Get health care tips from Dr. Elaina George – how is your family going to afford it?
November 7, 2009
October 27, 2009
Mother, Wife and Businesswomen: How do you Balance?
In this episode of Financial Lovemaking, Dr. Boyce and Tia talk with Towanna Freeman, an author, speaker, wife and mother on how to balance love, life, and success.
October 16, 2009
American Express CEO Says Disaster was Averted in Money Crisis
American Express CEO Ken Chenault says disaster was averted in the financial crisis – do you agree?
October 2, 2009
Managing Multiple Baby’s Mamas: What Does that mean?
How do you deal with the challenge of having multiple children in multiple households?
September 30, 2009
Dr Boyce on CNN Radio – Love and Money Conversation
Dr Boyce Watkins discusses the rules of Financial Lovemaking on CNN Radio.
September 28, 2009
August 19, 2009
Dr Boyce Watkins: Love, Money and Merging Your Assets
Some people think that money and sex have nothing in common. Actually, they have everything in common. The act of merging your assets with another person’s can be an exhilirating process leading to the high of a lifetime, or it can be a devastating and emotionally crippling experience.
In a series of articles, I plan to lay out some examples that explain what sex and money have in common. Follow along, so that you can avoid the mistakes that are made by milions of people every single year.
Sex and Money Comparison Number 1: You could actually get the job done by yourself if you wanted to
No one says that you have to merge your money or your body with another person’s. There is a word we use to describe when someone takes care of his/her own physical needs, and I am not going to say it here. If you are not sure what the word is, then ask your mother, your boyfriend or your priest.
Just as you can take care of your physical needs yourself, the same is true of your financial needs. There’s an old saying "I can be broke all by myself." Thus, the choice to merge finances with another human being is not a choice we have to make. Merging assets with another person is also not a decision that should be taken lightly. It’s a decision you make only if you see potential benefits from the interaction.
August 14, 2009
Dr Boyce Money: Wells Fargo Accused of Predatory Lending….Again
Wells Fargo was recently hit with another discrimination suit in the state of Illinois.This is the second high profile lawsuit alleging that the company has engaged in predatory lending in black and Latino neighborhoods. The suit was filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and presents evidence that black and Latino customers were being guided toward higher cost loans even when they qualified for lower cost loans.
Obviously, these lawsuits are not good PR for a company that is one of the primary sponsors for Tavis Smiley’s yearly State of the Black Union event.
"I’m talking of the worst of the worst bad loans that were sold in the run-up to the collapse of the housing market," the attorney general said in a press conference about the suit.
The attorney general should be commended for taking on this lawsuit. Just a few months ago, Wells Fargo was accused of engaging in similar practices in black neighborhoods in the city of Baltimore. Christopher Chestnut, a prominent attorney in the state of Florida who pursues racial bias cases, stated that, "The factual allegations plead in both Illinois and Maryland courts indicate a trend of predatory inequity in lending by Wells Fargo. The alleged behavior is alarming, depressing and unnecessary."
Dr Boyce Money: Wells Fargo Accused of Predatory Lending….Again
Wells Fargo was recently hit with another discrimination suit in the state of Illinois.This is the second high profile lawsuit alleging that the company has engaged in predatory lending in black and Latino neighborhoods. The suit was filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and presents evidence that black and Latino customers were being guided toward higher cost loans even when they qualified for lower cost loans.
Obviously, these lawsuits are not good PR for a company that is one of the primary sponsors for Tavis Smiley’s yearly State of the Black Union event.
"I’m talking of the worst of the worst bad loans that were sold in the run-up to the collapse of the housing market," the attorney general said in a press conference about the suit.
The attorney general should be commended for taking on this lawsuit. Just a few months ago, Wells Fargo was accused of engaging in similar practices in black neighborhoods in the city of Baltimore. Christopher Chestnut, a prominent attorney in the state of Florida who pursues racial bias cases, stated that, "The factual allegations plead in both Illinois and Maryland courts indicate a trend of predatory inequity in lending by Wells Fargo. The alleged behavior is alarming, depressing and unnecessary."
Dr Boyce Watkins: Wells Fargo Accused of Predatory Lending….Again
Wells Fargo was recently hit with another discrimination suit in the state of Illinois.This is the second high profile lawsuit alleging that the company has engaged in predatory lending in black and Latino neighborhoods. The suit was filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and presents evidence that black and Latino customers were being guided toward higher cost loans even when they qualified for lower cost loans.
Obviously, these lawsuits are not good PR for a company that is one of the primary sponsors for Tavis Smiley’s yearly State of the Black Union event.
"I’m talking of the worst of the worst bad loans that were sold in the run-up to the collapse of the housing market," the attorney general said in a press conference about the suit.
The attorney general should be commended for taking on this lawsuit. Just a few months ago, Wells Fargo was accused of engaging in similar practices in black neighborhoods in the city of Baltimore. Christopher Chestnut, a prominent attorney in the state of Florida who pursues racial bias cases, stated that, "The factual allegations plead in both Illinois and Maryland courts indicate a trend of predatory inequity in lending by Wells Fargo. The alleged behavior is alarming, depressing and unnecessary."
