Hi All,
This is another off-topic post, but I wanted to let our readers know that the DINKS made it on the top 100 blogs for 2007 as noted by creditcard.org. Creditcard.org is a site that offers form letters for corresponding with credit monitoring agencies and a forum for answering questions regarding credit and debt. The site is a bit ad heavy, but the content looks good.
At any rate, you might want to check out their top 100 list, so click here for the goods!
Best,
James
Okay, this post has nothing to do with this weeks theme here at the DINKS, but its got sex, lies, money and extortion, all the things that make a great story. Supposedly, this woman Jessica Wolcott who is a notorious internet strumpet, attempted to extort $125,000 from Pepsi executive Gary Wandschneider by threatening to tell his bosses that he was cruising for women on using his work email.
The story is too good to pass up. Apparently, she also attempted to borrow money at prosper.com. Check out the NY post story here. The Smoking Gun report is here and there is more info at the dealbreaker.com.
All I can say is, thank goodness for the internet.
There’s nothing like a Thursday morning sex scandal!
Best,
James
Magic Johnson is one of America’s better known Afro-American celebrities. He’s also really rich, and has been smart about his money, so he’s probably worth listening to. This clip is pretty short, so you might want to check it out what he has to say.
In honor of race week, I thought it would be good to look to our census data to check out what it tells us. According to the data, Whites certainly come out on top, which isn’t much of a surprise. Hispanics have consistently come in above Blacks in America. This is interesting because, I would think there would be some affect seen in the increase of Hispanic populations in recent years, but this doesn’t seem to be demonstrated by the data.
What this data doesn’t tell us, and what would be interesting to look at, is the affect of education and particular job categories. Given various education levels, would there be even more of an affect shown on salary levels? Within specific job categories would there be an abundance of a particular race, also contributing to the distribution of salaries?
Can you tell I just got back from stats class? Sorry to geek out on you!
Best,
Miel
Today’s posting is an interview with J.G. Thomas and Monifa Thomas from the Tavis Smiley show on National Public Radio. The purpose of the interview was to discuss Tomas and Tomas’ work describing African-Americans wealth. Since you’re probably short on time, I’ll briefly describe the results of their research here.
The main finding of their study was that most wealthy African-Americans did NOT become wealthy through sports or entertainment. In fact, athletes and entertainers represent only 10% of the total Black millionaires. Fully 85% of African-American millionaires became so by starting a successful business.
Their second finding was that African-American millionaires differ from everyone else in that:
1) read a lot, 2) travel a lot and 3) live below their means by not spending more than they earn.
Finally, Thomas and Thomas got their data from state and federal tax returns as well as from data on real estate transactions. As everyone knows, there are some disadvantages with this type of data, but its better than some studies of wealthy people (e.g. Stanley and Danko’s millionaire next door) which have problems with representativeness.
Click HERE for the NPR Interview.
Best,
James
Race and wealth is always a touchy issue here in the States. While on the one hand, free trade and transparent capital markets have done wonders for many Americans, minority ethnic groups are sometimes left behind in our economic system.
That said, in an effort to bring Afro-American voices into the personal finance discussion, here is a video by Keith Jones, a speaker and author who has focused on building wealth in the African-American community. If you listen to the core of his message, I think you’ll find that its consistent with writing by others: live frugally, save and invest regularly, etc.
The video is a bit long, so you might want to close your browser and listen to it in the background.
Best,
James
Macedonia is a slice of Europe at a fraction of the cost!
I’ve been in Macedonia for the last week for business and thought I’d share a bit about this fabulous country. While I’ve been working 12-14 hrs days and haven’t had much of a chance to explore, but I can share a few tidbits.
I’ve been here for 12 days and have spent less than $10 a day on food. Keep in mind that this isn’t a starvation diet. This includes main course, sparkling water, wine, appetizers and dessert! The food is fabulous and you’d think you had landed in Italy if you didn’t know better. Main courses themselves run at about $4-$5 at the most expensive restaurants in town!
Additionally you have 
all sorts of spa treatments at prices you thought you had to go to Thailand to get. $10 for an hour massage, manicure & pedicure, or leg and bikini wax. $5 for an expensive haircut. $100 for a package of 20 body wraps and massages!
They’ve got lakes in the summer and skiing in the winter, plus the people are fabulous and the weather has been unseasonably warm!
Happy Travels!
Miel
P.S. In case you are wondering where Macedonia is, I’ve included the handy map above with the arrow indicating where MK is. It was referred to me as a small country between Greece and Italy, as it’s food would reflect. In reality it landlocked between Serbia, Albania, Greece, and Bulgaria. It was former part of Yugoslavia and gained independence in 1991.
Check out this video of a homeless guy waxing poetic about being on the street. This is an excellent example of why you should save money.
A while back, I was having some trouble daytrading too much. One solution that I came up with was to cancel my subscription to the Investors Business Daily. IBD is a great newspaper, but every morning I’d obsess about the latest hot stocks on the subway. I found that the temptation was too much and I was acting without having adequately thought through my decisions. To make a long story short, I cancelled my subscription a few weeks ago, and I’ve been trading a LOT less.
For example, in September I made 9 trades. In October I made 12. As far as November goes, I’ve only made 2. Hopefully, I won’t have to make too many more. After all, a buy and hold strategy only works if you actually buy and hold.
Have a great Saturday and don’t trade too much!
Best,
James
[REMOVED]
So, we’re rounding out our tribute to Milton Friedman week here at the DINKS. If you have a spare couple of minutes, you might want to check out this video where Milton Friedman discusses his opinions about tariffs. The video is just one minute and thirty seconds or so, but its got Don Rumsfeld, so its worth a look see.
Hope your thanksgiving was a good one!
Best,
James
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