Money on the Net: A Revisit

"Wealth is a persons ability to survive so many number of days forward - or, if I stopped working today, how long could I survive?"
- R. Buckminster Fuller

One night I was glued to the computer with a few drinks and cigarettes, a calculator, and 10 or more internet tabs open with everything from online gigs for pocket change, investopedia and marketwatch for investment knowledge, my bank account for moving cash, and my girlfriend screaming for me to go to bed... No matter how much sleep I may lose on those binges, preparing for the day I leave my job(whether fired, laid off, quitting, retirement, or death) is what makes each start of the work week, and work day more bearable....

 This independent study has turned into a weekly, if not almost daily habit. This month I decided to give up smoking and drinking to see how much money I could save and invest in other areas. I was recently studying the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki and although I have already been implementing a few of the asset-building activities the author mentions, I welcomed the new perspective on financial literacy concepts. One of the most important is the distinction between an asset and a liability.

Asset = money made whether I work or not

Liability = money spent whether I work or not

So with this new knowledge, we will add on a previous post discussing the opportunities for making money online. Except for number 1, the methods in this list will deal with the idea of generating "passive income" through assets.

1. MTurk

Mturk.com is a website powered by Amazon where workers can search for Human Intelligence Tasks("hits") which are posted by other users. The tasks can be as easy as copying text from a business card and taking surveys, to more advanced hits such as transcribing video and audio recordings. The payment for hits can range depending on how complex or time consuming the HIT is. The hard part is reviewing the gigs that make the most sense to perform, and match your working style and interests. You won't get rich, or even replace your current paycheck, but you can make some extra pocket change.

2. Stocks

When you buy stocks, you own a piece of that company. To raise money, companies will often sell partial ownership of the company as a stock in exchange for money. The company uses this money to grow its current business, or fund new ideas and opportunities.

When dealing with the stock market there are a number of ways to make money. The 2 main methods are sales profits and dividends. How you invest depends on your style and financial goals.

Dividends = Money the company pays you for owning the stock.

Dividends are for long term income and saving money for retirement, children's college funds, and other long term events. Dividends are paid out over time - usually every quarter(3 months). Regardless of what the stock's price is, as long as the company is in business, you get paid.


Gains = Money you make after selling the stock for a profit.

  Trading stocks for gains you get the money as soon as the deal is made. You can either reinvest the money on a different stock, or you can keep the cash. There is also more risk here because the value of the stock can cause you to lose money just as easy as it can make money.

3. CD's and Bonds

Certificates of Deposit(CD's) and Bonds are both like a friend giving you an "IOU", but you invest in them for different reason. A CD is bought through your bank, it's another way of saving your money. The bank holds your CD for anywhere from 3 mo to 5 years, depending on how long you agreed they could hold it. When the time is up, the bank pays you interest on the money you let them borrow. This is giving the bank a short term loan.

 Bonds are similar to CDs and work pretty much the same way. The difference is bonds can be bought through a company or a bank. It is a long term loan, usually for 10 years or more. But bonds also normally have a higher interest rate, so more money is made when the bank or company pays you back. 

4. Mutual Funds

Mutual Funds combine stocks, bonds, and CDs with other form of investment into one package. The money for these investments comes from groups of investors pooling their money together. Mutual funds are managed by a broker, who handles what to invest the money in, how long, and when. As an investor you buy a share(or part) of the mutual fund. Whenever the fund makes money, through dividends, gains, or interest, that money is paid out to the owners of the fund in dividends. As the value of the funds investments grow, the price of shares for that fund grows too. You can also sell your shares in that fund for cash.

If you don't feel comfortable researching individual companies, or watching the market for the best deals on stocks, bonds, and CDs, a mutual fund is a convenient investment opportunity. But they are also riskier. Just because you have a broker handling the funds for you, doesn't mean they can't make mistakes.

For those who have experience in the investment field, it works like a game to them - no different than going to the casino. The same way you can hit it big and make a lot of money, you can lose it just as fast. It doesn't take a lot of money to get started, all you need is a bank account. I had only $50 in my account when I bought my first stock. By doing your research and taking educated risks, you can make investments work for you, and make money, while managing it all from your computer.

The Black Silicon Valley

Ironically, I was listening to this song earlier in the day. Then heard Black In America was on.

I thought it was pretty good. As a people, we consume more technology than we produce. And with those working to create their own start-ups being in the NewMe Accelerator program, they already know what trying to break into the industry will be like. The telltale part of the show was when the Indian guy was telling them he had to use a white guy just to get his idea accepted into Silicon Valley. It shows us what the obstacles are and what level we'll have to be on to get known, for those of us in looking to get into the tech industry. But of course, the only way to recieve the best treatment and do business on our own terms is if we have our own cultur/economic centers, a Black Silicon Valley, similar to the Black Wallstreet we've had in the past.

