Robert Smith Breaks Down How Student Loans Drain 60% of Black Wealth

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0:32I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show contains information subject to, but not limited to personal takes, rumors, not so accurate stats, and plenty more. What's up, man? This your boy, Nav Green from the Broken Play Podcast. Look, it's the end of the season. The playoffs are here.

1:12But guess what? It ain't the end of your season. You can always tune in with Broken Play Podcast with Nav Green on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Not a team who ain't going to the playoffs. It's time to rebuild. Listen to Broken Play with Nav Green from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Talking to your kids about the dangers of vaping can be hard. Getting them to listen to hot gossip is easy. So here's some drama you could share with your kid. Dude, did you hear about Cassie and Jake? No, but did you hear that vaping can cause irreversible lung damage and nicotine affects brain development?

1:49Nuh-uh. You don't need to gossip if you want to have an open conversation about vaping. So if you want to get tips on when and how to talk to your kids, visit TalkAboutVaping.org. Brought to you by the American Lung Association and the Ad Council. Crook and Chase Nashville chats with the coolest cat in country music. He is edgy. He's fun. He is Chase Matthews. Keith Urban helped make him a global sensation last year, but it's his recent number one hit, Darling, that put Chase on the map and launched a fun and difficult conversation about lovers who cheat and lie. That's why I'm scared to get married.

2:21You're giving me trust issues, brother. Crook and Chase Nashville chats with Chase Matthews. After you listen and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring. And sure, they definitely can be. But understanding a professional's routine shows us how they achieve their success little by little, day after day. It's like banking with PNC Bank. It might seem boring to save, plan, and make calculated decisions with your bank. but keeping your money boring is what helps you live a more happily fulfilled life.

2:59PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a service mark of the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association member, FDIC. Well documented. They give back to the senior class of Warhouse. And then I recently saw that the parents as well of some of the students, their student loan debt was taken care of. The Parent PLUS loans were taken care of. One of the things I heard you speak about, and I've never heard it, was broadband deserts and how HBCUs are disproportionately affected by having broadband deserts. Not a topic that I've heard discussed nationally or even amongst communities about how that affects students long-term and how it affects communities in education.

3:49Can you talk about your efforts to try to combat that? Yeah, it's a great question. We've been talking about what is really the fourth industrial revolution that's occurring today. Every industry is being digitized. Every single one. I mean, you just look in our studio here and how much of this equipment is now digital versus what it was even eight years ago where it was analog, right? the capacity to edit, okay, the capacity to deliver streaming real time, you know, phase time around the world, your program. That wasn't, you know, something you could do 10 years ago, 12 years ago, okay. Digitizing everything, every industry.

4:39This is, again, this whole fourth Industrial Revolution is changing the economic landscape of this planet, but yet our HBCUs, 80 % of them are in broadband deserts. How are you going to participate if you don't have access to the tool of progress, the principal tool of progress today in the economy? And that is a big problem. And that's one that we decided to take on and I decided to take on and bring some partners to take on to go get after this. We have to enable all of our citizenry to participate in this next generation of opportunity. The U.S. today, you all know this, our borders are basically closed.

5:27Okay? You know, we've got immigration laws and political conflict that, in essence, we are not importing labor anymore. And as we need to grow as a society, we need people. I always tell people the biggest issue, the most scarce asset we have on this planet today are software programmers. There's 8 billion people on the planet. There's only 26 million of us who write software for a living. And it is that software that is required to digitize every industry on the planet. automotive, healthcare, finance, banking, all of it is now requiring tools and systems that are digital in nature. But yet, one of the greatest infrastructures for training people, historically black colleges and universities, 80 % of them don't have broadband access, where our kids can learn the tools of this craft in a way that they can participate effectively long-term.

6:34And if we don't get this right now, eight years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, the market of change and opportunity and transformation will have been gone so far that we won't be able to participate in this next wave. We didn't get to participate in the great economic opportunity that was America in owning land, okay? What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

7:12I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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8:37What's up, man? This your boy, Nell Green from the Broken Play Podcast. Look, it's the end of the season. The playoffs are here. But guess what? It ain't the end of your season. You can always tune in with Broken Play Podcast with Nav Green on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Not a team who ain't going to the playoff. The Chiefs. Oh, it's a wrap. It's time to rebuild. Who your MVP right now then? Drake May up there. Josh Allen up there still. Oh, my boy, Matthew Stafford. Where they both nicks at? He ain't too far behind. He did all this talking. What Matthew Stafford is doing statistically, bro, is crazy.

9:11Bro, you know I ain't no Josh Allen fan. but Matthew Stafford got better weapon. Caleb Williams. Hey, he should be in that conversation. In what conversation? MVP. He should be in it. Listen to Broken Play with Nav Green from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. The moments that shape us often begin with a simple question. What do I want my life to look like now? I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford and on Therapy for Black Girls, we create space for honest conversations about identity, relationships, mental health, and the choices that help us grow.

9:48As cybersecurity expert Camille Stewart-Gloster reminds us, We are in a divisive time where our comments are weaponized against us. And so what we find is a lot of Black women are standing up and speaking out because they feel the brunt of the pain. Each week, we explore the tools and insights that help you move with purpose. whether you're navigating something new or returning to yourself. If you're ready for thoughtful guidance and grounded support, this is the place for you. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG.

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11:11And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids? The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Many of our families were unpaid labor, okay, which created massive wealth. And then you had GI Bill, Homestead Act, Southern Homestead Act. We didn't participate in that proportionately. We didn't get a chance to participate in the asset accretion in real estate because of redlining and those dynamics. And so now here we are. Corporate America started to expand.

