Financial Literacy for All (eBook)

Disrupting Struggle, Advancing Financial Freedom, and Building a New American Middle Class

John Hope Bryant (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
181 Seiten
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-1-394-20903-3 (ISBN)

Infos

A new approach to understanding money and achieving financial fulfillment

Former Vice-Chairman of the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, John Hope Bryant, delivers an accessible and powerful resource for everyday Americans seeking to build a strong financial foundation. This book is an easy-to-read first step toward a fulfilling financial future, helping you understand your relationship to work and money, and a key component to untangling the surprisingly simple puzzle of personal finance.

With an insightful forward by Doug McMillon, President and CEO of Walmart Inc., you'll learn how to create wealth for yourself and your family, regardless of your educational or employment background, and how to establish a financial mindset that contributes to a sound future. You'll also discover:

• The answers to tough money questions, including the actual utility of new financial inventions like cryptocurrency
• How to think about exchanging your time and effort for money and the conditions under which you should agree to work
• Plain-English discussions of the principles of responsible long-term investing and how it differs from speculation

Acting as a critical pillar for those seeking to build a rock-solid financial foundation, Financial Literacy for All is a must-have book for working professionals, blue-collar workers, members of young families, and established businesspeople looking for a better, more secure future for themselves and the ones they care about.

JOHN HOPE BRYANT is an American entrepreneur, and sought-after thought and philanthropic leader, who is referred to as the Conscience of Capitalism by leading Fortune 100 CEOs. Bryant is the Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Operation HOPE, Inc. the largest not-for-profit and best-in-class provider of financial literacy, financial inclusion and economic empowerment tools and services in the United States for youth and adults. Operation HOPE is working to level the opportunity playing field, connecting communities to the private sector, through inclusive capitalism, at scale.

Bryant is also Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of John Hope Bryant Holdings, Bryant Group Ventures and Executive Chairman of The Promise Homes Company (Promise Homes), the largest for-profit minority-controlled owner of institutional-quality, single-family residential rental homes in the U.S.

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A new approach to understanding money and achieving financial fulfillment Former Vice-Chairman of the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, John Hope Bryant, delivers an accessible and powerful resource for everyday Americans seeking to build a strong financial foundation. This book is an easy-to-read first step toward a fulfilling financial future, helping you understand your relationship to work and money, and a key component to untangling the surprisingly simple puzzle of personal finance. With an insightful foreword by Doug McMillon, President and CEO of Walmart Inc., you'll learn how to create wealth for yourself and your family, regardless of your educational or employment background, and how to establish a financial mindset that contributes to a sound future. You'll also discover: The answers to tough money questions, including the actual utility of new financial inventions like cryptocurrency How to think about exchanging your time and effort for money and the conditions under which you should agree to work Plain-English discussions of the principles of responsible long-term investing and how it differs from speculation Acting as a critical pillar for those seeking to build a rock-solid financial foundation, Financial Literacy for All is a must-have book for working professionals, blue-collar workers, members of young families, and established businesspeople looking for a better, more secure future for themselves and the ones they care about.

Textauszug

Introduction: America's Upgraded Business Plan

Imagine this scenario: You've worked your entire life, providing for yourself and your family, playing by the rules, and saving what you can. Now, you're approaching your retirement years, hoping that the money you've saved is enough to carry you through, and that your years of hustle and hard work have built a secure foundation for your future.

But here's the reality, my friend. The nest egg you've been nurturing isn't enough to cover your expenses, let alone an unforeseen emergency. And worst of all, it's too late to do anything about it. This nightmare scenario is one far too many Americans face, and it's due to a lack of financial literacy. Think about this for a moment. We live in the largest, strongest, most robust economy on the planet, yet most of our children don't even get one class in financial literacy. No one is telling them (and us) how this economy works.

As I wrote in my earlier book, The Memo, there is no instruction manual for anyone seeking to move into the promise of their lives. Everyone is essentially winging it in this free enterprise democracy of ours.

Yet financial literacy is the bedrock of individual prosperity and economic growth in the United States of America. Without it, we cannot fully participate in our free enterprise system, and we cannot make informed financial decisions. We are left at the mercy of an economic system we do not fully understand—and worse yet for some of us, one that was not designed to support us.

According to the 2018 Consumer Financial Literacy Survey, four out of five US adults agree that they could benefit from additional professional advice and answers to everyday financial questions. And according to PwC's 2023 Employee Financial Wellness Survey, 60% of full-time workers are stressed out about their finances.

What I have seen firsthand, coming up from nothing in Compton, California, and now as an entrepreneur and successful businessman who eats, breathes, and sleeps financial literacy, is that it's not a lack of desire or ambition that holds so many of us back from long-term financial freedom. It's bad role models and a fundamental lack of the essential building blocks for financial success, including the knowledge and comfort to talk about money, the tools and resources to better our situations, and the right enabling environment to win.

Where I grew up, there was a check cashier next to a payday lender, next to a rent to own store, next to a title lending store, next to a pawnshop. This was normal, but it shouldn't have been. When you come from where I come from, everyone around you has a credit score of 500 to 600 or worse. And so you accept your reality as the norm and what you deserve. But it is not. Through my foundation Operation HOPE and with this book, I am aiming to break the financial shackles that bind so many to a life of financial suffering and a survival mentality.