I was in school for computer science... haven't finished the degree yet as I started working full time in anticipation of becoming a father. But I also saw that most of the people they featured on the show never graduated, and actually stopped at the same level that I did. Shows me, and hopefully others in my position that there's still more to struggle for than just getting a job. Takes self-education and motivation though. I've actually got quite a few ideas for software, games, and possible phone apps. Haven't been in school since the Spring semester of 2011, but I've still been trying to pick up where I left off and teach myself what I need to know about these programming languages to make them a reality.

A lot of times people in the conscious community get carried away with the "Matrix" talk and forget, or purposefully ignore, the fact that there are a lot of people who claim to be conscious but are out of touch with the average person that has to work a 9-5 or has dire financial problems that need to be solved.

 I'm not saying that independence shouldn't be or is not the main goal. But it takes money to start and run a nation, and money and skills to start a business. And you have to start small before you can move up to a city-wide, nation-wide or global clientele - all depends on what you're trying to do but the possibilities are endless. Build up clientele through your reputation and so on. I understand all that full well.

On an economically competitive level, we have to have some kind of training or skill development self-taught or otherwise. Nobody's going to do business with a doctor (holistic or not), a computer technician, carpenter, a teacher, etc.. with no training or certification. And if he/she fucks up while performing their job, they can't say "well there's nothing you can do cuz im not a citizen of the country(or a Sovereign Citizen) so the law doesn't apply to me" and not expect an ass whoopin(LOL).

I don't just sit on my ass waiting on someone to give me a hand out. I (1) use long ass facebook comments/conversations like these to write blog posts(http://blackmindsdev.blogspot.com/

), I recently started doing gigs on Fiverr.com, and since i'm not in school right now I've been teaching myself C++ and Python so I can actually create some of the software ideas I've come up with over the years.  There's money on the internet, and technology is and will be one of the many ways that black people will become competitive in the global economy, but unless you have a large following then you're just paying dues and scratching up money where you can. And I'm (2) looking for decent paying jobs that will a) help me develop my skills so i can run my own business, b) have a financial cushion for when I'm not getting much clientele, and c) have some start-up money (primitive capital) to be able to afford more books to further develop my skills and buy better equipment. Until then I've learned how to make do with freeware. Before I buy something I see if there is an equivalent free version. If there isn't then I try to get it cheap, or just do without. It's called survival and anybody with common sense would say that I'm not going to sit on the computer all day and not figure out how to use it to make money - applying for jobs or otherwise. There's more than one way to get up, get out, and get something.

(Updated 6/22/13) I have also attained the COMPtia A+ Certification, and I am currently studying to get the Network+ and Security+ certifications. The ultimate goal is to turn my knowledge and skills in computer repair and maintenance from a side hustle to an independent business. So once things pick up and when I get out my situation I can go back to the youth on the street in the same situation I came out of and say "I was in the same situation and this is one way to get out of it." But to do that you have to be in tune with the masses of the people, specifically the youth, because they're the main ones who need to be reached. They're the ones who make up the statistics that conscious people rant and rave over but preach to the choir (other conscious people) about, or teach the congregation (the masses) shit that goes over their heads or does nothing to solve their immediate, every-day, real life problems. If you're out of touch with those people, then no matter how you dress up your presentation they're either not going to listen, or they're going to give you more credit and power than you deserve which is no good for them. And that's the shit that I'm saying needs to stop.

Starting a nation and all that is good, like I've said before doing business and living under traditional African principles is a great goal. BUT focusing on starting a nation and developing our own laws and currency and all that is jumping the gun when the people you're supposed to be reaching can't or don't know how to pay their bills and fight dictators and corrupt politicians in the country they're living in now. And unless there are safeguards in place that the masses of the people know how to utilize, then those same masses that exist today on the bottom rung of society will exist in that future nation. They will be the worker ants of that new nation without a pot to piss in while they put money in the pockets of a new dictator with a black face. Denouncing your citizenship to where you don't have to pay taxes to America or any other European nation is all good and well but you have to have another nation to go to and a means of getting there or creating it (and PROTECTING it).

Money On the Net: Tips for Surviving the Recession

    Since the internet became a common platform for communication, it has given many the opportunity to take control of their finances that may not have existed otherwise. Whether it is through online stores, blogs, advertising, or performing jobs remotely, if you are willing to put in the time and effort you can find a method to make money, and a website to do the job. There is opportunity to make any amount from small change, to a regular paycheck, to setting yourself on a road to riches. As long as you have access to a computer and the internet, you are capable of making money.

