The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: John hope Bryant Talks 'Financial Literacy For All,' Operation HOPE, U.S. DEI, Credit Freedom + More

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

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Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's D.J. Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. Yes, we do. John Hope Bryant. Welcome, brother. I'm honored to be here, man. How are you feeling? I'm blessed.

New book, Financial Illiteracy for All. Not illiteracy. No, financial literacy. That's right. Financial literacy for all. So what's the reason for the book? Before we tell the book, I want people to know, who is John Hope Bryant? I mean, other than God's child. Other than Juanita Smith's son and Johnny Smith's son.

Closer to the mic so they can hear you. From South Central Los Angeles. My mom and dad. My granddad was a sharecropper born in 1871, R.B. Smith. My second great-grandfather was part of the Black Union troops tied to Reconstruction, George Young. Everybody should know your history. My mom and dad came from the South to South Central L.A., married, built a little mini fortune in South Central LA with next to nothing, gas station, apartment building, two businesses, own home, lost it all.

Because my dad was financially illiterate. So I became passionate about the topic. I mean, we can get into, I was homeless, as you know, for six months of my life. So people think I had some silver spoon in my mouth. Not true. And lost everything I had some silver spoon in my mouth. Not true. And lost everything and had to rebuild myself. Today, so I've gone from literally the bottom quartile of the economic situation to I guess I'm the 1% today that people talk about. I'm the largest minority owner of single family rental homes in America.

Say that again, please. I'm the largest minority, read black, owner of single-family rental homes in America. I own 700 homes. 700 rental homes. Wow. Yeah. But to be structured properly, I bought them through the Promise Homes Company

over five years, which I was the sole owner of. I sold the company for $120 million, Christmas Eve 2021. Then I went to Taco Bell. That's why our transfer was going through. You went to eat? Went to celebrate with a nacho belgrano? At number one, hard shell. What was the symbolism in that?

Like, is that something you ate while you was homeless? Yeah, actually. Actually, good take. It was what I ate when I was homeless? Yeah, actually. Actually, good take. It was what I ate when I was homeless. But also just keeping it simple. Like, take life seriously. Don't take yourself too seriously. I also built the largest financial literacy organization in America.

It's called Operation Hope. We have four million clients. We've invested $4.5 billion in our communities. We've created 400,000 black businesses through 1MBB. I came up here with Toby Lukey, who is the founder of Shopify. He was one of the top 10 richest men in Canada. Invested $4.5 billion into black communities, right? Yep.

And what was the other one? So we finished with the single-family rental home piece, even though half of my vendors there, by the way, are plumbers, heating, electricians lighting roofing landscaping painting they're black and brown people so so owning the homes is one piece at dj you know about this owning the homes in one piece but you can empower people with jobs and contracts that you can't do any place else and the bigger i make that company and i plan on owning 10 000 homes the more i can empower my people with contracts i was doing i'm doing right now a few million dollars a year in contracts,

and that's sustainable contracts and wealth creation. So that's Promise Homes Company. Then you've got Operation Hope, which has 300 offices across the country. That's what you're talking about, where we've invested $4.5 billion in underserved neighborhoods and created 400,000 black businesses since George Floyd's murder. And if you're listening or watching this and you own a gas station or you have a barber shop, you should have an e-barber shop. You have a restaurant, you should have an e-restaurant. That's right. You have a nail salon, you should have an e-nail salon.

In other words, you should be able to go online, make an appointment, buy some products. You make money during the day, you build wealth in your sleep. At Operation Hope, we're raising credit scores 54 points in six months, 120 points in 24 months. Nothing changes your life more than God or love. The move in your credit score, 120 points. We're lowering debt $3,800 and increasing savings $2,000 for somebody making $48,000 a year. So we're the only nonprofit in history ever allowed to operate inside of a bank branch, ever. So that means you're getting the bank out of the no business. No, I'm sorry,

I can't make you a loan. And back into the yes business that we think is racism. It might be, but it also might be your credit score stinks. Half of black folks have a credit score below 620. Not poor people. Everybody. Latinos are right behind us. And so when you wake up in the morning, half of us are locked out of the free enterprise system.

Ambassador Andrew Young would say, who was on that balcony when Dr. King was assassinated, he'd say to live in a system of free enterprise and not to understand the rules of free enterprise must be the very definition of slavery. So, DJ, to answer your question about why the book, it's a civil rights issue of this generation, period. The last one was in the streets, civil rights. This movement's in the suites, civil rights. The color is green, not black or brown. Not black or white or brown or red or blue. It's green, and it's always been green.

Slavery was about money. If your day's not about God or love, your day's about money. But we don't understand money. We want to spend it, which is an emotional play, by the way, which is tied to our self-esteem or lack thereof, which goes back to the mental health issues that you and I talk about. But we don't understand it. And you make, as I said earlier, you make money during the day,

you build wealth in your sleep. So this is like everywhere and everything. You live in a capitalist democracy. America's the biggest economy on the planet, the sole superpower in the world. Let me ask you a couple of questions. And I wanted to set the table. I'm glad.

I wanted people to know who you are. That's just two of my five divisions. Yes, but I want people to know who you are and what you've done because we live in this world where everybody's a financial literacy guru and everybody's got a financial literacy book it's like no john o'brien is the real deal first of all thank you for that but it just drives me nuts man like do you want to do you want a surgeon you know doing cancer surgery on you and they they saw a video on youtube i mean do you do you do you want somebody driving a big red car that's next to you and your family,

and they never took a driver's test? They'd be like, oh, I got this. I mean, this is crazy. This is like nuts. It's big business, though. It is a big business. And folks, you know, and God bless their hustle. But this is not something to mess with.