11:53And it has taken a while for us to get, and we're still not even there, fair share of opportunity to participate as professionals environment. And now you're going through the fourth industrial revolution. If we don't participate here, it's going to be the same dynamic. That's why it's so essential that we equip our children and our communities with the tools. And they need to insist that those tools be provided and insist that they learn and train and develop ways to participate in this economy, in this digital economy. What percentage of your viewership do you think is listening on some digital device or digital enablement?

12:37100 %? 100%. 100%. Everyone. Yeah. your business relies on it. So why shouldn't your community participate in it? And right now, those schools are being starved of those resources. You can say conscious, unconscious, whatever it is, but the fact is it is there. That's what we have to do about it. Look, I'm going to do my part and you guys got to continue to do your part and make sure that your viewership demands that our HBCUs have access to broadband. Every one of them, not just the big ones, every one of them, so that our kids could learn and participate and have the ability to now take what they know and deliver business systems, solutions into their community to make their small and medium businesses in their community and the education of the kids in our community more effective than what it is today.

13:34I want to just follow up on that, on the HBCU thing, because you got a lot of headlines when you, the Morehouse, when you paid off the student loans. But when we were in LA and I heard you speak about that, and I realized that it wasn't, it's a little bit more complicated than that, which actually led to something else, another initiative. So can you talk about that? Because people just saw he paid off everybody's student loan, but that's not actually the full story, right yeah so the next thing so what i like all things it's not as easy as you think to pay off somebody's i know everybody's like what are you talking about who would have thought because yeah who would have thought right because if you pay off somebody's loan either you're giving them a gift or they're receiving a gift now they got to pay taxes on it so there's a burden to them or increasing burden to you so you've got to actually architect a system to do that effectively So that doesn't create the burden.

14:28In that process, what I learned is over 60 % of African American wealth goes towards servicing student loans. Okay. You come out, you've got 60, 80, 120 ,000 dollars worth of student loans. Now you're paying interest on those loans. Something happens in your family, don't use your job, whatever. Now that compounds and it can be decades. before you've paid off those student loans that inhibit your ability to buy stocks bonds a house invest in a business you see what I mean I was like well that's just unconscionable because mostly student loans you're paying back to United States government mm-hmm yeah African Americans paying money back United States government pay off student loans how y 'all feel about that that's Crazy.

15:21Okay. All right. It's crazy. Yeah. You all should think about that. Right? Talk about that. Right? So then I thought, well, what's a better way to do it? This is what's the better equilibrium system. The better equilibrium system is to create a fund. It's called the Student Freedom Initiative. We raise money. I put in a bunch of money. And now these students borrow from the fund. Okay. Let's make sure it fits our condition. Our condition often is that we often aren't paid as much as corresponding white students. So let's make sure that the interest rate is below parent plus loans at a minimum, at a minimum.

16:12And every now and you have life interruptions okay well if there's a life interruption you know parent ailing we got to go back take care of that parent and we can actually stop those payments in a period of time parent plus a no you gonna pay whether you work it or not and compounds and all that so you can stop it during that period of time and if you decide to go work in a community to be a teacher like you were, right? Yeah. Okay, and you're making below a certain amount, but you're doing good for the community. You do that for 20 years, and that's forgiven. But rather than pay that money back to the government, it pays back into the fund.

16:54And then that fund can relend that capital. And that's a virtuous cycle. Okay, so that's what Student Freedom Initiative is, okay? And it's so that our students can borrow from this fund, and they pay back into that fund. they can be re-borrowed so now you're taking care of your own community through your work in that regard that's what it is and the money goes back to the next generation of students right my graduates from my school being Forbes backdrop backdrop backdrop backdrop bad drop

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19:32Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show contains information subject to, but not limited to personal takes, rumors, not-so-accurate stats, and plenty more. What's up, man? This your boy, Nell Green, from the Broken Play Podcast.

20:09Look, it's the end of the season. The playoffs are here. But guess what? It ain't the end of your season. you can always tune in with Broken Play Podcast with Nav Green on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Not a team who ain't going to the playoffs. They're chiefs. It's time to rebuild. Listen to Broken Play with Nav Green from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcasts. Talking to your kids about the dangers of vaping can be hard. Getting them to listen to hot gossip is easy. So here's some drama you could share with your kid. Dude, did you hear about Cassie and Jake?

20:42No, but did you hear that vaping can cause irreversible lung damage and nicotine affects brain development? Nuh-uh. You don't need to gossip if you want to have an open conversation about vaping. So if you want to get tips on when and how to talk to your kids, visit talkaboutvaping.org. Brought to you by the American Lung Association and the Ad Council. Crook and Chase Nashville chats with the coolest cat in country music. He is edgy, he's fun, he is Chase Matthews. Keith Urban helped make him a global sensation last year, but it's his recent number one hit darling that put Chase on the map and launched a fun and difficult conversation about lovers who cheat and lie.

21:19That's why I'm scared to get married. You give me trust issues, brother. Crook and Chase Nashville Chats with Chase Matthew. Listen and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. The Volkswagen Beetle started out as Hitler's dream car. It wound up as a beloved hippie icon and the best-selling car of all time. How did that happen? I'm Jacob Goldstein. And I'm Robert Smith. On Business History, we tell the surprising stories behind the inventions and entrepreneurs that shaped our economy. And the story of the beetle is truly surprising. It has so much in it.

21:51He says you should be able to mount machine guns on it. Sure. Not for the family vacation, but, you know, for other things. You never know. Other plans. Listen to Business History on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Business History and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.