatkins.com

If you wish to see a video explaining consumer confidence, which is one of the driving issues behind the recent moves in the stock market, please click here.

This has been an interesting week, with auto execs showing up on private jets to request a bailout from the government and the Dow moving to below 8,000 points for the first time in 5 years. I still hold to the fact that this is a great time to get into the stock market if one has never done so before, especially if you are under the age of 50. By the way - please visit our sponsor, GreatBlackSpeakers.com if you are interested in hiring a top notch African American speaker or seeking to become one.

Take care!
Boyce Watkins
http://www.blogger.com/www.boycewatkins.com
Click here to join our money advice list.

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If you listen carefully to the words of Treasury Secretary Henry “Hank” Paulson and Ben “Big Ben” Bernanke (chairman of the Federal Reserve) you might notice a trend in their language. The word “confidence” is used a lot when they speak. Many of their monetary proposals are not necessarily valuable for their financial power, but also for their psychological power.

Some of you may wonder what confidence has to do with anything. After all, if you’re broke, confidence doesn’t exactly put money in your pocket. If you’re 100 pounds overweight, confidence won’t help you win the Olympic 100 meter dash. When you are flying on a crashing plane, confidence doesn’t keep the plane from slamming into the ground. But confidence is important to an economy, and one of the most significant drivers of economic growth. In fact, over confidence has driven US economic growth for the past 10 years. Here are some reasons that confidence matters in the minds of Hank and Big Ben:

1) Confident consumers spend money

If you think you might lose your job next year, are you going to max out your credit cards? I certainly hope not. If you are worried about being able to make ends meet, are you going to buy that big screen TV? Not unless you want your wife to leave you. So, even if it doesn’t hold any truth, the mere forecast of a weak economy is enough to make many Americans hold off on consumer spending, one of the great driving forces of the American financial system.

2) Confident companies invest money and hire workers

Investments involve risk. Your hunch may work out, and it may not. If you don’t believe the economy is getting better, you are not going to consider taking that risk. No one plans to go to the beach if the weather man says that it’s going to rain. When economic rain is in the forecast, companies pull out their umbrellas and hold off on new projects. This reduces the number of jobs in the economy, because nearly every job created in America is the result of someone making an investment.

3) Confident Americans do not take their money out of banks

In case you didn’t know, your bank does not have your money. Your money is part of a large base of financial capital that is loaned out to individuals and consumers seeking to get a good return on their investment. So, without investing, your bank would have no interest in paying you any interest at all. So if, say, 30% of all customers of the same bank decide to get their money out at the same time, the bank would have serious financial problems. It is a lack of confidence that could cause customers to “run” on their bank and take out their money.

4) Confident investors keep their money in the stock market

The stock market is a place where fortunes are made and lost. Some part of that fortune is psychological, given that no asset can have a value which exceeds that which someone is willing to pay for it. When investors lose confidence, they take their money out of the stock market, and reductions in demand for stocks lead to massive paper losses in the market. Additionally, most Americans are “momentum traders”, meaning that when the market goes up, they tend to buy more, and when it goes down, they tend to sell. History shows that it is actually the opposite approach that tends to work best.

5) Confident banks make loans

Banks have to keep a certain portion of their funds on hand at all times to meet federal requirements. If they are fearful that their customers might come and demand their cash, they hold onto their capital to ensure that it is available. If they are afraid that their borrowing customers will not be able to repay loans due to a weak economy, they also hold back on issuing new loans. The truth is that when economic forecasts are grim, conservative bankers become even more fearful than the rest of us.

The bottom line of this article is that confidence matters. So, the next time you hear Ben Bernanke give a speech, you can be confident that he is going to use language that makes you feel more secure. Whether you choose to believe those words is up to you.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University. He does regular commentary in national media, including CNN, BET, ESPN and CBS. For more information, please visit http://www.blogger.com/www.boycewatkins.com. To join our money list, please click here.

Should Resolving Conflict In Africa Be On Top Of Obama's List

The Government - Can We TRUST It

Investing During A Bad Times - Boyce Watkins

What I Would Trade for a Black President

by Dr. Boyce Watkins

Barack Obama’s voice booms high into the clouds as our nation’s president. But it is also a voice that is sometimes muted by policy, distorted by conflicting agendas and distracted by the complexities of the world in which we live. I find myself mildly disturbed by the excessive celebration within our community, as if winning this political popularity contest has somehow finally validated us as a people. It is scary when the measure of a Black person's success is captured by the degree of favor he has obtained with his historical oppressors. I will never believe that winning the White House is the greatest achievement in Black History, nor was it the greatest sacrifice. The greatest achievements were made by those who worked for us to be truly empowered and the sacrifice was made by those who died to clear President Obama’s path. Achieving prominence on the plantation is not nearly as meaningful as achieving independence.

Before we conclude that we live in a post-racial America, we must remember that many of the men and women who voted for Barack Obama would not be happy to see your Black sons dating their daughters. While we see that the White House has a Black face, we must remember that the majority of our nation’s most esteemed universities still only bring in Black people to dribble basketballs (if you went to college, count the number of Black Professors you had during your 4 years who were not in an African American studies Department). Most of the media outlets you watch on TV are controlled by people who are not Black, yet they consistently impact the self-perception of Black children by bombarding them with negative Black imagery (i.e. DL Hughley's new show on CNN). Most of our nation's wealth is controlled by the descendants of slave masters, with poverty being inherited by descendants of slaves. There is a lot of work to do, we can’t forget that.

So, while having a Black President is a wonderful thing, it’s not the most wonderful thing I can think of. I would GLADLY trade a Black President for any of the following:

Another Malcolm X – Malcolm is likely the most under-appreciated American in our nation’s history, since his legacy is not as amenable to the excessive commercialization and mainstream comfort of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King achieved political gains and Barack gave us the White House, both of which can be taken away in an instant. Malcolm gave us something far more permanent – our self-respect and desire for economic independence. Since America will never give Malcolm much respect, it is up to us to remember that he is every bit as significant as Barack Obama and Martin Luther King, Jr. We should all memorize Malcolm's birthday right now.

10 Black Warren Buffets – my good friend and wildly successful money manager, Bill Thomason, brought up an undeniable point: if we as African Americans do not get ourselves together financially, we will never have true power. America is a capitalist democracy, and we cannot forget that money makes this world go round. Rather than teaching our children to get jobs, we need to teach them how to CREATE jobs. Rather than trying to wiggle our way up the corporate ladder, we should be creating the buildings that the ladders lean against. Wealth is more powerful than racism any day of the week.

An era of enlightened and educated professional and college athletes – The Black male athlete possesses many keys to the economic and social liberation of Black America. Many HBCUs can’t pay the light bill, but Black Athletes earn at least $2 Billion dollars per year for universities that don’t hire Black coaches or Black Professors (March Madness, for which athletes are not paid, earns more ad revenue than the Super Bowl and the World Series COMBINED). The powers that be know the potential influence and reach of an educated and empowered Black athlete, which is why they work overtime to keep them uneducated: when many athletes come to college, coaches pick their classes for them and some can’t even read at graduation. They keep them focused on the bling so they will take their eyes off the prize. These young men are taught like sheep to embrace intellectual mediocrity so their handlers can earn fortunes at their expense. They are granted the greatest power in our society as long as they prove that they are unwilling to use it. If these men were to ever wake up and fight for something bigger than themselves (as Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown once did), it would be absolutely earth shattering.

A Quality Public Education System – Rather than declaring a War on Terror, we should declare War on inferior inner city education. Instead of bailing out the rich guys on Wall Street, we should be bailing out our children who are stuck in the preschool to prison pipeline. Hundreds of thousands of potential Barack Obamas are being tossed in an educational landfill every year, as Black boys are 5 times more likely to be placed in Special Education as White kids (I was one of those boys). This is a damn shame.

Complete Overhaul of the Prison System – If you ever want to see slavery in the 21st century, one only need look as far as our nation’s prisons. There is little effort to rehabilitate, and the impact on the physical health and socio-economic stability of the Black family has been devastating. President Obama and others should confront the prison industrial complex immediately and stop the human rights abuses taking place in our nation's prisons.

Now that people are saying that President Obama’s success implies that there is no more racism, our job becomes much more difficult. President Obama and others must be consistently asked to pull their weight so that we can get a return on our investment in the Presidential popularity contest. But while we expect President Obama to lead us, we must also remember that it is important to lead him as well. The fight is just beginning.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University and author of “What if George Bush were a Black Man?” For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins.com. To join the Dr. Boyce Money list, please click here.

Your Black World: Obama Victory Spurs Hundreds Of Hate Crimes

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.

She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear.

"I can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it," said Millner, who is black. "But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking."

Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."

Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.

"If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.

Change in whatever form does not come easy, and a black president is "the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War," said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. "It's shaking the foundations on which the country has existed for centuries."

"Someone once said racism is like cancer," Ferris said. "It's never totally wiped out, it's in remission."

If so, America's remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5.

The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of Marietta, Ga., said she heard hateful Obama comments from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about Obama's victory.

Tyler spoke at a press conference by the Georgia chapter of the NAACP calling for a town hall meeting to address complaints from across the state about hostility and resentment. Another student, from a Covington middle school, said he was suspended for wearing an Obama shirt to school Nov. 5 after the principal told students not to wear political paraphernalia.

The student's mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: "Whether you like it or not, we're in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision."

Other incidents include:

_Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.

_At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."

_Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.

_Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.

_University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. "It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston said.

_Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose.

_Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.

_A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.'

_In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house."

Emotions are often raw after a hard-fought political campaign, but now those on the losing side have an easy target for their anger.

"The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book "A Peacock in the Land of Penguins." "If I can't hurt the person I'm angry at, then I'll vent my anger on a substitute, i.e., someone of the same race."

"We saw the same thing happen after the 9-11 attacks, as a wave of anti-Muslim violence swept the country. We saw it happen after the Rodney King verdict, when Los Angeles blacks erupted in rage at the injustice perpetrated by 'the white man.'"

"It's as stupid and ineffectual as kicking your dog when you've had a bad day at the office," Gallagher said. "But it happens a lot."

From Associated Press