August 10, 2009
Dr Boyce Watkins: Never Take Financial Advice from a Rapper
by Dr Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University
In his video called “Rich N*gga Sh*t” (I can’t even write the title, since I don’t want to pollute the eyes of my readers. Maybe you can fill in the missing letters, like in the TV gameshow “Wheel of Fortune.”), the rapper Soulja Boy has worked overtime to set an all-time record for massive hip hop buffoonery. But he’s only 19-years old, so I am going to give him a pass in hopes that he will choose to wise up at some point.
Showing off his new diamond chain that doubles as a remote control toy Lamborghini, the young brother proceeds to wow his audience by pushing the limits of financial extravagance. I’ve seen rappers with chains shaped like the state of New York or jewels that have their names on them, but I have never seen a chain that doubles as a remote control car. When I saw his latest “achievement,” I truly felt that he’d lost it. I am not here to say that Soulja Boy has not planned for his financial security, I really hope he has. At the same time, I’ve seen a ton of rappers get wads of dough, only to find themselves broke and spending their lives in the studio trying to create their next breakout hit. Let’s be real: the industry is not here to empower the rappers – it is here to enslave them. Soulja Boy’s comments about giving “big ups” to slave masters (for bringing black people to America) should have been saved for the slave masters in the recording industry who control his destiny right now.
August 2, 2009
Finance Professor Boyce Watkins on Consumer Confidence
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University
Beyonce has a song about how she loves men with “big egos.” This might imply that she likes men with confidence. Confidence matters a great deal in terms of male/female attraction, but believe it or not, it actually impacts our economy. Every month, the University of Michigan measures consumer confidence, to determine if Americans are willing to spend money and how they feel about their current and future economic security.
But you might ask, “Why would I care about confidence, since it’s only psychological and imaginary?” Good question. Actually, confidence is a psychological phenomenon which leads to very real impacts on our choices and behavior. A confident man who asks out every girl he meets will probably have more mating opportunities than a good looking guy who doesn’t open his mouth. A confident consumer is someone who feels good about his/her economic situation and therefore decides to spend money, which is always good for the economy. Confident companies make investments and hire new employees, but insecure companies put projects on hold and don’t hire anyone. Confident banks make loans, but nervous banks hold onto their capital, thus slowing down economic growth for the nation.
Your Black News: Dr Boyce Watkins explains the meaning of “consumer confidence”
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University
Beyonce has a song about how she loves men with “big egos.” This might imply that she likes men with confidence. Confidence matters a great deal in terms of male/female attraction, but believe it or not, it actually impacts our economy. Every month, the University of Michigan measures consumer confidence, to determine if Americans are willing to spend money and how they feel about their current and future economic security.
But you might ask, “Why would I care about confidence, since it’s only psychological and imaginary?” Good question. Actually, confidence is a psychological phenomenon which leads to very real impacts on our choices and behavior. A confident man who asks out every girl he meets will probably have more mating opportunities than a good looking guy who doesn’t open his mouth. A confident consumer is someone who feels good about his/her economic situation and therefore decides to spend money, which is always good for the economy. Confident companies make investments and hire new employees, but insecure companies put projects on hold and don’t hire anyone. Confident banks make loans, but nervous banks hold onto their capital, thus slowing down economic growth for the nation.
July 7, 2009
June 28, 2009
Black News: Listen to Obama’s Message on Healthcare Reform
Can’t get enough of Obama? Click the image below to listen to President Obama’s address and conversation on healthcare reform. The President wants to make healthcare reform a top priority over the next several years.
June 8, 2009
Dr Boyce Watkins: Our Nation’s Addiction to Credit Cards
by Dr Boyce Watkins
In an interview with NPR’s Michel Martin, I explained how credit card companies are really financial drug dealers. While this comparison might initially seem out of the park, it is actually quite appropriate: Credit is like a drug: it makes you feel good, and it is difficult for most Americans to feel secure or comfortable without it. Also like a drug, credit can be abused. Americans are hooked on consumption and credit card companies are willing to serve us our drug to the point of financial ruin.
The difference between financial drugs and medical drugs is that most financial drugs are legal, no matter how harmful they might be. In 1979, Congress got rid of usury laws, allowing credit card companies to charge darn near any interest rate they wanted, any fee they felt applicable and any penalty they felt you deserved. In other words, the legalized financial drug dealers were allowed to run rampant and sell as much of their product as the addicts could consume.
May 29, 2009
The World is Changing for Autoworkers
There was a time, not very long ago, when getting a job on the production line at a big automaker meant an instant ticket to the American dream, even for someone with little formal education. Not anymore.
"The minute you signed the paper, you were instantly vaulted into the middle class," said Mike Smith, director of Wayne State University’s Walter P. Reuther Library in Detroit, named for the founder of the United Auto Workers, the union that represents auto workers.
