• 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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by Fenorris Pearson, CEO – Global Consumer Innovations, Inc

No matter how many people work at your company, it only takes one or two people to change the game you’re playing. Choosing your alignments on the job can make all the difference in your career. In fact, forging alliances in the workplace is a lot like getting elected: it’s not the most popular candidate who wins, but the one who has proven himself/herself to be the most influential.

In terms of voting power, finding the right alignments is about courting individuals with the most votes that count. In other words, you can have all the friends in the world, head the Cheer Club, lead the league in strike-outs on your company softball team and generally have the popular vote, all without winning the election. Just ask Al Gore, who won the popular vote in the 2000 election, but lost the Electoral vote.

These viewpoints are most certainly capitalist. When you’re in a corporation, democracy doesn’t help you win the favor of your co-workers; your outcomes are determined by your relationships with key decision makers – those one or two consummate executives who have the most influence on your future with the company.

The corporate alliance is a very intimate one; for better or worse, you could be aligning yourself with someone who is very visible, influential and known throughout the company. A consummate executive also remembers that it’s not just the ally you’re courting, but everyone in his or her network.

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"The high cost of each premium and the high deductible a person or family must pay per year is my biggest complaint against health insurers."

"For example, I pay around $300 a month for my wife and me for basic coverage, and pay a deductible of $750 each every year, not to mention a co-pay of $15 to $20 at the window."

"My yearly income is around $32,000 a year. Very little is left for goodies. Meanwhile, a doctor takes in $80 to $120 a visit that lasts 15 to 20 minutes. Imagine how much he makes a day, a week, a month, a year. Plenty of goodies here."

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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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by Fenorris Pearson, CEO Global Consumer Innovation, Inc. 

If you measure some of today’s top performers by yesterday’s gold standards, they simply wouldn’t measure up. Industry icons, business mavericks and game changers like Bill Gates, Walt Disney, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Rachel Ray and Michael Dell didn’t finish school or have a great education; and based on those two metrics alone, no one could have measured their full potential. By focusing only on such metrics, you might be missing the most valuable components of a person’s engine of success.

As a guest on Steve Harvey’s show, I was recently talking about success, potential and the wide gap between good grades and pure genius. Steve said something that I’ll never forget. When coming up “the hard way” he would interview for jobs or audition for various roles and, based on purely measurable qualifications – school records, his one-page resume, or whether he has movie star looks – he never quite measured up. “But what they couldn’t measure,” said Steve Harvey, “was how big my dream was…”

What a difference the power of dreams can make. As the star of The Steve Harvey Show, Steve won four NAACP Image Awards as “Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series.” He also won an NAACP Image Award for his performance as host of the variety series It’s Showtime at The Apollo. In March 2001, Harvey received the ultimate honor: NAACP Image Award’s “Entertainer of the Year,” and now has a NY Times best-selling book on the market.

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by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University, Your Black World 

I had a lot of fun watching the new Vh-1 show, "Going for Broke," starring comedian Eddie Griffin. Griffin is one of the funniest comics in America, the comedian that Chris Tucker could have been (if he would simply stop disappearing between Jackie Chan movies).

On the show, Griffin gives insight into his personal life, which is both intriguing and disturbing. The show is called "Going for Broke" for a reason, because Eddie just might actually get there.
Here are some reasons that Eddie Griffin might actually become the broke celebrity that he is trying to become:

1) He spends like a damn fool. One of the easiest traps for an entertainer to fall into is the "infinite money trap." That’s when the person thinks that they’ve got an endless supply of cash, giving them ability to spend whatever they want on whatever they want. Apparently Eddie may have fallen into this trap, since his Bentley was being repossessed in an early episode of the show. Eddie’s conversation with his accountant was also revealing, as the words "all the accounts are empty" seemed to strike him hard. With all the success that Eddie Griffin has had, it is difficult to imagine that he would be completely broke. But the truth is that this kind of thing happens all the time.

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by Fenorris Pearson, CEO – Global Consumer Innovation, Inc. 

Education is critical for success, but when everyone has the same education from the same Ivy League schools with the same GPA… how do you stand out? Other factors beyond education – business etiquette, dress, playing well with others, teamwork and dedication are easy to measure and log. But what of those immeasurable traits that count for just as much in the corner office: passion, drive, commitment and stamina?

How can we measure the immeasurable?

When it comes to playing at the top, it’s often the intense, burning desire of the candidate that makes the difference between success and failure. At the end of the day, performance and results are two of the most important traits a top performer can possess. Work harder than your competition, and you’ll win the battle every time.

Another thing that people can’t measure with grades, paychecks, promotions or time cards is what’s inside your heart.

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