You are enough, you are powerful, even in this unfair world

Income inequality, housing discrimination, lending bias, hiring preferences, woefully inadequate education, healthcare barriers.

Everywhere you look, the deck is stacked against those who had the misfortune to be born amid poverty or not white or both.

America was seized by white men hundreds of years ago and they haven’t relinquished their grip since. They created a system designed to benefit them and them only. When challenged, they found new ways to keep others at bay, from massacres to slavery to imprisonment to systematic oppression.

I can’t improve on what’s been said and written since the country, and then the world erupted to first protest police brutality and then, well, everything else. With good reason.

But I can show you how it relates to Money Mentor.

How we change our country begins with how we change ourselves. How we change our future is how we change our present. How we love others stems from how we love ourselves. How powerful we are is how powerful we feel.

That, above, is what Money Mentor is all about, applied to you and your family and your community.

We must take ownership of our health, our education and our money. We must demand a system that provides equal chance for each to all.

While beyond the purview of MM, the first step must be to change laws, policies, hiring and training to ensure that police no longer can with impunity beat, imprison or kill others because they didn’t or wouldn’t see us as humans, didn’t or wouldn’t listen to us as humans, didn’t care about us as even living beings, regardless of species.

I like this acronym that applies to way more than just police: LEED: Listen and Explain with Equity and Dignity.

But if we collectively demand equality by withholding our revenue, our labor, our acquiescence, we can change our communities, our country, our future.

We can channel our power to ensure our own health, our own education, and our own money. You are enough, you are powerful, you are worthy. Full stop. No caveats.

Now, let’s build a hopeful future. Together.

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Great financial resources that don’t want your money

There is a ton of financial sites out there. Some are good, some want your money.

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Here are the ones I recommend. Keep in mind I have no sponsors, no one pushing me to promote one over another. This is just my opinion.

Bankrate.com

I did a lot of research on this company when I applied for a job there several years ago. They vet their staff very, very well. They must, because I didn’t make the grade (ha!). But that was before I became a financial advisor. Passing your exams to be Series 7 and Series 66 certified ain’t no joke. I think I would have more success today.

I like Bankrate because I don’t worry that I’m going to accidentally click on a sponsor link and fall down a rabbit hole. It’s a wealth of great information, pardon the pun.

It specializes in loans and savings, it doesn’t include investment information.

Nerdwallet.com

Great information here, too, but I find the site a little overwhelming and it feels like I’m being lured into a specific sponsor’s site. You just have to navigate carefully.

I especially like its rating of online stock brokers.

Bloomberg Businessweek

I get this magazine in the mail. Why? Because the content is determined by the editors rather than search engines pushing up clicked-on articles. Who knows who’s clicking?

Also, as a former journalist, I find their work superb. Best journalism out there, in my opinion. Highly recommend this publication to just about everyone who wants to be informed.

Financial podcasts

Clark Howard, Dave Ramsey, Suzy Orman. They all say smart things. They all say conflicting things. They all hand out good advice and advice that just is not for you, personally. By the nature of their platforms, they have to keep their advice general and that’s OK. But remember, only you know your circumstances and therefore all of their advice won’t apply to you. It’s up to you do decide for yourself.

Don’t act just on what they say. Do more research and ask people whom you trust who know your situation.

Improve your life in one step

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Those who know me have heard me say many times, “Attitude is everything and happiness is a choice.” Always those two things together.

I have a short video on this subject, too.

We all know people whose attitudes are critical, negative, pessimistic, and sometimes downright cruel. As far as we can see, there is no need for it. I can think of one person in particular. She had financial security, a husband who loved her and pretty great children. She still chose to be miserable. By screening everything through a negative filter, she had little happiness.

In another case, I used to try to tell my ex “don’t go looking for the hurt.” She always did and it’s one of many reasons I ended that relationship. Back to choices again.

Then there are those who seem so damned lucky. Their life, no matter what is thrown at them, always works out. If we look closely, chances are it’s their attitude and those choices they make. They face the same family, financial and emotional challenges we all do.

It comes down to the pause.

What pause? The moment between stimulus and response. Some of us have no pause. Touch us and we scream immediately without looking at the bigger picture. We react. Reactions are primitive, blunt and often brutal. Everything gets whacked with a sledgehammer.