To me, this empowering work matches and stands on the legacy shoulders of civil rights, in the public streets of the twentieth century. In this twenty-first century economy we live in today, it's silver rights in the business suites that will allow us to all come up together.

Understanding the world of finance is an intimidating and daunting task, especially given its complexity and the speed at which it evolves and at which money flows. This book aims to demystify this world, offering the insights and strategies that Operation HOPE is using to equip communities all over the United States with the knowledge and skills to navigate their financial lives, because this is what it will take to make America the land of opportunity for all.

Our journey will take us through the current state of financial literacy in the United States, highlighting the gap between the haves and the have-nots. It will underline the impact of this gap on various communities, with a special call out to my community of Black America, given its unique role in our nation's history and development. We will explore the implications of this disparity and its origins, delving into the historical events and policy decisions that have perpetuated financial inequality. I'll recount stories from our past of the systemic hurdles that people of color have faced in their pursuit of the American Dream, including the failure of the Freedman's Bank and racial segregation during the Jim Crow era. In addition, I'll dissect how a growing lack of financial literacy has left other groups behind, including my low-income white brothers and sisters.

Take student loan debt, for instance. If you get a student loan for a financially sound purpose like professional advancement, you could make multiples over the cost of that education in enhanced annual compensation over time. This is the calculation on risk and reward that you must make when considering student loan financing (at least until our public policy leaders decide that higher education is a public good that benefits all citizens, and they find another way to facilitate having an educated majority of the population).

My point is: Whatever you do should have inherent value tied to it. Making good decisions about what to finance and when, being an informed and empowered consumer today, has the power to transform the quality of life for you and your family.

But this book is not merely a diagnosis of our society's ailments. It is an empowerment tool for the average person seeking a better quality of life in the twenty-first century, and it is a social movement call to action! The second half of our journey is devoted to solutions that can bring about transformative change. Through powerful and focused financial education initiatives for the public, intentional community engagement, workforce development, and upgrades in environments, we can bridge this gap between the haves and have-nots, between the financially illiterate and the financially free. We can realize the value of our connections to each other and open up the powerful mechanisms of the free enterprise system for all.

Reimagining the Way Forward

America has built its economy through human ingenuity, constant reinvention, leveraging natural resources, and honestly, a bit of luck. Over the two and a half centuries of our existence as a nation, we've built a reputation for ourselves through steel, oil, and gas, and through innovations of industry like the locomotive and the automobile, assembly-line manufacturing, finance, technology, and the internet, and now AI (artificial intelligence). We leverage these innovations as exports around the world, while bringing resources in to help make us the richest and greatest nation on earth. But what exactly has made America great? And what will make America even greater than it's ever been? I believe it is leveraging our greatest untapped resource and our greatest export: our human capital, and their hope and promise for a better future. Let's face it—America is not a country, she is an idea, and we can make and remake her into anything we like. Here I refer to our unique brand of hope, what we've dubbed the American Dream. We just need to upgrade our software for a new century of sustainable growth and opportunity for all.

How do I know this? At every critical juncture of America's history, our people have mobilized in some meaningful way to help cure the “bad thinking” that was taking us on a path to nowhere. We have done this by unifying under the banner of an American democracy that is rooted in hope, exceptionalism, and (mostly) good capitalism.

Given the importance of this national treasure, it seems to me that it's in our interest to protect this gem at all costs. America, without her lofty ideals and the exercised hopes of her people, becomes just another country. Her (our) exceptionalism rests in our ability to distinguish America from the rest of the world as a place of mobility, where people can go from a low estate to a higher one.

Honestly, we need to prove that the American Dream is still viable. We need to back it up. We need to show that the place we call home does give rest to the weary and is a beacon of light to those in a dark place. America needs to be a place of hope and opportunity for this generation and the next.

When tragedy strikes, Americans tend to rally together for the common good and pull each other up. Unfortunately, when the tragedy involves minority groups or someone outside of our interconnected social fabric, the motivation has been shortlived, and the impact is diminished due to our unresolved pain, shared confusion, and in many ways our moral laziness. We just don't want to do the work. We want someone, somewhere else, to do it for us. But as you know, life does not work that way. We solve very little by expecting someone else to take care of our problems. Said another way: No one washes rental cars. Most people will drive a rental car until the wheels come off and they can't see through the dirt on the windshield. Then they'll return it to the owner for cleaning and maintenance. The only way we solve our problems is to own them first. The reality is that love, freedom, and equality take work. Nothing good comes easy. Only in the dictionary does the word “success” come before the word “work.”

We should be properly motivated to solve our problems today because it's no longer practical or rational to pass our problems on to someone else and because it is becoming increasingly obvious that we need each other for sustained success in whatever this...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.4.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik
• Schlagworte: Business & Finance • Cryptocurrency • Doug McMillon • financial fulfilment • financial future • financial mindset • Financial Planning • Investing • long term investing • Mathematics • Mathematik • Mathematik in Wirtschaft u. Finanzwesen • Mittelschicht • money and work • money book • money literacy • personal finance • retail investing • retirement planning • USA • Wohlstand
• ISBN-10: 1-394-20903-7 / 1394209037
• ISBN-13: 978-1-394-20903-3 / 9781394209033