   The down side to doing business on the internet is that there are millions, if not billions of people providing the same services, writing, developing web sites, and applying for the same job/contract that it usually takes a large effort of scraping and scratching to make a decent paycheck online. But still, in order to make money, you have to get in where you fit in and draw the traffic/business with your own style of getting things done.

   Some of the sites that I would suggest to make money online (aside from blogging) include fiverr and craigslist. oDesk is another option, but for those working in the West, it is hard to compete with some of the rates that workers in the east are willing to perform a job for. Getting a job on either oDesk, or fiverr takes a lot of work, but once you build up a reputation in these online working communities, you will be well on your way to making money on your own. You will not get rich right away, but you can definitely earn some gas/lunch money while you work your way up to a decent pay check.

   Learning to make money online is one of the ways that the Black community and others in the working class will be able to bridge the "digital divide". It is important that we take advantage of opportunities and create opportunities for ourselves, especially in these times. It would do us a lot of justice if we focused more on becoming producers in the internet/technology arena more than consumers. We create the trends that the world over follows, yet we don't profit from any of it.

The African Renaissance: The Greatest Story Never Told Part 1

Aya - symbol of endurance and resourcefulness

  

In Destruction of Black Civilization the author,  Chancellor Williams, discusses the economic, social, political, and environmental factors leading up to the destruction of the ancient civilizations that our African ancestors had established. In short, environmental and political issues (ie. soil becoming  unfavorable for farming, Arab, Asian, and European invasions, etc.) caused the inhabitants of these established societies to migrate.

  As the people became further engulfed in the nomadic life these large groups of people began to splinter off into smaller groups to the point that each group had its own spoken language, customs, and territory. After some time, few of them realized they had once come from the same civilizations. Over the generations the old written languages were forgotten; they had little time to develop written languages as they were always on the move. Eventually, some groups would begin to conquer another, or they would willfully combine to form larger groups. Some of these large groups would often settled to establish new civilized societies, while others continued their nomadic lifestyle (and began to splinter again as a result).

  Once nation in particular was Kuba. Kuba was a nation located in central Africa, southeast of the Congo. The nation was founded as the result of alliances between the Bushoong tribe and 17 other smaller tribes. Between 1475 and 1630, Kuba developed a democratic republic state, and  which included a king(comparable to the president) and councils of Elders and chiefs representing their respective tribes and clans(families). The tribes within themselves were also democratic. The idea of Kuba being a melting pot of cultures would put the US to shame. Individual tribes were praised if their group excelled in a particular area with techniques or customs that were unique to that tribe. These customs would become adopted as part of the mainstream Kuban culture. Although the Bushoong tribe made up roughly 80% of the population each group was also equally represented under the government. There were a type of checks and balances that prevented any tribe from having the advantage of a "tyranny of the majority". 

  One of the greatest achievements of Kuba was its economic revolution. This revolution was started by Shyaam the Great who became king of Kuba around 1630. Before Shyaam Kuba's Economy was on the level of subsistence, the nation only produced what it needed in terms of goods. Whereas previous kings(and queens) had focused on conquering land, Shyaam turned the national focus inward to improve the economy. Shyaam set the momentum that led to the success of his successors in establishing Kuba as the most advanced African nation of the time.

  The people of Kuba began to experiment with a larger variety of crops. Many of these crops had been grown in the territories of respective tribes and were now being grown on a national level, being grown in different areas of the nation. New and more efficient methods of production for crafts and tools were developed. Better yields of crops and higher production and new styles for the arts and crafts led to surplus production, which opened the door for national and foreign trade. Caravans began to form. Except for agriculture, masters of every trade began to form guilds. Farming was common, everyone farmed the land in addition to their own professional trade. Although agriculture was important, more emphasis was placed jon the professional trades since they were what strengthened the national economy.

  One of the most interesting, and maybe the most important, fact about this renaissance is that it occurred exclusively in Africa. For Africans, by Africans. Although the Europeans and Arabs had gradually conquered the coastline surrounding Kuba and the rest of central Africa, the people of Kuba had never had any contact with any other races. Their nomadic ancestors who had adopted the nomadic lifestyle before settling in the 1470s were the last to come in contact with Arabs or Europeans. The whites would not come in contact with Kuba until the 1800s. By then, Kuba had since been on a gradual decline from its revolutionary spurt of political, cultural, and economic development of the1630s.

A history lesson for those who think the Africans were better off being conquered and enslaved... Part 2 will discuss the problems the Kubans faced that eventually led to the downfall of the civilization.

Reflections on the "Conscious" Community

After spending years reading, watching videos, dictating quotes, journal entries, and anything else you can think of to learn about our past and present struggles as Black people, our freedom fighters, historical figures, etc. I really thought I knew something. Knowing that I educated myself about people important to the black community, I developed somewhat of a superiority complex. 

Developing a superiority complex is the first step (or symptom maybe?) to becoming out of touch with your people and community. Despite all of this knowledge I had and my pipe dreams of starting a Spook Who Sat By the Door -like revolution in Yourtown, USA, none of that was my reality. There were no mass protests, press conferences, riots, no (productive) debates with other "intellectuals" on the Black struggle, no turning your average street thugs/gangs into revolutionary freedom fighters or organizations. It was just me going to school and working, searching books and the internet for answers to questions, finding other pieces to the puzzle and putting them together. Looking back now I see that my pipe dreams were reflections of the times and lives of the men and women I had studied and looked up to: Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, Fred Hampton, Mumia abu-Jamal, the Black Panther Party(as a whole), Frederick Douglass, Tupac Shakur, and countless others. This is how my worldview was shaped.

Over the next couple of years I would learn a lot of lessons. (Since I'm still in college, and I'm still learning, I'll just put a couple of them up). When I finished my freshman year in college, I was still an intellectual, but at the same time a loner, broke, and dependent on family. Now remember, I had a superiority complex because I knew XYZ black revolutionary figure, or concept, or had XYZ revolutionary pipe dream. There would be times when I would stop and think about how different family members or other people in general didn't know what I knew, but still had cars, their own homes, etc. When I eventually came to the point  that I had spend enough time under a rock learning and studying the struggle, it was time to come out of my shell and socialize, reach out and teach the other students and members of the community, family, etc. everything I had learned. (As one of my professors put it "Man, the path you're taking is a tough road to hoe. Black folks are going to break your heart.") I socialized more and built up my network of associates (online and locally), most of us only having a love of weed in common (that's a whole different blog). Eventually I developed the motivation to seek out ways of becoming active in the Prairie View (I'm a student at Prairie View A & M University) community. 

Through socializing, and (attempts at) organizing I learned that 1) Having a revoluionary mindset won't automatically make other black people like you, 2) Even the people who cheer you on when discussing revolutionary ideas won't always help you when you are ready to act, 3) Not all black people are trying to hear "that black power stuff", and 4) Not everybody doing good in school and working (whether working hard or smart) is selling out. So what did I learn and where does that leave us?

People in the "conscious" community really lose touch with the people they're supposed to be "saving, educating, liberating, etc." when they get superiority complexes. Nobody can help anyone that they see as "below" them, or don't understand (which comes from being out of touch). The thing that people in the "conscious" community need to realize is that nobody is going to ask for help from someone who A) isn't going to (or can't) put money in their pockets, and/or B) Talks down on them. Especially not from someone who fits category A and B at the same time. Really, these are lessons that I had to learn myself. For those just becoming "conscious" and learning about the people, places, and ideas, if you want to actually make progress, you will need to learn these lessons, too.

Even the Black liberation movement involves economics, and if they (xyz revolutionary black organization) aren't talking about getting money (in whatever form of currency they want) in people's pockets or resources (so that we can survive without having to live on the streets waiting for xyz government/society to say "o we give up, black people are free") in some shape or form, then they might as well be compared to a church, selling hope. How revolutionary can someone be if they can yell "black power, fuck white people" all day long at the rallies and protests, but have to ask for gas money to get home?(speaking from experience) Or (even worse) the people/organizations who go to white people, or the police, to support those same organizations that are saying "fuck white people, black power"?

The "average" black population is living in a way that we understand and perceive individual phenomenon more than group phenomenon (going back to what Stokely Carmichael was talking about in BlackPower). It's not that the "average" black people "love" white people that much. They don't love white people any more than they "hate" their own. They're just going where the money is - legally or illegally, inside or outside their own communities - because in order to survive (which is the purpose of any revolutionary struggle, according to Che) until you are able to put yourself in a position to thrive (independently), you have to be able to realistically function in the current society. If not, you will get locked up or killed (by "them" or your own), because if you can't function properly, then you have to live off the people who can. Stopping that pattern is what the revolution is supposed to be about.

 And "conscious" people can say "getting money" is a part of that "imperialist pie" all you want, but even after the revolution there's going to have to be some type of currency, with some type of practical economic structure, with some type of system to govern/maintain it, outside of what someone dreamed up in a utopian dream world after the revolution. And that economic structure has to be set up to where everybody has a part of it's fruits, or has the potential to have a part of it, and the necessary tools to put themselves in the position to get a part of it. If not, that "dream world after the revolution" won't last long. Period.