People talking about, you know, the most important other than your health and your spirituality, there's nothing more important in your life. This is like breathing. And you have folks selling books and tapes and seminars. And again, I'm not messing with anybody's hustle. But this is not something to play games with. And you cannot become wealthy by selling books and tapes on becoming wealthy. That's not the way this thing works.

But that's a whole industry. And it just stuns me, man. I'm like, I've been in these boardrooms. I see the credit facilities. I don't see these people. I don't see the folks who are the financial influence. In fact, if you're doing that full-time all day, all night. How could you possibly be in the streets doing what you're saying you're doing?

That part. I have 400 employees. I mean, that's full-time, man. I've got a CEO of each one of my divisions. My payroll is a million and a half dollars every two weeks for the last 30 years. I mean, you can go pull up my tax returns. For my nonprofit, at least, you can pull up my tax returns. $72 million last year.

I'm the largest black founded nonprofit founder who's running it in the country. I've got a couple of questions. So, you know, the main thing that's been coming out of for people that own single property, single family units or multifamily units is the squatter laws, right? We've seen what happened a couple of weeks ago in New York. What's your take on the squatter laws? Because it seems like squatters have more rights than the actual owners. It's crazy.

You know, and look, again, you're not going to find a more compassionate capitalist, but I am a capitalist. Even if you want to distribute money like a socialist, you have to first collect it like a capitalist. Like, this is just nuts. And people don't understand that most people own these properties. They're not big businesses.

It's a doctor. It's a dentist. It's a teacher. A bus driver. A bus driver who has a rental property. They're trying to build some generational wealth. And fantastic for them, by the way. It is possible that financial freedom is the only true freedom, because every other

freedom can be taken away from you. Political freedom, religious freedom, look at what's going on right now in society. I mean, women listening to this and watching this, men try to tell you what to do with your body. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Were you in the womb with me and my mom? Were you in the, I mean, how's this conversation tied to you? But financial freedom, unless you screw it up, that's yours. And so to have a squatter come and move into your spot and then start telling you the rights that they have, I mean, it just goes against every basis of reason and common sense that I have.

And I'm from the neighborhood. They go from home to home. It's a business. Yeah. It's a business. You know, people say a lot of crazy stuff like, oh, I hate rich people. No, you don't. You hate rich people until you become rich.

What you hate is a game system. What you hate is a system rigged against you that you don't think is fair and honest. Okay, I get that, which is why I'm trying to build the ladder, show you how capitalism really works, which is why I wrote this book, et cetera, et cetera, right? Just break this down and make it approachable. But you actually don't hate it because you actually, if you look at your life, most people are actually aspiring to achieve it. That's what these squatters are trying to do, trying to get something for free, right?

We're all capitalists, man. Everybody's a capitalist. You have a part-time job. You're using your human capital, and you're exchanging it for some gig money. You have a job. You work from 9 to 5. Same thing. You have a career. Now work from nine to five, same thing. You have a career,

now maybe you're working from nine to nine, or maybe you don't have hours because it's a salary. You have a C-suite job, which is a step above a career. Your boss can call you in the weekends and the evening, but still the risk is on the entrepreneur, the business owner. And then you can get to the piece where you've got a business owner, which is a franchise or some kind of existing business plan that you pre that you pre understand like Taco Bell or whatever. But we don't even understand that. We don't understand that McDonald's actually is a real estate play. Not to buy all the property. That's right.

And then, and then you have the crazy people like me who are entrepreneurs who are, who are wake up with our hair on fire. But we also have the highest risk and highest reward. So you have low risk and low reward here and high risk and high reward here. But it's all capitalism. You're all using your human capital or your financial capital to go get yours. And what do you think about the, you know,e biden was talking about raising the capital gain stack so that business guys who who try to like me sell stuff and buy and sell for hire

they're going to tax you at a he's trying to tax you at a 48 percent rate now but what hurts is we just talked about all these these minorities a lot of them is the first time that they are millionaires in their family so you got guys that are 100 millionaires but now you make your first million they tax you 48 how can that possibly generate be a generation of wealth when they cutting it in half so uh so folks who don't who don't own anything and don't realize that they're capitalists and be like yeah tax them tax the rich tax the rich until they get that tax bill for that property they own and like whoa whoa whoa i didn I didn't mean me. So you just said some deep stuff, and I'm not sure if you realize how brilliant what you said was,

but I'm going to come back at you and underscore what you said. People say, oh, Warren Buffett pays more. No, Warren Buffett's secretary, and I love Warren Buffett, by the way. He's a cool dude, actually. His secretary pays more taxes than he does. Well, of course. She's a W-2 employee. So a W-2 employee is somebody who gets a paycheck. Buffett is not a W-2 employee.

I look forward to the day, I'm not, I'm mostly not, but I look forward to the day I'm not a W-2 employee. Real wealth creation is about capital gains. So a couple of misnomers. Most taxes in this country are actually paid by people like me. And us, by the way. That's right. 75% of all the tax income in this country comes from the wealthy.

That's just a fact. The poor don't have the taxes to pay. And luckily, and I think appropriately, they get tax breaks. So that's one. But where do those taxes come from? It comes from capital gains and other forms of taxation. So the capital gains tax is about 20%. So if you're getting a W-2 check.

Explain what capital gains is for people that don't know in simple terms. So let me back up. So if I'm getting a regular check, I'm going to pay 35% plus whatever the state tax and maybe it's the city tax. So I may be hitting in California, maybe hitting 48% of your paycheck unless you have some, some kind of a carve out and you're getting that every two weeks, right? If you're a Tony wrestler, who's my business partner, who's a 200th richest man in the world worth $10 billion. Owner of the Atlanta Hawks.