Responses on the other hand are measured, considered and crafted. Big difference.

What does all this have to do with money? Everything.

Reaction: “I got a stimulus check! The car needs new tires, but I’m going to buy a TV! I deserve it.” Really, Best Buy was sold out. Time horizon: nanoseconds.

Response: “I got a stimulus check. I’m going to save it in case the car blows a tire.” Response. Time horizon: weeks or months.

Reaction: “Uh-oh, I can’t pay this bill. I’ll ignore it. If they call me, I’ll yell at them.”

Response: “I can’t pay this bill. I’ll call them and try to work out terms.” (Vital point: Be nice. Kindness will get you anywhere. My family calls me the customer service whisperer. That’s my secret. Be nice.)

Reaction: “I was fired! I’m going to find a reason to sue!” The person spends their time trying to get even with their previous employer rather than looking for another job.

Response: I speak from experience. I realized I contributed to my dismissal because I hated my job and it showed. I used the occasion as an important lesson of pursuing jobs that align with what’s important to me, rather seeing it as a wrong against me personally. It wasn’t. That job just wasn’t a good fit.

If we choose to respond carefully to the events in our lives, we take control of our futures. If we react, we’re like pin balls bouncing off in unpredictable directions.

Last week, I met with four friends being careful of social distancing. I asked each one what was the best thing that has come out of this pandemic. In every case, it was the renewed focus on the important relationships in their lives.

Money is the tool that enables us to free up our time and reduce our worries so we can choose to enjoy the people in our lives, family, friends and strangers alike.

Choose a positive attitude and happiness comes right along for the ride.

I’m scared. Should I sell my stocks?

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Gut reaction: No! Can you make minor adjustments between stocks and bonds? Yes.

Remember, mutual funds and ETFs are conglomerations of stocks, bonds or both. Investigate the top holdings in each to understand its investing philosophy. Are they big tech companies? Energy stocks? Emerging markets? You want to stay in each category, but you can shift from stocks to bonds in those categories so you remain diversified. Stocks by their nature go up and down in value and there is no guarantee they’ll continue to pay the same amount of dividends.

Bonds also go up and down in value these days, but they are obligated to pay interest, that’s why they are safer investments, but offer a lower return. You can’t rely entirely on bonds because inflation will take its toll on the buying power of them over time. No way around it, y’all, you have to have some stocks. I go so far as to say you should always have some stocks, regardless of your age.

If you do need to make some changes because you’re too heavily invested in one part of the market, do NOT just go by which one is losing the most money in deciding which to sell. The old adage “buy low, sell high,” endures for a reason. If you sell the losers, you’re guaranteeing a loss. If you hang onto them, they might go up over time and you won’t lose any value. Wisely choose the investments, called holdings, that make the most sense in balancing your portfolio.

That’s why we have to understand our emotions when it comes to money. There are two emotions that drive the stock market: fear and greed. Fear makes us sell stocks when they’re dropping in value and greed makes us buy them when they’re nearing their peak.

So, if you don’t need the cash from your stocks, do not sell, especially if your portfolio still matches the amount of risk you’re willing to take. The higher percentage of stocks, 70 percent or more, the higher the risk. If you have investments in quality companies in a wide range of industries, size and location, you’ll be fine. Hang in there.

Don’t be afraid. Don’t be greedy. You’ll be fine.

Playing Jenga with Maslow’s pyramid

 

As we prepare for another month of social distancing and all that comes with it: isolation, frustration, fear and for many, financial disaster, I’m eager to find out what others are feeling about their own hierarchy of needs.

Let’s go through Maslow’s pyramid and see where we are:

• Physiological Needs. Food, clothing, air, shelter, and ability to safely perform bodily functions.
• Safety Needs
• Love/Belonging
• Self-Esteem
• Self-Actualization

If you’re reading this on a computer, it’s safe to assume your basic needs are met, and likely your safety needs, too. (Unless three people are all looking at your screen right now. Too close, people! Six feet.)

The next three are where it gets interesting.

Love and belonging are really big ones right now. Me, I’m surprisingly content even as an extrovert, but damn I miss hugs! I miss sharing meals with people I love. Before all of this, my calendar was packed with social events, sometimes running 14 days or more in a row.