A shrinking paycheck. As the auto industry undergoes a sea change, the government has demanded that Chrysler and General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) bring their labor costs in line with foreign competitors operating non-unionfactories in the U.S.
Today, an entry-level auto-worker will be making $14 an hour, compared to the $28 "base rate" the job had earned before, according to a summary of Chrysler’s contract agreement.
May 19, 2009
Love and Money: How a couple works it out
In this episode of Financial Lovemaking, Dr. Boyce and S. Tia Brown speak with Jason Robertson, a former New York Yankee, and his fiance Marshawn Evans. Marshawn is a prominent attorney and sports marketing agent. Jason was a top draft pick and all-American baseball player, who learned the flaws of improperly managing his money. He has since recovered financially and become one of the top entrepreneurs in the United States. The couple discusses the challenges in their relationship and ways they plan to make good financial love. When is the best time to start talking about money in a relationship? What if your partner is not as comfortable talking about money as you are? What role does trust play in the formation of a financial lovemaking relationship with another person?
May 1, 2009
Love and Money: Are Rich Guys allowed to cheat?
In this episode of "Financial Lovemaking", Dr Boyce and Tia break down whether or not wealthy men are allowed to make mistakes that men with less money are not allowed to make. Dr. Boyce brings up Kobe Bryant as an example of men with power and wealth who are sometimes given the right to do things that other men might not be allowed to do.
Click the image to watch!
April 18, 2009
Black Money: Dr Boyce Watkins Talks Rushcard in the NY Times
In a speech today, the Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke talked about the need to “strike the right balance: to strive for the highest standards of consumer protection without eliminating the beneficial effects of responsible innovation on consumer choice and access to credit.”
Where exactly regulators think that “balance” lies has varied greatly over time. Throughout American history, politicians and their constituents have viewed access to credit as alternatively empowering and exploitative. We can’t seem to decide: Is making credit available to “subprime” borrowers helping them, or taking advantage of their ignorance?
April 12, 2009
Black Money: Tax Mistakes You Want to Avoid
Gentlemen (and ladies), start your engines. Tax Day is less than a week away.
But as you race toward the finish line, be mindful of common tax-filing errors. Some mistakes could cost you money. Others could raise red flags at the IRS. Tax software will do math and point out tax breaks you might overlook, but these programs are only as good as the information you enter.
Here are some common last-minute blunders, and how to avoid them:
Automatically not itemizing.
A 2002 study by the Government Accountability Office found that more than 2 million taxpayers who claimed the standard deduction could have lowered their tax bills by itemizing.
Deductible expenses include interest on your mortgage, property taxes, charitable contributions and unreimbursed medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjustable gross income.
Ordinarily, that threshold puts the medical-expense deduction out of reach for most taxpayers who have employer-provided health care.
But the economic downturn has led employers to shift more of the cost of health care to their workers in the form of higher deductibles, co-payments and co-insurance. That means more taxpayers could rack up enough unreimbursed expenses to claim the deduction, says Mary Canning, dean of the schools of taxation and accounting at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.
Automatically itemizing.
April 11, 2009
Your Black Money: The Cost of Raising Children
By: Sarah Horner
April 8, 2009
An article from MSNBC.com entitled, "Budgeting for Baby: What does it really cost?" outlines exactly how much having and raising a child will cost you.
"If you’ve never been a budgeter, now’s the time for a financial reckoning. Experts recommend that parents-to-be and new parents dedicate themselves to whittling down their credit-card debt (ideally — and here’s some tough love — to zero), while at the same time, building an emergencies-only savings account of six to nine months’ worth of expenses. Do whatever it takes to meet this goal: Spend on a cash-only basis and write down every expense — or use a free online spending tracker like Quicken.Intuit.com or Wesabe.com — so you have a visceral idea of where your money goes. And be prepared to sacrifice. "If you want to prioritize the expense of a child, well, you may not need as many minutes on your cell phone and you may not need as many meals in a restaurant," says Chatzky. "And by the way, you’re not going to be going to restaurants much once you have a child, anyway!""
To read the entire article, Click here
January 21, 2009
Tough Questions for New Treasury Secretary
Taxes aren’t the only question facing Tim Geithner.
Geithner, President Obama’s choice as Treasury secretary, will appear before the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday morning.
The hearing was tentatively set for last week, but it was pushed back after it came to light that Geithner — who as Treasury secretary would oversee the IRS — had failed to pay in timely fashion some $34,023 in self-employment taxes between 2001 and 2004.
Obama’s team dismissed the tax problems as a “common mistake,” and Geithner has since paid the required taxes and interest. Obama’s chief of staff said Sunday the president “absolutely” supports the nominee.
November 19, 2008
Should You Panic While Country Experiences Financial Crisis
by Dr. Boyce Watkins
http://www.boycewatkins.com/
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 and author of “Financial Lovemaking 101: Merging Assets with Your Partner in Ways that Feel Good”. For more information, please visit http://boycewatikns.com/