Owner of the Atlanta Hawks. Well, that's what we know. He owns him and Michael Arrighetti have Aries Management here, which you've never heard of before. That's $380 billion in assets under management. He gets no paycheck. But when he sells some stock or he sells a piece of real estate or he sells a company, there is a capital gain. There's a gain on the capital. And that one transaction

is taxed. When I sold my company, I got the largest tax bill of my life, and I was honored to pay it. Now, did I work hard to get the number down? Sure, I did. But what I owed, I was honored to pay because that means I made some money. I did well in America. So, I'm not mad at paying taxes. I paid seven figures that year in federal taxes alone. And then I had another high six-figure tax in just my Georgia tax bill. I think my Georgia tax bill that year was $600,000. That was the easy tax. So, and so, by the way, once you start paying taxes,

you start being concerned about infrastructure. You start seeing potholes. Hey, man, fix these potholes. What's up with that? Why isn't the hospital working? The police start, you realize, police work for you. It changed your whole mindset. But to come back to your point, I think that part of this is, I agree with a lot of what President Biden is doing.

And there is no choice but him in the reelection. There is no rational choice. The other dude is a divider and got all kind of mental issues he needs to deal with. But and it's just not, you know, the Bible says a house divided cannot stand. It's just actually just good math. You cannot have somebody who's dividing people and you're trying to grow GDP. Hopefully we get to that in a minute of how really diversity is the business plan for this country. So that one piece, I don't know I'm down with. I think that you want to double the capital gains tax from 20 to 40, you may just literally just stop a lot of investment in this

country and you will crater the returns for the average person so couple numbers you have about 80 million rental homes in America so 80 million homes in America 30 million or so I believe are multifamily my memories right 50 million so our single-family homes of those about 18 million or rental homes of that about 500,000 are institutionally owned owned by guys like me. Most of those are what we were talking about. It's the trash collector who owns a second house in his neighborhood.

Well, if you double the capital gains tax, if you're not really careful, you're going to destroy that man's generational wealth he just created. So the average person who's a capitalist is the gas station owner. I mean, it's a small business owner. So we got to stop demonizing success. We really need to be trying to encourage, actually, people to become wealthy and successful. I'm going the exact

opposite direction and making it easy for them. Now, we got to pay for it. Everybody should pay their fair share. But I like math. It doesn't have an opinion. That's a Melody Hobson quote. And the math to me is what I said to you. The wealthy are already paying more than their share. Now can there be more fairness? Yes. There are private equity dudes who get away with all kinds of stuff

and hedge funds dudes that get away with a lot of stuff because of the way the tax is structured. That needs to be refined. I think people are talking about when they see these billionaires or these billion-dollar companies not pay anything. That's not right. Like Amazon not paying anything. Yeah, that's not right.

Corporations, but by the way, they have hundreds and hundreds of people in the tax department trying to figure out how to get that tax break that the city and the county and the state did that nobody else knows about. So they're working the system. And you can't be mad at somebody who's legally working the system. But once you figure out that somebody is working the system, then you need to rework the system, upgrade that software so that the state and the federal government don't go broke. Manhattan doesn't work without subways.

Manhattan doesn't work without police. So you have all this, you have one of the wealthiest countries in a city in the world that we're sitting in right now, but doesn't work without the public sector. What would you say to people, you know, before I go back to what I was saying, because I think this is I think this is where you were going. I was saying that it hurts us when we're first time millionaires, especially minorities in our family. And we get taxed in a way that we cannot necessarily continue that where somebody else a lot of these uh white people get this money over time so they already have the money to start and that's what i was saying and he was like yeah we don't have we look this this could be a three-hour conversation i mean you can go down any of these directions and take it for an hour like we don't have the generational wealth we don't have the we don't have the inheritance

we don't have you know our Our capital is a credit card, right? That's how I came up. So, of course, you had me at hello. You're absolutely right. I mean, I literally had to use credit cards to invest in my first businesses, and I didn't take a salary ever because I knew my businesses needed that capital return. And I didn't pay, I'll admit it, I didn't file taxes when I was coming up as a hustler in my late teens. I was homeless when I was 18 to my early 20s. I didn't pay taxes for six or eight years.

Now they came for me. Franchise Tax Board in California, they're not playing. They literally put somebody in my lobby once they found me and collected, like it was like a gangster, collected every dime. And I was like, hey, I'm cool with that. I played the game. Now you're playing me back. Fair changes, no robbery. But I needed that capital. I needed to not pay him for a minute. I needed every dime to go in that business. I wasn't trying to avoid my obligations. I wasn't focused on the details like I am now. Now I have audited financials.

I mean, IRS is my friend, right? I'd rather. Well, have to be your friend, right? Absolutely. I'd rather owe money to my mother, God rest her soul, than the IRS. You know the guy Al Capone? Oh, yeah. It wasn't murder and mayhem.

Oh, yeah. It was tax evasion. That's right. So you don't play with it. And, you know, you got to take it seriously. And I think you should feel proud to pay your fair share because we live in, I think, the greatest country in the world, even with all our drama. I think people don't have a problem with paying their taxes. I think they have a problem with where the money goes, right?

Most people don't know that the IRS has a division that actually looks at social media to see where you're at, where you're spending. If you're on vacation, what you're spending, what you're driving and all that. I think when people start hearing we're sending $6 billion to Ukraine and $8 billion here and $10 billion here, and then they look at where they live, that's why I think people have a problem. I think if they knew where the money was going and it really benefited their community, I don't think people will have the problem. But then let's talk about community because the grain comes from Ukraine, right? I mean, if you're eating food, there's a good chance of eating bread that it actually originated in the Ukraine.

So if Russia is blocking ships and you're wondering why inflation is popping up, it's because Russia is jamming you up on oil and they control that. And you're not getting your grain from the these developing countries uh we get 12 of our oil at least we used to from nigeria by the way and that's a whole nother conversation why nigeria doesn't have enough oil for its own people but uh we're dependent we're interdependent on the world so you can't just isolate yourself and you got to educate yourself which i by the, I love what you guys are doing because you're the educator. You're like an open university for the whole country.

You're entertaining, but you're also educating. We live in an interconnected world with the largest economy on the planet with the sole superpower. And we rely on our alliances with the world, including where you see us dropping bombs sometimes. Now, we don't, America doesn't drop bombs where it doesn't have an interest. Now, Bill Clinton was one of the few people who did that. He went to Somalia just for a humanitarian situation.

That was the Black Hawk Down movie that came out. It was an unfortunate outcome. But most places, if you see us there, there's some economic interest. Why are we in the Middle East? Hello. You know, oil. Why are we in the middle east hello you know oil why why are we in the ukraine yes it's horrible but there are a lot of places that's horrible look at haiti we're not in haiti we're there because we have an economic interest

protecting the interest we're protecting our interest so on a real talk if you're once you become start becoming a taxpayer you start you start looking at where is the money going and it needs to make sense and when it it doesn't, vote people out. Okay, now we're back to the right to vote. When you have a stake and you're a stakeholder, all of a sudden, voting makes a whole lot more sense. And filling out these forms and the census and all that stuff, which determines what money's coming to your community and what money's not. We broke down credit scores by zip codes

at Operation Hope. And we found that if you live in a 580 credit score neighborhood, you see a check casher next to a payday loan lender. Liquor store. Next to a rental-owned store, liquor store, pawn shop, title lending store, and a church down the street. That's your local neighborhood therapist trying to make you feel a little bit better once a week

but if you live in a and by the way that's black and brown urban that's also poor white rural but if you go to a 700 credit score neighborhood which is 15 minutes away you live 20 year longer life you live to 61 years old

in the hood you live to 61 years old in the hood. You live to 81 in a 700 credit score neighborhood. And they don't ride in a 700 credit score neighborhood. They go shopping. This is every place in America, 15 minutes apart. It is unbelievable when you start looking at the math and stop getting emotional about this. You can actually figure out how the world works. And in the underserved neighborhood,

we 28% of us own a home. If you can get 40%, consider yourself lucky in a 700 credit score neighborhood, 75% plus on a home in the poor neighborhood, the underserved neighborhood, 60% of those go to high school. 96% of those go to high school, meaning graduate means go to college in a 96% of those go to high school, meaning graduate, means go to college,

in a 700-credit-score neighborhood. Not racial. It's economic. And it's not about the credit score. It's about the mindset. And then you start having different businesses who then target those neighborhoods. Policing changes. Oversight.

Your government services change in those neighborhoods. A lot of these poor counties, man, they make their money on course fees, on processing the poor. What would you say to people who hear you say, you know, the color isn't black or white, it's green, but then they would say, but, hey, there's systemic things, you know, systemic racism that shows up in a lot of these institutions that keep us from getting to the green. Like, you you know the stat that says mortgage denial rate for

black borrowers is twice that of the overall population how would you how do people get around stuff like credit scores i mean look my mother had a my mother my mother when she passed away last year juanita smith had a credit score of 854 when she went to the computer dj at night at midnight the credit score the computer didn't say, are you black? Are you Latino? Are you Indian? Let me look at you.

The computer said yes. The computer, I challenge anybody listening or watching this program, get a seven in front of your name. You want to be cool? We got to make smart sexy again. You want to be cool? Get a seven in front of your name on your credit score. Go in front of the computer.

Forget all this drama. Go in front of the computer and type your stuff in. Now you have to have an income. Don't play games. Now you have to have an income. You have to be paid back. But you have a decent credit score. You didn't play games with the credit bureaus. You didn't pay for it. And watch the approval come through. And by the way, if it doesn't, come see me at

Operation Hope. We'll go advocate for you to the banks. I have a policy at Operation Hope. I funded $4.5 billion over 30 years. I have a policy. I'll approve your loan if the bank doesn't. I'll put up my balance sheet. If you do what we say at Operation Hope, you get your credit score up, you get your debt down,

you get your savings up, just follow what we're saying. We'll walk you into the best bank with the best terms in America. They may be racist, by the way. Maybe the person, it's not the bank that's racist, it's the person you're talking to, by the way. Bank wants to make some money, right? But if the person you're talking to happens to have gone from a horrible family

and is a racist, doesn't want to give you a loan, we'll make sure they do. Now, I want to answer my self-esteem depends on your acceptance of me. I'm not coming to you for religious and spiritual guidance. I'm coming to get a mortgage loan, right? I don't need you to be my friend. It's okay if you don't like me. I like me, right? So let's keep the message straight. I'm not coming to church. I'm coming to get

some capital. I will walk you in there and dare them not to approve your loan. The banks in the business are making money. They can't make any money if they don't make a loan. You think it's a time right now to for somebody out there buying a house absolutely with interest rates so high interest rates are not high i mean i know you're prodding me look because four years ago they were you know people were buying houses at 1.9 2.5 money dj it was free money come on man now it's seven and a half it's like capital on crack it was free money man

like why and why was it free money? Because we had the 2008 crisis that almost cratered the entire dang on economy. People were getting a mortgage loan and saying, what's the payment? And people were doing negative amortization mortgages, pick-a-pay mortgages, like pick my payment. It was crazy stuff. The trash man was getting a million-dollar house. No interest only. Interest only.

Oh, my God. Negative amortization where you owed more after the payment you made than you owed before. I mean, God. It was in the back and it was crazy. So the whole system went cray cray. And again, Bill Clinton has a great quote. It's hard to get somebody to agree to the truth when the lie is paying your paycheck. So that 2008 was a lie paying the paycheck for Wall Street.

And so the government had to like, okay, we got to repair this. And of course, they did the deal with the banks. But then it's like, we got to get the cost of funds to a point where the economy is flowing. So they took it to almost zero like Japan did. And then when they tried to get everybody off the capital crack, Wall Street was like, every three or four years, Wall Street, no, no, no, no. Things are going to get really horrible if you raise interest rates. So every Fed chairman would try to raise interest rates,

and Wall Street was like, no, no, no. And there'd be some crisis, many crises on Wall Street, and whoever was president was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, not on my watch. So they had to wait. I hate to say it this way. They had to wait to a crisis that had enough credibility. That was COVID. Wow.

When COVID hit, the policymakers were like, whew, because there's never been stimulus with a T in front of it, trillion, in the history of the world, EJ. Think about this. Never, no government has ever issued before the COVID trillion dollar anything other than treasury bills or something, right? So we had six, eight, nine trillion. So when people say inflation now, I'm like, no, no, you should be lucky the ship's not sank. Like, you should be lucky this is not the Titanic.

The fact that we're arguing over three percent interest rates, the president needs to get a standing ovation. Like, we're the only growing economy in the world we're the biggest economy in the world and we went through the worst crisis since the spanish flu 125 years ago we went through it for four years and we the economy was shut down for two and here we are talking about well is interest rates are interest rates four or five percent so first of all it was almost nothing i loved it as an investor i loved low interest rates i was paying for a i'll give you a personal example i had a million a two million dollar line of credit i was making a payment every month of like twenty five hundred dollars on my two million dollar line of credit i was loving this interest rates went up well now my

payment every month is ten thousand dollars so it's this is a real adjustment i'm rich and i still feel that right so it's yes it's an adjustment but you can't argue with five percent when when my mom and dad were coming up interest rates were 18 and my first house was 16 there you go right and if you're financially literate today you feel you're still paying 16 you go into a car lot and you're not getting a Mercedes, you're getting Mercedes payments. Because that interest rate is 18, 19, 20%. They own the paper. By the way, people just get pimped every day.

Because they hope you default on that car loan. They hope you drive it for a year. It breaks or you break. You bring the car back. They have a little argument with you. They hit your credit report. They get another payment from you. They take your security deposit. They repair that in the

shop in the back, which is where they really make their money, maintenance, and they resell it through the second most profitable thing in that car dealership, which is finance department. There's three departments in our auto dealership. Sales, maintenance, and finance. Sales is the least profitable of the three areas,

but we obsess, what do we do? We obsess about what's the purchase price? And then how do I get the loan? Here's the payment I want, which is exactly the wrong question. Going back to your issue, if you're financially illiterate, you're not asking what the interest rate is,

you're asking what the payment is. Correct. And you never ask what the payment is when there's an interest rate attached. So 5% is, yes, higher than this generation has ever seen. This generation has only seen a black president and social justice and all that. We're a little spoiled, but it's actually not that bad. And we need to get used to it because it's going to be around for a while. I don't think interest rates are going to go up anymore.

I actually think they're going to come down a clip at the end of the year. But I do believe that we're in the, if we can get back down to 4%, consider ourselves lucky. I think we're in the 4% to 5% era for a while. But by the way, that's the best in the world. You go to the Caribbean, I own property in the Caribbean. When interest rates were 2%, they were doing 6% and 8%. And when you can finance a mortgage for 30 years here, they finance it for 5 or 10 years there. We have a great system here, actually. So what would you advise people who are listening right now who might be a doctor, might be a bus driver, might, you know, working every day? How would you advise them to set up for not only their future,

but their children's future? So maybe they don't have to work for the rest of their life and they can enjoy some of their life. What would you advise from, from there? So first of all, get financial literacy for all, get the book. I wrote the book because not everybody can be the clients of operation hope that everybody can have a conversation with me. By the way, when I go through airports, the TSA agents, yo man, 680. That's dope. Yo man, I, 680. That's dope.

Yo, man, I'm 712. It is dope. I love it. They're calling out the credit score to me. That's exactly what you want. We got to make smart. Sexy again. We've been making dumb sexy for way too long,

dumbed down and celebrated it. So get the book. Have weekly conversations about money at the kitchen table. Like we don't talk to each other. We talk at each other. We talk at each other. We talk past each other. We don't sit down and have dinner anymore. It changed a lot with kids though,

because I never had that conversation with my pop. So my mother about finances, right? It was just their thing. You mind your business and an adult and as adult, but I have those conversations with my kids now and they understand it a lot more. They know how to make money.

They know where the money goes. They know mortgage they know interest rates they know more than i ever did at my age which makes them have a different relationship with money but you're the exception with all due respect you're the exception and not the rule i love you doing that right but that's not the rule brother that is not what i see at operation home that's not what i'm seeing in the community people look we mix our self-esteem with our money or the lack thereof. And if I don't like me, I'm not going to like you. If I don't feel good about me,

I'm not going to feel good about you. If I don't respect me, don't expect me to respect you. If I don't love me, I don't have a clue how to love you. If I don't have a purpose in my life, I'll make your life a living hell. Whatever goes around comes around. Now you got a surviving mindset. Now you're an expert in what you're against not what you're for right and and you're not you don't have a builder's mindset you don't you're not your head's not

clear a lot of our people our head is not clear and and so we shop for therapy you know we we have a bunch of ings running our lives, shopping, drinking, drugging, sleeping, oversleeping, sexing, texting, trolling, partying, hanging, all this stuff in moderation. Most of it's not that bad, but we obsess about it. When you're depressed, literally a depression is tied to to an addiction and addiction is a response to an emotion you can't handle and you your reaction to that should be to heal which in the deal which is what you just said which is what me and charlamagne's conversations are always about but healing for most people is just too tough so they just they just cope most of the world copes and they cope by pulling out their credit card

and going buying something they can't afford to impress people they don't know about stuff that don't matter in places where they don't want them. And so what I say is, get your self-esteem right. Become reasonably comfortable in your own skin. Learn to love yourself, whole and complete. That's where it starts.

And then once your head is clear and you've got a clear head, you've got to fight this new fight from the neck up in here. Your mind has to be right. This is where wealth gets created. A drug dealer can make money. A pimp can make money. A murderer can make money. A hitman can make money. Wall Street can make money. Anybody can make money. A murderer can make money. A hitman can make money.

Wall Street can make money. Anybody can make money. There's something magical about that. But money is velocity, man. It will come through your hands. That's why somebody can make a $100 million NBA contract and working at Starbucks in seven years. That's how somebody can win the lottery.

70% of those winning the lottery broke, bankrupt in five years. 70% of NFL and NBA players busted in five years after they retire. So it's not about, rich is a contract. Rich is tied to an income. But that income, if your outflow exceeds your inflow, then your overhead will be your downfall. And you can do that whether you're making $30,000 a year or $3 million a year if you're financially illiterate, if your self-esteem's not right, if your values are not right.

And as you said, it's not like we're not dumb and we're not stupid. Most single parents need a Nobel Peace Prize for running a household with too much money at the end of their money. I'm not jamming anybody up, but I'm saying that just because somebody sets you up doesn't mean you need to continue to play into that narrative. So we need to flip the script, start having family meetings every week about the lights don't come on by themselves. Let's walk through the family budget.

What does it cost for us to live? Let's buy that house in the hood. D-A hyphen H-O-D. Buy it. Buy the worst house on the best block. Buy it. Rehab it. Live in it.

Build some equity for two or three years. Take the equity. Buy another house in a working class neighborhood. No mansions, no flossing. Buy it, rehab it, and rent it. Do that a third time. You do that three times, you'll be a millionaire. That was

my mother's story. That was Juanita Smith who worked an hourly job at McDonald's aircraft and died with a million dollar net worth having bought and sold seven homes. A person listening to this with an hourly job can McDonald's aircraft and die with a million dollar net worth having bought and sold seven homes. A person listening to this with an hourly job can become a millionaire. Now somebody says, well, John, where's the capital come from? Okay, here's knowledge. Earn income tax credit.

Now you earn $38,000 a year. You're listening to this program. You're a teacher or whatever. You have three children. Congratulations. You just qualify for EITC. If somebody says, what's that? All of you just hook that person up with a check.

Because all you do is work and have children, in this example, and the government owes you, in this example, about $6,000. Now, DJ, it's retroactive for three years. Where do you go to get that? Us, or the federal government, or VITA sites with the IRS, or your tax pro. But most people who have a working income don't have a tax pro, so you don't even know. $20 billion a year goes back to the federal government every year because poor and working class people don't ask for the money that is already allocated for you. And the policymakers in Washington know you're not going to ask for it. And they get the political credit for approving it and then reallocate that to something in their district

because they know you're not going to claim it. You're not going to ask for it because you don't have the information. That's it. And we're changing that today. So this example, if you've never filed for EITC, Earned Income Tax Credit, in this example, you got to check for almost $20,000. You take that $20,000, you then use it as a down payment on that house I just mentioned, right? We're going to get your credit score up at Operation Hope, 54 points to 100 points. We're going to get your debt down $3,800. We're going to get your savings up through budgeting $2,000. You don't need to go to Starbucks three times a week. Go use a Keurig machine, right? You shouldn't be smoking cigarettes. It's going to kill you anyway you anyway right so let's just change that's six thousand

dollars a year you smoke and go to Starbucks every week that's six thousand dollars a year you making thirty six thousand dollars a year help me with the math that's almost 20% of your income two ways to make money make more or spend less this is this is a this is rapid I mean this is a different form yep a rap is just this is intelligent rap this is the kind of rap that leaves you better. Well, you got to get to the message. When they say, are people perished from a lack of knowledge? That part.

And there's two things we have to get to today. You know, we were having a lot of conversations, man. And I don't think you've ever shared this publicly. But why is diversity and inclusion the only way America will survive. So on this topic of D, E, and I, and I've never shared this with anybody, it's because of you that I actually got focused on this. You called me on a Sunday and we had this great conversation for an hour and you're like, okay, well, John, what should we do? We can't just let people get away with doing nothing. It caught me thinking. So I said, well, here's the six things I think we should do. And you're like, write that down.

And come on the show. So coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. Just so happens the book was out at the same time and all this stuff worked for good. But black people are too emotional on this topic. And some white people are too narrow-minded and fearful. This literally makes no sense. Like this, I'm dropping this today.

We're going to publish this in a couple weeks, I believe, on CNBC. And I'm taking on the entire hard right. And my prediction is they won't have much to say. Here's why. It's called The Business Plan for America. Now I'm going to do this real quickly. In 1952, America was 90% white. Let that sink in for a minute.

That meant that what Dr. King and Andrew Young and Dorothy Hite did in the civil rights movement was genius. Because basically, America was doing the moral thing. Because we didn't have the numbers. America today is 40% black and brown. You add all other minorities in, we're already a majority of minorities. But black and brown group will be a majority of minority within 10 or so years. Now hold that together. So now we're a majority of minorities.

We're going to be the first generation where the population is a majority over 65 years of age. Read baby boomers who are white, wealthy, and trying to retire. By the way, none of my comments are racial. This is just the math. So in our lifetime, you're going to have the first generation over 65 years of age, wealthy, white, and trying to retire. Social security by 2034 will only be able to pay 70 cents of every dollar for retirement. Hold that up there, which means you need more money going into social security. Now you have a population of black and brown people for the first time in history that's basically going to be a majority or minority, and that's just going to keep escalating. The largest population of poverty in this country are poor whites, which people don't know. And

the number one group dying are high school educated white men. Hold all that to the side for a minute. Now you have, by the 2045 census, you're going to have all these sort of numbers coagulating together, and you're going to have an economy that doesn't work anymore because we're not working.

You don't have, because black and brown people were never given the memo on free enterprise, capitalism, economics, ownership, and opportunity. We confuse making money with building wealth.

By 2053, black America will have a net worth of zero. Let that sink in for a minute. If we do nothing but all we're doing right now, I didn't say poor people. If all we do is what we're doing right now, if right now black people have a net worth, 41% of black people own a home, 41 to 43%. The number one way you build wealth in America is home ownership.

It's part of what we've been talking about today. And once you become a homeowner, I mean, literally, there's only so much land and that's it. It's done. Once you own it, you own a piece of this rock, man. And it's hard for that value not to go up if you're anywhere near places of economic activity and jobs. So that's how people compound when they sleep. But we don't own homes.

Latinos are not much better. By 2072, I believe it was, Latinos will have a net worth of zero. So the two groups that are going to be the majority of minorities were never taught free enterprise, capitalism, economics, and opportunity. Okay, so now let's, economics, and opportunity. Okay, so now let's deal with diversity and inclusion. What's the biggest economy in the world? I've already said it, the U.S. What's the most diverse country in the world?

The U.S. What are the two most diverse states? California and New York. What are the two most prosperous states? These are not trick questions. California and New York. California and New York. All right, what's the biggest economy in the South?

Not a trick question. Biggest economy in the South? No, biggest economy in the American South. That's the traditional American South. Atlanta. Atlanta. $455 billion a year. Tenth largest economy in the United States. What's the most diverse place in the traditional South?

Atlanta. Atlanta. Now, you take six states around Atlanta, states not cities, you can name them Alabama, Mississippi, like you can name them. The Atlanta city economy is bigger than all six states. You can take three of those states together, put them inside a bucket and sit it inside of the city of Atlanta's economy. That's because diversity is actually good business.

If you are a business today, a company, a Fortune 500 company, you're 36 more likely to be prosperous and profitable if you're diverse and inclusive. Put another way, the most profitable big companies in America are diverse and inclusive. The math on this stuff, and we can go on you know i can do this forever but i think the point is sort of obvious what i'm saying is the mass is undeniable and here's another one city group did a report not the naacp which i love not the urban league not operation hope not la raza city group did a report on racism about black people. 2020 to 2020, 2000 to 2020, discrimination against blacks alone

cost the U.S. economy $16 trillion. Trillion. The annual economy is $22 trillion. And if we just knock it off, you pick up a trillion dollars a year. These are things you can look up to. Don't think John O'Brien is just saying this stuff. You sent me the information.

I've read these articles. Everything I'm saying here, if you're nosy, if you're nosy like me and Charlamagne, and now DJ, and now I know you, if you're nosy like us, you can look this up and confirm everything I'm saying. So what am I really saying? How do you cancel diversity, and inclusion programs which are basically d and d e and i is the r and d the research and development for the future economy because 70 of the u.s economy is consumer spending 70 is you and me buying coffee going paying our car

notes paying mortgages going to dinner so if the folks replacing the folks got the jokes but don't have the capital, we can rock the stage but don't own the stage, we can bounce a basketball but don't own the team, we can rent the house but we don't have a mortgage and own the home. How is this country going to continue? Like, God has a sense of humor, man. Literally, America can only continue to be the superpower of the world. There's never been a superpower that wasn't an economic power.

Think about France. Think about Germany when it was on top. Think about Italy, Rome, when it was on top. You can go on and on and on. It was never a superpower that wasn't at the same time the economic power what's America today but we cannot continue unless the folks listening to this program and watching this video become capitalist well there you have it podcast somehow become become compassionate capitalist compassionate capitalist

i mean i i you know i have a a patent a copyright that i'm trying to get called black capitalist matter we talk about we talk about black lives matter i'm i'm i have a twist on that black capitalist matter i'm trying to make this whole topic sexy in the suites, just like we talked about this stuff in the streets. We've got to start expanding opportunity for all and start transitioning. I mean, this is an intellectual property you guys have here. You have a brand.

You have a brand. Jess has a brand, right? I mean, iHeart has a brand. This has a revenue stream, right? What you do here allows you to go on vacations and contract with people and hold conferences, sub-conferences, and pursue your own personal passions, right? Some of which work, some of which doesn't. Allows you to give to charity, become philanthropic. And if you're coming from an underserved neighborhood, you're more likely to have compassion and want to give and do something for those neighborhoods.

I said, I'm sure this will be controversial. I said when I was an advisor for President Obama at this time, I wrote a piece, said that it was more important to have a black Bill Gates than a black president. And I meant it. Because the era of politics was the 20th century the era of capitalism is the 21st century the world's moved on is not about in fact government can't do anything without the revenue from the capitalists if you had a black bill gates that people could emulate go okay wait a minute this dude is a 100 billionaire he's created uh uh you000 multimillionaires. And now you've got 200,000 people making six figures. And all those people are giving money to their church, their nonprofits,

they're sending their kids to college, the ripple effect of all that. And then they're role modeling. Then they go off and start a business and buy a business. And now that you had a whole new mindset of who you can be, you cannot have everybody trying to be TI or Jay-Z or Beyonce. It's not scalable. Everybody can't be Oprah. Literally that's a person with 30 employees maximum. God bless what they're doing. You have 40 million black people, you know,

probably the same amount of Latinos. We need engineers. We need, we need mathematicians. We need computer scientists. We need stuff that's scalable and lasts over time. So it's a complete mind shift, right? We need a business plan. We are the business plan for America. The future of America depends on diversity. Quite literally.

That's right. And I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm not getting emotional. I'm passionate. I'm not getting emotional. This, to me, is just math. What I love about this is the math is undeniable. It's not even close.

What was the other stat? There's not enough college-educated white men? There's not enough college-educated, successful white men to drive GDP, gross domestic product, for the next 30 years. I'll say it again. This is not in any way. Anybody want to listen to this and take a little piece of this and take it out and try to manipulate my words and say that John Bryan is race-baiting?

I'm going to say it again slowly. This is not racial. It's math. There are not enough college educated, successful white men to drive gross domestic product for the largest economy in the world for the next 30 years. That's never happened in the history of the world. Never. In 1952, you could ignore black people. You could ignore Latinos. You could ignore Native American Indians. You could ignore white people. Rich white people could ignore poor white people. What are poor white people doing now? Riding at the ballot box. Think about it. That's what's happening. It's never happened in the history, the modern history of this country. When you say God has a sense of humor, it's simply because the institutional racism of this country will ultimately cannibalize this country.

Yes. And I think that COVID was a Noah's Ark moment. I think that we were heading down a path. We had a guy, we had his president, who based on the economy of 2019 would have got reelected because most people vote their pocketbooks. That would have been disastrous for democracy. I think God's like, you know what?

I give you guys free will, but every now and then I got to intervene. And within a year, think about this. Within a year, you had COVID that shut down. We haven't been shut down for two weeks. We were shut down for two years. You could look down the street and there was literally nobody there. COVID, George Floyd. Now, now wait a minute everybody was watching it rich and poor black and white conservative and liberal why we watch it because covet had us at

home looking at the news if it wasn't for covet it'd be like come on baby what's going on i don't know it was a horrible shooting in minneapolis did you see it i didn't see it what time is dinner on to something else but everybody was watching it. That then created a social justice reckoning of black America, $63 billion to $300 billion, depending on how you look at the numbers, funded by the private sector, right, which is where DEI and all this stuff came from. We haven't seen that in 400 years. Then that led to the January 6th.

We haven't seen that since the British attacked the Capitol, which has us all thinking about our role in democracy. Then you had, as a follow-up on that, you had this Roe versus Wade. Now white women are pissed off. Everybody's now re-engaged in democracy. Whether you like it or not, the only thing I give this former president credit for is he's got everybody focused on democracy. Because before that, nobody voted.

So this year is a colonic this year is one huge colonic like we're just flushing everything out trying to figure out who we're going to be when we grow up and if we want to be the continue to be the superpower in the world we got to grow up and we got to realize we're better together and this is again this is god to me this is god, you want to play a role in history? You want to be relevant? You want to be important? You want to know the world knew you were here? Here's your time. Everybody listening to this has a role to play. This is the third reconstruction, in my opinion, and it's about the green. Listen, if y'all want more of this great information, man,

go get John Hope Bryant's new book, Financial Literacy for All, Disrupting Struggle, Advancing Financial Freedom, and Building a New American Middle Class. And you can subscribe to John Hope Bryant's podcast, Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant on the Black Effect iHeartRadio podcast network. John is also, it's a privilege to have him on the board

of the Black Effect as well. Absolutely. I'm deeply honored by that. And I really, Dolly, I'm so sorry. I should have been talking about my podcast. I love my podcast on your platform. This is my chance to have a ministry of hope. This is my ministry of finance once a week on Thursdays

to make this really approachable, like break it down, tell people how stuff works once a week on Thursdays to make this really approachable, like break it down, tell people how stuff works once a week, calmly, simply take one topic. I mean, what we talked about today, this interview is probably 30 different topics, right? And a lot of people went over their heads. They got to do it on replay, right? I have a million viewers a week on my videos, and people, most of them are just watching it over and over again. People are ashamed to admit they don't understand money.

They're ashamed to understand that they don't, people, I've had adults tell me, like, what's a stock? What's equity? They're ashamed. They don't know what FDIC means, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. They don't know what SEC means, Securities Exchange. And no one taught them. And now we feel dumb.

We are not dumb. If you're making it in America, you are a genius. And now through this Money and Wealth podcast, you can have your own university in your pocket. I want to have 52 episodes that you can give to your daughter, give to your child, get somebody getting married, give to that new parent, that new couple who's about to buy a home, right? Just look.

Just listen to this. Just listen, you know, in your car and make sure you are building a legacy in their life and not just a bunch of generational debt. Marriage came from business. It was not a romantic concept. Marriage came from families trying to figure out how to join their economic interests. Couples didn't even live together. They lived in different castles, different rooms, right?

We've made this all about romance, right? And when you, so you, people, men are married, girls from strip clubs, we don't know nothing about them. She might be beautiful, but you might want to know something other than whether she's cute. That's right.

Here's my drop the mic for this. When folks go to the club this weekend and you see somebody who's fine, brothers and girls, you see a dude who's handsome, get the name, get the number. And at some point say, what's your credit score?

And I'm only partially kidding ladies and gentlemen john o'brien o'brien follow him on instagram too what is it on the gram it's john o'brien everywhere at john o'brien everywhere man make sure you download the money and wealth podcast on the black effect i heart radio podcast network get financial literacy for all this is who we should be listening to in regards to financial literacy, man. John, Hulk, Bryant. That's right. It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning.

Wake that ass up. In the morning. The Breakfast Club.