Now that that all came skidding to a stop, I discover such a busy life was a source of stress, too. I ruminated over whether I chose the right activity when there were conflicting ones. I am loved. I do belong. I don’t need that external confirmation. I think when life slowly returns to normal, I’ll be much more selective about my time and enjoy more time to myself.

Self-esteem. Ironically, being away from people has helped my self esteem. I’m not judging myself through the others’ eyes, which I admit I did a little. Was that person a little cool to me? Do I look OK in this outfit? I hope I emerge from my Covid cocoon stronger and more self assured.

Self actualization. This has been an enormous boon! I have time to meditate every day, read fiction and non-fiction, write things like this. As I look at the future I saw for myself before Covid (BC), I realize that my travel plans for the next year are upended. Did I really need to take those trips? Can I meet my existential needs right here in beautiful Beaufort? I now know I can. My future looks significantly different now: more stationery, selective socializing, more introspection, more helping in my community.

How about you? How do you think this has changed you? How have you altered your vision of your future?

On a larger scale, what will our world be like when this is completely over, likely more than a year from now? This is a once in 100 years social reset and thankfully, it wasn’t through global war. Will we all be more grateful for the many freedoms we took for granted? I so hope we are.

Look out! It’s the pendulum!

The past four years have shown how far the left to right pendulum has swung. I thought it had arced. I fear not.

Example one, the Greenville County Council in South Carolina, home of BMW, Michelin, is voting soon whether to allow anti-gay bias to continue in the area. I have to say, I wasn’t aware of the 1996 ordinance that excludes homosexuality from acceptable social norms. Had I, I wouldn’t have given them any business. Well, I haven’t given them a lot, since I live on the opposite corner of the state, but I wouldn’t have given them a dime. I hope BMW and Michelin weigh in that that’s unacceptable to them. The weenie chamber didn’t respond to the newspaper on the issue.

Example two is from my alma mater, Michigan State University. MSU already has struggled with decades of sexual abuse by sports physician Larry Nassar (150 lawsuits and millions of dollars in settlements), I recently received an email  from the current MSU president (we’ve churned through them like butter) apologizing for a campus gift shop that hanged black figures from the ceiling. I so wish I was making this stuff up.

Example three,in Indiana, another state in which I’ve lived, an Olive Garden manager allowed customers to demand a non-African-American server. First, what is wrong with people that they can THINK that, much less SAY that! Second, what happened to the brain of the manager? (He or she was fired, but still.)

Circle the wagons, y’all. We ain’t through all of this hatred yet. The irony: straight white people still rule the world. Always have and likely will for the next several lifetimes. What did we do to them, other than ask for kindness toward others? Guess they don’t have any to spare. We’ll have to try to make up for them.

Driving your money bus

You want to know who is driving your money bus? You are.

Whether you’re sitting up front, steering your financial life around those potholes or sitting several rows back letting it careen hither and yon, it’s on you, y’all.

It’s a hard lesson to learn, that no one is going to chauffeur you around. That goes too for the people who hire financial advisers (I was one), accountants and other money men. Ultimately, the client is calling the shots, either actively or passively.

Now, before you dismiss this post as blaming people for being poor, which is what many people do, I am not. I am blaming the system that was, is, and always will be designed, protected and enhanced so rich people will get richer. Rich people run the show. Full stop.

But within those huge intimidating constraints, everyday people can eek out a living, save some money and someday retire.

That’s what this blog and eventual YouTube channel will help with. Helping you help yourself by understanding the system and working within it. Naw, you’re not going to change it, it’s a powerful, money engorged beast that eats those who step in its way.

Instead, let’s walk alongside it, shall we?

More to come.

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The fading penalty of death

 

Note: I wrote this on spec for a Georgia magazine. They passed. 

As the numbers of death sentences and executions continue their free fall in the United States, Georgia led the country in executions last year with nine, setting a state record for the most executions in one year. Texas, which has killed 542 people since 1973 and has executed more people since 1973 than the next six states combined, killed only seven people last year.

The surge occurred because Georgia had put executions on hold several times in the past four years as it changed the drugs administered, fought a challenge to a law that keeps the source of drugs secret, and replaced a stock of drugs that had solidified, according to the Chicago Tribune. In the meantime, several people on death row had exhausted all of their appeals and their sentences could be carried out.

The spike in Georgia is unusual, given the sharp decline in executions. Nationwide, the modern peak was 98 executions in 1999. Since then, the number has tumbled to only 20 in 2016, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

There are several factors that might slow the execution rate even further.

Drug makers balk at lethal use

One is practical. It’s getting harder and harder to find the needed drugs because pharmaceutical companies are under intense public pressure to stop allowing their drugs to be used to kill people. Since 1975, lethal injection has accounted for 1,274 executions, followed distantly by electrocution at 158.

Last month, Arkansas wanted to execute eight people in 10 days because its supply of midazolam, a chemical in its lethal injection , was about to expire and the state wasn’t sure it could get more.  Midazolam, a sedative, is a substitute for more effective drugs that are now in short supply.

Many debate whether midazlam is effective enough.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent in a recent Alabama death row inmate’s appeal  that, “like a hangman’s poorly tied noose or a malfunctioning electric chair, midazolam might render our latest method of execution too much for our conscience — and the Constitution — to bear.”

While Arkansas juggled last-minute appeals and court injunctions, it also was sued by McKesson Corp., one of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributors, to stop the state from using one of the drugs it sells.

McKesson alleges that the Arkansas Department of Corrections illegally obtained anesthesia drug Vecuronium in July 2016 by not disclosing it was buying the drug with the intent to execute prisoners, according to KFSM-TV in Little Rock. McKesson, which sells drugs for other companies, cannot sell the drug to federal and state correctional facilities that engage in capital punishment.

The same shortage of effective lethal drugs is plaguing other states, too. Thus, Oklahoma is bringing back the gas chamber; Utah is reviving the firing squad; and Tennessee is reconnecting the electric chair.

But in Georgia, the electric chair is off limits.

In a 4-3 decision in 2001, the Georgia Supreme Court said that death by electrocution “inflicts purposeless physical violence and needless mutilation that makes no measurable contribution to accepted goals of punishment. … Electrocution, with its specter of excruciating pain and its certainty of cooked brains and blistered bodies, violates the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.”

Innocence on death row

Another reason for the penalty’s decline, according to a recent article in The New York Times, is that judges are willing to give defendants every benefit of the doubt in their appeals because of the system’s spotty track record.  Since 1976, more than 155 people on death row were proved to be innocent, including six in Georgia and two in South Carolina. In Florida, 26 people were found to be innocent.

Norman Fletcher was Georgia’s chief justice in 2001 when the court ruled that the electric chair was unconstitutional. Since his retirement in 2011, Fletcher has become a vocal opponent of the death penalty in general and Georgia’s appeals process in particular.

In a recent opinion piece in the New York Times, Fletcher wrote that Georgia stands nearly alone as a state that does not require legal representation throughout the appeals process.

“Perhaps the biggest problem with Georgia’s system, and one of the reasons the state carries out so many executions, is that it often fails to provide people with lawyers,” Fletcher wrote.

While Fletcher was presiding justice in 1999, the court considered an appeal of a post-conviction hearing for Exzavious Gibson, who was 17 when he committed his crime.

Gibson had an opportunity to argue that he did not receive adequate representation during his trial, but, ironically, no volunteer attorney was available to file that appeal.

“Mr. Gibson, who was poor and apparently, from the records, intellectually disabled and afflicted by acute mental health problems, was forced to represent himself. That sham of a proceeding is one of the most deplorable vignettes in Georgia’s legal history,” Fletcher wrote.

The Georgia court decided, 4-3, that people with death-penalty convictions have no right to counsel at the post-conviction stage — a ruling still in force today.

“There can be no doubt that actually innocent persons have been executed in this country,” Fletcher said.

Too often, Fletcher contends, budgetary issues, race and politics factor into the decision-making of whether to seek the death penalty.

Shifting public opinion

The third possible death knell for capital punishment is waning public support. The New York Times reports that support for the death penalty is at its lowest level since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976.

A Gallup poll released last fall said 60 percent of respondents said they support capital punishment, down 9 points since 2007 and 20 points since its peak in 1994. Half of respondents believe the death penalty is applied fairly, the lowest level in the question’s 17-year history. Forty-four percent believe it is applied unfairly, the highest level in 17 years.

A Pew Poll this year found that support for the death penalty had dropped to 49 percent, marking the first time support had dropped below 50 percent since 1971.

Gallup’s report said, “This is reflected in, or perhaps the force behind, changes in death penalty laws in recent years, with a total of 12 states abolishing the death penalty or imposing a moratorium in the last decade alone.”

American courts imposed 30 death sentences last year, down from the peak of 315 in 1996, the New York Times reported. Georgia has imposed only one death sentence in the past four years.

A recent poll by NBC News showed that if injection is no longer available,42 percent of Americans polled said the death penalty should be discontinued. Twenty percent favored switching to the gas chamber, 18 percent the electric chair, 12 percent a firing squad and 8 percent hanging.

More reasons for the declining support for the death penalty is the expense and the lack of effect on crime rates.

Proponents of the death penalty argue that the ultimate punishment deters others from committing crimes. That isn’t true, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. A 2009 poll it commissioned found police chiefs ranked the death penalty last among ways to reduce violent crime. The police chiefs also considered the death penalty the least efficient use of taxpayers’ money.

For these reasons, we might just be hearing the last gasps for the death penalty in several more states.

Georgia’s execution history

Georgia has employed capital punishment since colonial times, with executions recorded as early as 1735. Crimes punishable by capital punishment in Georgia have included murder, robbery, rape, horse stealing, and aiding a runaway slave.

The first Georgia execution by electric chair was carried out in 1924 and the method quickly replaced hanging. The last hanging was in 1931. Before 1976, Georgia carried out 950 executions, the fourth-highest number of any state. Since the death penalty, Georgia has executed 69 people, the sixth most in the country.

Georgia’s two chairs:

• ‘Old Sparky’ was used from 1924 until 1980. Painted white, it is on display at Georgia State Prison in Reidsville.
• Chair two, a squat, varnished version, was used from 1980 until 2001, when the state ruled it unconstitutional. That chair is stored in a closet near the death chamber at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center in Jackson. There are 67 men on death row in Georgia.

The story of Lena Baker

Lena Baker was an African-American maid in Cuthbert, Ga., who was convicted of killing her white employer, Ernest Knight, and sentenced to death in 1944 after a four-hour trial in which no defense was presented on Baker’s behalf, according to NPR.  She was executed  in 1945, the only woman in Georgia to be electrocuted.

At the time of the trial, a local newspaper reported that Baker was held as a “slave woman” by Knight, and that she shot him in self defense during a struggle. In 2005, 60 years after her execution, the state of Georgia granted Baker a full and unconditional pardon. A biography was published about Baker in 2001, and it was adapted for the feature film, “The Lena Baker Story,” in 2008, which was shown at Cannes Film Festival.

Executed for a crime she didn’t commit

Kelly Gissendaner, 47, is the only woman Georgia has executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1983. She died Sept. 30, 2015, by lethal injection after exhausting appeals in her conviction for contracting her boyfriend to kill her husband, Douglas Gissendaner in 1997. Her boyfriend agreed to a plea bargain in exchange for testifying against Gissendaner. She is the only person Georgia has executed since 1976 for a murder she didn’t actually commit.

Georgia cases halt, and restart, executions in U.S.

It was cases originating in Georgia that caused the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the death penalty in 1972 because of unequal application and to restore the death penalty four years later.

Furman v. Georgia and two cases from Texas where two rapists were condemned to death, halted the death penalty in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, in 1972 that the death penalty violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and Fourteenth Amendment prohibitions against discrimination because it had been imposed in a seemingly random and inconsistent manner, according to Justia.org.

In that case, William Furman had broken into a home when the resident discovered him. He tried to escape, but tripped and fell. The gun that he was carrying went off and killed the resident of the home. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, according to Oyez.org.

The court found that the death sentences in the three cases were inconsistently applied and ruled the penalty unconstitutional.

Four years later, the U.S. Supreme Court in Gregg vs. Georgia ruled, 7-2, that the death penalty in and of itself is not cruel and unusual punishment. It said that careful and judicious use of the death penalty may be appropriate. Today, 31 states have death penalties on their books.

Finding the right combination

I’ve encountered two online applications this week that stood out from the crowd. I’m not sure if the questions they asked helped tease out whether someone would be a good employee or not, but they certainly identify people with whom you’d like to dine.

One asked about where one gets their news and what were the last three books one read. I think that question is more revealing than what one’s favorite book is. I wouldn’t trust any answer provided because people have carefully researched the right response. But the last three books one read? If answered truthfully, that would really provide great insight of a person.

The other application felt very intrusive and personal. “What is your goal in life? How do you describe a life well lived? How do you determine if someone is successful? How would this position move you closer to your life goals?” I don’t think “it would allow me to eat, which is a basic life goal” is the answer they’re looking for.

At the very least, I would have preferred to have waited until the second interview (date?) to have revealed things I haven’t told anyone but my closest confidante. I bared my soul and I doubt I’ll ever hear back. I wonder where THAT application will end up in cyberspace.

I also received my first rejection that I’m certain was from a computer. I had completed my application only the day before when I received an email that said that due to the large number of applicants, they would be pursuing other applicants with blah, blah, blah. I am pretty confident that a person didn’t read my application.

It seems as though I have to push the right buttons in the right order to get into drive. Can anyone help me with the code?

 

 

Business Badger awakens after 5-year nap

I find myself in a spot somewhat similar to where I was five years ago, when I started this blog. I’m back in the job market and blowing the dust off my blog so I can share my job search experiences and some observations I’ve picked up since.

The blog began five years ago as I noticed that applying for jobs is a demoralizing, time-sucking pain in the neck. Nope, nothing has changed on that front, but I certainly knew what to expect. The primary difference is trying to outsmart SEO. Haven’t quite perfected that yet either, because you know, I’m a person, not a word cloud.

So the new, improved Business Badger is going to tell you about what I’ve learned in the five years since I last published this blog. I’m going to write about:

Win-loss analysis

I’ve spent the past five years as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies in regard to win-loss analysis and customer experience. I have interviewed thousands (really, thousands) of buyers and customers. As I’ve said many times, it’s amazing what strangers will tell me on the phone.

They told me 1. what a specific sales process was like, 2. how competing products compared and 3. what their perception was of my client’s company, as well as my client’s competitors.

Then they told me the most important thing. They told me what was the primary reason they chose that $100,000 widget over the competing $100,000 widget. Seriously. I asked them as an objective third party and they TOLD me! In great detail! Even though I told them I was recording the conversation. Even though I told them I would provide their feedback to my client, whom I named. They told me anyway.

Where information goes to die

Here’s another lesson I learned about win-loss that absolutely blew my mind. I told my clients what their buyers told me, even quantified it across several buyers. I put it in a PowerPoint. I drew arrows, added bright colors and repeated several times the two or three key reasons they were losing deals. And you know what? More often than not, they went “hmmm.” “Interesting.” “Yes, that’s what we thought.”

Then you know what? THEY DIDN’T DO A DAMNED THING ABOUT IT! Time and time again, client after client. Nada.

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To be fair, some did take action and they saw their win rates increase. But it was a small percentage.

For those who did little to nothing, I’m astounded. Yeah, change is hard, I get that. But, really? Your buyers told you, verbatim, why you lost that deal. Then another buyer told you the same thing. And another. And another. I think they were trying to tell you something.

So, here is what learned what happens to most win-loss analysis results. “Great data. We’ll just put it over here. In the corner. Behind the fake plant.”

I think what happens is corporate leaders think they have to come up with a big, fat PLAN to address all of these recurring issues. Here is a secret. No, they don’t. They have to fix the first issue that keeps coming up. Then test to see buyers mention that again. If not, the problem was fixed. What’s next on the list?

For those who didn’t want to change or thought they couldn’t, eventually they got tired of hearing from me, telling them the same thing, buyer after buyer, quarter after quarter. They liked the idea of win-loss, but not the work. It’s hard work to change a process, or a product, or a sales leader. But sometimes the data is right there telling you exactly what to change and why. It’s telling you. From behind the fake plant. In the corner.