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The Financial Flipside Podcast, Episode 20: Black Capitalism or, I’m a Business, Man

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a closeup of an eye from a $100 bill
Photo by Vladislav Reshetnyak from Pexels

 

“Gentrify your own ‘hood before these people do it/Claim eminent domain and have your people move in/ That’s a small glimpse into what Nipsey was doing/ For anybody still confused as to what he was doing /The neighborhood designed to keep us trapped. /They red-lined it so property declines if you live by blacks /They depress the asset then take the property back. /It’s a ruthless but a genius plan, in fact….”-Jay-Z, performing at Webster Hall, NYC on 26 July 2019

We’re starting this post with Jay-Z not just because of his deal with the NFL, in which Roc Nation partners with the league on matters of “entertainment and social justice,”  or because he claimed that we’ve “moved past kneeling” and “…need actionable items.” The lyrics above and the first glimpses of the Roc Nation/NFL partnership (Inspire Change apparel, Roc Nation’s artists having their songs strategically placed during NFL broadcasts, and a Chicago-centric pair of charity donations, including one to a group that posts photos of young black people having their dreadlocks cut as part of the road to a “better” post-gang life on Twitter) are a great jumping off point for a discussion of black capitalism that we’ve been meaning to have for a long time.

This is a long one, and we have a lot of… thoughts, and feelings. So many feelings. Listen in as we talk about Reconstruction, economic anxiety, Booker T. Washington, shadow economies, entrepreneurship, space travel, Kamala Harris’s student loan proposal, self-sufficiency vs. self determination, and much more. Capitalism alone is a complex topic, as is Black people’s relationship with it. Consider this episode as a way of laying the groundwork for discussions that we will likely return to off and on in future episodes.

Show notes and related links are as always, below the cut.  To listen to previous episodes, check out our website, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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The Financial Flipside Podcast, Episode 19: Housing Things

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A row of colorful Victorian houses.

As of May 2019, the average price of a new house in the US was $377,200, a price that will buy you, on average, an apartment’s worth of space for every member of your household. Alongside expanding house sizes and the proliferation of luxury condos is a stark reality: the United States, like many other places in the world, is in the throes of a housing crisis. While there is plenty of physical housing to be had, very little of it is affordable , especially when one takes into account that most people’s wages have remained relatively flat. For example, as of June 2019, there is not a single place in the US or Puerto Rico where a minimum wage job would allow a person to afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment.

 

Despite what looks like a bleak housing picture, people, especially in the United States, remain invested in home ownership, even if staying in their homes means stretching their salaries or spending hours commuting each week. Why are Americans obsessed with home ownership?  Does the idea of one’s house as a source of wealth hold up? Is HGTV ruining the way we think about real estate? What are the ways out of our current mess? We take on these questions and more in this episode.

Lots of interesting links below the cut

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The Financial Flipside Podcast, Episode 18: Looking Back: A Tax Season Wrap-UP

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A woman with shoulder length curly hair and glasses sits in front of her laptop. She holds a phone in her right hand. She is wearing a cream-colored blazer with a green shirt underneath. Her facial expression is suprised--raised eyebrows and a slightly open mouth. She points gestures toward herself with her left hand.
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

The first tax season after the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was full of surprises. When the IRS published its weekly filing statistics during the last week of tax season , the numbers confirmed what many taxpayers were shocked to see when they finished their returns: namely, that tax refunds were both smaller and a bit harder to come by. The number of refunds decreased by 1.9%, while their size decreased by 1.3% (or about $36–this is a correction from the $55 reported on the show). In this episode we talk about what happened and why, our national love affair with tax refunds, corporate tax avoidance, and why the IRS isn’t pursuing as many investigations despite new data that reveals that more people are cheating on their taxes.

A show outline and links can be found below the cut.

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The Financial Flipside Podcast, Episode 17: Shut ‘Em Down

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A weathered blue sign reading, "Sorry, We're Closed" hangs in a shop window. The sign is blue with cream-colored lettering edged in red

On December 22, 2018, the US government entered what was to become the longest shutdown in the country’s history, when the  President refused to sign off on a Congressional budget that didn’t include a requested $5 billion in funding for a border wall. The government temporarily reopened 35 days later, but not before damaging the economy and pushing many federal employees and people who rely on government funding social programs to the edge of their own fiscal cliffs.

 

How and why do shutdowns happen? What, if anything, did we learn from this experience? What can we do to prepare if the temporary funding lapses on February 15th without a budget in place? In this episode: “savings crises,” conference committees, grocery store negotiations, and only slightly less ire about borders than in our economics of immigration episode.

 

Speaking of which, if you’ve missed any of our previous episodes, you can find them on Apple Podcasts , Google Play, Stitcher., or on our website. Questions? Comments? You can email us at info@financialflipside.com or find us @financeflipside on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

As always, relevant links are located under the cut.
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The Financial Flipside Podcast, Episode 16: Year-End Money Moves

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a hand writes a list with check boxes in a graph-ruled notebook

As the year draws to a close, a lot of us carving out time between holiday parties and wrapping up projects to make a few New Year’s resolutions. After writing or typing out our lists, we roar into the new year with the best of intentions, armed with gym memberships, apps, and new gadgets. Yet, by the end of 2019, more than 90% of us will have abandoned our resolutio until December, when the whole cycle starts again. In this habit-forming episode, we talk about goal setting: why we succeed, why we fail, and some strategies for making your 2019 resolutions ones we’ll keep. Because we’re a money and finance podcast, and because financial resolutions are incredibly common (one poll taken at the beginning of the year found that saving money was tied with diet and exercise changes for the most popular resolution), we also discuss some things to do to get your finances ready for 2019.

Not subscribed yet? You can do so on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher. Our previous episodes can be found here. If you want to talk to us about habits,  resolutions, or your financial goals for 2019. we’re @financialflipside on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

Mentioned on the show:

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The Financial Flipside Podcast, Episode 14: Can’t Knock the (Side) Hustle

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According to a recent Banrkate.com survey,  4 in 10 Americans have side hustles, or jobs that they work in addition to their primary source of income. Another survey of 1,000 Americans from CreditLoan.com found that 15% of side hustlers want to start a business of their own. If the legions of breathlessarticles aboutside hustling are any indication, we may be nearing a future in which everyone is living their entrepreneurial dreams and working 50 hour weeks.  Today’s episode tackles the hows and whys of side jobs, including making friends with fear, adjusting to irregular income, ethical side hustling, and turning your side hustle into a full-time business.

Discussed in this episode: