richardmurray

Financial Federalism This edition of the Economic Corner has three articles in the following chronological order, after my thoughts 1) The legality of the Executive branch in the second term of Schrumpf 2) The need for efficiency in the Federal Government and how it became ever more inefficient in the nineteen hundreds 3) The failure of presidencies before Schrumpfs first term from elephants or donkeys to diminish the federal governments bureaucracy while make it a better operator. Financially, the Black populace in the usa has a heritage in the united states of America few mention; it is the following. Only the federal government in the united states of America has been positive in some course of time to the black populace in the usa as a bureaucratic body. I restate, each town/city/county/state in the usa have provided negative environments, legal or communal, for black people, averaging out their history. This means the federal government of the usa relates to Black people in the usa, especially Black Descended Of Enslaved (BDOS), other than non blacks, especially whites, in the usa. Whites of European descent talk of the usa, but tend to relate to the town, the city, the county, the state because even though the federal government protects/defends the overall system, the specificity of local law, the flexibility of local law, provided and provides to whites of European descent opportunity/safety/comfort. While for blacks , said towns/cities/counties/states provide horror/abuse/terror. Said heritage, led to a federalism in the black populace in the usa unlike any other demographic in the usa. Said federalism is an advocate of greater bureaucracy in the federal government to undo state/county/city/town governments negativity. The more the federal government can watch/penalize the lower ranked municipalities the better. I think of two black women. Years ago, one said to me privately, she lives in the Midwest region, that only the federal government has ever supported the black people in her region. It isn't impossible to live there, she does, but it is never welcoming, never with ease, always with a barrier. And more recently, the other said on local news in NYC, that maybe the states need to go in the united states of America. The only person I ever heard publicly say the states in the union need to all go, was a black person, for honesty's sake said person is a she. When I think of these two points, it exposes why Whites despise or fear or dislike ever expanding federal bureaucracy. White people's local power requires local strength or local allowance. Black towns exist, but they exist in White counties. Black counties exist , but they exist in White States. So all majority black , in populace, municipal zones in the united states of America, exist within a larger municipal zone lower than the federal government majority white. The situation of Black Farmers proves this reality more than anything else. [ https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11483-economiccorner014/ ] United States America system allows for local empowerment, but for Blacks who never had control of a state within the union, such local power has never existed. So, with the Federalism in the Schrumpf era which is to diminish/lessen/delete any place where Black presence has been or can be aided. For example, the Department of Education is a large reason why in many states, the funds to Black schools exist. States like Mississippi had for years and some argue still now managed ways to have black schools non funded. Not underfunded, none funded. If a school gets no government money but is a public school it is financially a private school. But the problem is, the black populace in Mississippi for example don't have the financial means to support all that children need. Ivy League schools still get federal money and they have huge private endowments so federal money shouldn't be deemed a negative when given to all white organizations in the usa. But living under a state, like Mississippi, influences black financial reality. The Question is simple, with no governmental aspect aiding Black people [no federal, no state, no county, no city], what does the black business owner in the usa do? Black buying power has a serious problem, most of the firms have always been white. I challenge any Black person in the usa to go one whole month without buying something from a white owned firm. How do you eat? How do you buy clothes? How do you wash clothes ? How can you do this in a city? To the Articles below 1) I said to another the president of the usa already has a post at their privy, it is called the white house chief of staff which came from the Presidents Personal Secretary. So having Musk as a person at their privy isn't illegal. And the constitution doesn't say a limit exists to a person at the president's privy and by extension, the D.O.G.E. is equivalent to the Staff at the White House Chief of Staff. The issue isn't illegality but change. Not change you need believe in but change you are living in. 2) Again, a majority of whites in the 1960s despised the advance of federalism but the same whites local environments is what led the Kerner Commission, with only one black person in leadership, to suggest to Lyndon B Johnson, a complete overhaul of the usa is needed. Johnson wasn't amused but what the Kerner Commission exposed is the problem I say in hindsight. [ Kerner Commission- https://1drv.ms/b/c/ea9004809c2729bb/Ea852rXxcnFEteIzm8I5Y0IBOmiGCYl_rT1lsPKEio-5mg?e=OiDxRo ; https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2685&type=status ] 3) It is clear the impotency of Presidents from Reagan to Biden, old elephant or donkey, to make the government more efficient opened the door to Scrumptf. Many said they would and never did. They all kept growing the federal government and , yes made some important administrative elements, but the overall inefficiency grew and grew aided by a congress , which in reflecting the multiracial populace of the usa, became deadlocked. Is Trump Acting Illegally U.R.L. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/constitutional-scholar-on-whether-trumps-actions-are-executive-overreach VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Geoff Bennett: The first weeks of the Trump administration have brought dramatic changes to the shape, scope and function of the federal government. Our new series On Democracy is taking a step back to look at big questions about the institutions, norms and laws that have shaped the country and the challenges they face today. Ilya Shapiro is director of constitutional studies at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute and the author of "Lawless: The Miseducation of America's Elites." Thanks for being here. Appreciate it. * Ilya Shapiro, Manhattan Institute: Great to be with you. * Geoff Bennett: Well, as we sit here and speak, we have got another case that is raising questions about the rule of law in this new Trump era. At least seven prosecutors and officials have stepped down over the DOJ order to dismiss corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams. Danielle Sassoon, who was Manhattan's top federal prosecutor, she describes an explicit quid pro quo, whereby the Trump DOJ would dismiss the criminal charges against Adams in exchange for his support for President Trump's agenda. What questions does all of this raise for you? * Ilya Shapiro: Well, I think it's a disagreement of political judgment between different prosecutors. The U.S. attorney disagrees with what her superiors say. The principals are denying that there's a quid pro quo, so we don't quite have evidence of that. And Eric Adams, for the last year or so, has been moving in a direction to crack down on illegal immigration anyway. So I don't know whether he'd be behaving differently in the first place. But, ultimately, this is a judgment call. And the U.S. attorneys, whether in the Southern District of New York, which sometimes thinks of itself as its own sovereign, Sovereign District, they sometimes call it, doesn't get to make that call at the end of the day. And if the superiors decide that the underlying evidence is flimsy or the prosecution itself was politically motivated and doesn't serve the purposes of justice, that's their call to make. And, ultimately, the voters will evaluate that. * Geoff Bennett: The deputy A.G. in his letter explaining why the case against Adams should be dropped, he cited the need for Adams to help with Donald Trump's immigration policy. And then Adams and the immigration czar, Tom Homan, were on FOX News this morning. And Homan said: "If he doesn't come through, I will be in his office up his butt saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to?" I mean, hardly anything about this is subtle. I mean, how is this not a breach of… * Ilya Shapiro: I don't know if that agreement means the dropping of the prosecution. It might be an agreement of, here's how we can help New York, because clearly there's a crisis, a law and order crisis in New York, and Adams wants to prolong his political career in some way. The primary is coming up, what have you, and he wants to clean it up. And so there's some agreement. It may involve the quid pro quo that everyone's talking about, but it could just mean here's what I will do, open up Rikers, what have you, and we will send you federal funds or we will send you more law enforcement. I don't know what the agreement might be. But Adams wants to work with this administration on the illegal immigration problem. * Geoff Bennett: So, in your view, this is not, so far as we know, a fundamental breach of justice? * Ilya Shapiro: We don't have — there's no evidence in the record, a prosecutor would say, to say that. There are allegations, and you could make a case. But on the face of what has come out, the dueling letters and what have you, this is just a disagreement on prosecutorial discretion. * Geoff Bennett: President Trump, the Trump administration, they have frozen domestic spending, frozen foreign aid without congressional approval. They have dismantled USAID, threatened to dismantle the Education Department. There are dispassionate observers who look at this and say that this is textbook executive overreach. How do you see it? * Ilya Shapiro: Well, executive overreach is when you're creating new programs out of thin air, like Barack Obama with his pen and phone government with DACA or DAPA or all of these other things, or President Biden forgiving student loans that was blocked by the Supreme Court, said, I will do it another way, or vaccine mandates, all of these things that are creating new authorities that didn't exist. Here, they're putting a pause on spending. They're reorganizing the executive branch, which is within the executive's power. * Geoff Bennett: Why not go through Congress, as the framers intended? He's got a pliant House Republican majority, a Senate majority as well. And if you legislate this, the impact would be enduring. Why not? * Ilya Shapiro: Well, it depends what the "this" is. I do hope that the Trump administration goes to Congress and asks for restructuring of these various agencies and things like that, because if it's all done through executive action, then, as we see, you live by the executive action, you die by it, and the next Democratic president will just reverse it. So it would take an act of Congress to eliminate the USAID or to eliminate the Department of Education, but reorganizing certain things, shifting funding priorities, auditing the accounting and the finances and things like that, that all is fully within the purvey of the government, including of DOGE. * Geoff Bennett: I want to ask you about Elon Musk, because President Trump, by all outward appearances, has given him a fairly broad mandate. Any cause for concern about the lack of checks on Musk's actions and the fact that he is in many ways the arbiter of his own conflicts of interest, given his very lucrative government contracts? * Ilya Shapiro: Well, the conflict of interest is a political story. I mean, if the administration takes political hits for having a lax conflict of interest policy for President Trump himself, for example, that's a judgment call for the voters to make, ultimately, in the midterms coming up and what have you. Musk is a special government employee, which means he has authority to run this. He has his tech gurus, these guys with spreadsheets and green eye shades and whatever else that are identifying money that looks like it's mismanaged, misspent. Again, not saying Congress had spent that on this, but we're not going to do that. That's not the case. Whether it's discretion by the agency, they're looking at things that this administration might have different priorities. * Geoff Bennett: There have been arguments, as you well know, that we are either in or that we're approaching a constitutional crisis. I'd imagine you would disagree with that. But what to you would signal a constitutional crisis? What to you would signal that this democratic experiment is in peril? * Ilya Shapiro: Well, it's interesting that you say democratic experiment, because when the executive branch, when the bureaucracy does not implement the directives of the political leadership that's responsible to the voters, that's a problem. I mean, a constitutional crisis is something like one branch going and doing things that are not within its authority that courts are telling it to stop and to do, ignoring court orders. Trump has said he's not going to ignore court orders. He's going to appeal them and he's taking it to the Supreme Court. And, almost certainly, most of these things won't get to the Supreme Court. Certain things, he might win on. Certain things, he might lose on, but that's the process. The American people are not buying this language that is simply an indication from the left that they don't like this restructuring of government, the new priorities, all of these certain things. Fair enough. That's a political argument to be had, but this is not any sort of a constitutional crisis. * Geoff Bennett: Ilya Shapiro with the Manhattan Institute, thanks for coming in. * Ilya Shapiro: Thank you. What should be made efficient in the federal government? U.R.L. https://www.pbs.org/video/philip-k-howard-and-will-marshall-awjvp6/ VIDEO TRANSCRIPT - Are Donald Trump and Elon Musk dismantling the Deep State or doing something else? This week on "Firing Line." - The people voted for major government reform. And that's what people are gonna get. They're gonna get what they voted for. - We've already found billions of dollars of abuse, incompetence, and corruption. - [Margaret] Some people are saying that Trump's newly-established Department of Government Efficiency is moving fast and breaking things. - We have this unelected branch of government, which is the bureaucracy. So it's just something we've gotta fix. - [Margaret] But will this blitz on the bureaucracy really make government more efficient? - So Musk is right, in my view, that it's broken, but he's not really focusing on fixing it. - [Margaret] Attorney and author Philip Howard has championed the cause of government efficiency for decades, with books including "The Death of Common Sense." - Well, the tragically-missed opportunity here is that Elon Musk could have done us a lot of good. - [Margaret] Will Marshall is the founder and president of the Progressive Policy Institute, and has recently written that Democrats need a DOGE of their own. I sat down with these two reform advocates before a student audience at Hofstra University to discuss what DOGE is getting right, what it's getting wrong, and whether America is careening toward a constitutional crisis. - [Announcer] "Firing Line" with Margaret Hoover is made possible, in part, by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, the Fairweather Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Cliff and Laurel Asness, the Meadowlark Foundation, and by the following. Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. - Philip Howard and Will Marshall, welcome to Hofstra University, and this episode of "Firing Line." - Thank you. - Listen, Philip, in November, you called in the Wall Street Journal for Elon Musk, not to hobble government, but to make it work again. Since Trump established the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has moved to gut USAID, gained access to Treasury payment systems, and has worked to eliminate the employment of tens of thousands of federal workers. You have spent your life thinking, and writing, and talking about how to make government work better. Is this what you had in mind? - No. Musk is focusing on cutting what government does that he thinks is stupid. He's not focusing on changing and improving how government works, which I think is the bigger opportunity. Most of Americans think government needs major overhaul. So Musk is right, in my view, that it's broken, but he's not really focusing on fixing it. Efficiency means actually being responsive and delivering the goods to the public that the public needs. - How do you know he's not focused on fixing it? - Because that's not what he's doing. He's focused on cutting costs, cutting people, which I don't think is actually going to add up to much in the way of cost. Whereas, for example, if he changed the way the Defense Department procured new weaponry, he could save, pick a number, a third of the money that's spent, by getting rid of all the red tape processes that take years and deliver poor products with too much delay. - Will, you have recently written in The Hill that Democrats need a plan for fixing government that's their own. You said, quote, "Before Democrats dismiss DOGE as just MAGA trollery, it's fair to ask, what is their plan for making government more efficient and effective? Inexplicably, that plank is missing from the platform of the party that believes in active government." Should Democrats have their own version of DOGE? - Absolutely, or not DOGE, they should absolutely have their own plan to make government work better. The public demand for that is palpable and it's nothing new. We all know that trust in government's been tanking, really since the '60s. 21% of people trust the federal government to do the right thing most of the time. So to not have a set of ideas that is responsive to a public that wants deep change in government is a sort of political malpractice. - Given the speed and ruthlessness, perhaps efficiency, at which DOGE is operating, or which Elon Musk is operating, will there be a government to reform? (Will chuckles) - Yeah. - When he's finished. - It'll survive, I mean, what's happening now is that there are lawsuits proliferating all over the landscape. There're gonna be a million checkpoints here, and I think this is going to slow down. But this is the shock and awe phase, and I think we're gonna pass through it pretty quickly because reality is beginning to intrude. These are real lives, these are real functions. We have deep investments here. I'm a government reformer, but this is not the way to go about it. Elon Musk is a great entrepreneur, but this isn't the private sector, this is the government, and it's not an optional thing. I don't have to buy a Tesla, but I've gotta get services from my government. - This isn't something you can change, in my view, by pruning the jungle. You can't just clip, here and there, the red tape. You actually have to go back to a system which the framers contemplated in the Constitution, where law provides a framework of goals, and principles, and accountability, and checks and balances, but real people make choices, and they're politically accountable. Today in Washington, you can't find a real person who has authority to give a permit. And that's the reason we never get permits. - How did we end up in a place where it was the process that hamstrung us? - It was a change in legal philosophy. We came out of the '60s feeling guilty for lots of good reasons. We woke up to racism, pollution, lots of other things. So we wanted to create a system where there were no more abuses of authority, and it just doesn't work. Now you have no authority, and so you have a government that's increasingly paralyzed by the kind of stuff that Will's written about and others, by this red tape state. And the goal is not to, in my view, to get rid of government. The goal is actually to pull it back so we can do it, pull the law back so it can do its job. - Your solution is for government to unshackle itself from laws and regulations to empower individuals to make decisions and use their judgment. - Within the framework of law. And courts would only get involved when an official transgresses those boundaries. - So then, how are individuals held accountable? - Well, any way you want, but by someone. - For their judgment. - By someone above them. - No, no, no, that's where we get hamstrung by this process, right? Because there's so much process, and the process is ultimately what takes any sort of agency away from individuals to make these decisions. - That's right. So if you go to a, say to give a permit for a transmission line, you can't have 16 agencies bickering over whether to give the permit. One agency has to have the authority to make the decision, and that's subject to the approval of the White House in a democracy. Today, you get 16 agencies bickering about it around the table, and it goes on for years. - And it's unclear who has the ultimate authority. - Well, no one has the ultimate authority. - Well, so then isn't this what Musk is trying to fix? And how do you keep Musk? I mean, if the idea is to give an individual the authority to make the decision, isn't that what Musk is doing? - Well, Musk is taking the authority himself to tear apart agencies, but he's not trying to change the operating structure to give anybody else the authority. The problem with government is that the people inside it have been disempowered by all this process and all these procedures. They're also not accountable, by the way. So the American public is. - Musk has a bad theory. The theory is that there's waste everywhere, there's abuse, there's fraud. He calls AID, our foreign aid agency, a criminal organization. Now I have my criticisms of AID, they could be reformed, should be, but they're basically doing good humanitarian work around most of the world, they're not a criminal organization. But why does this freelance billionaire get to come and superimpose his judgements on what's working and what's not? There's no theory of change here. There's no good analysis of where we're failing. It's just he's bringing the entrepreneur's methodology, which is I'm gonna cut everything by 60%, wipe the slate clean, and we're gonna start over, and that'll yield efficiencies. It's not the way it works in the public sector. - Right, and what's, where's the vision for the day after these changes? How's government gonna work better after Musk finishes going through all these agencies? And so again, I think what's missing here is not the diagnosis that it's broken. It is broken, it is paralyzed, and broken, and wasteful, and not delivering things. But the proper cure is to actually let it do its job. Pull back the red tape, let there be permits, let Defense Department officials use their judgment and be accountable up the chain of authority for whether they do a good job or not. - We have fetishized process, and legal obstacles, and veto points, and everybody having their say. And it all adds up to a retreat from the exercise of public authority. But that's not what Musk is talking about. He's just getting rid of whole agencies he doesn't happen to like. It's all on a whim, there's no analysis, there's no predicate being laid for any of these changes. - Both of you have been critical of certain processes, review processes. One of them is environmental review processes. You've both written about how environmental review processes actually have inhibited government efficiency, and in doing so, have actually made outcomes for the environment worse. How do you account for environmental priorities in a more efficient way that doesn't inhibit a project from actually moving forward? - Well, I mean, the problem here is more political. We have a lot of folks on the Democratic side who do not want to take away the permitting. They don't want to relax the permitting process because they think that's their best protection against environmentally ruinous things. But what they don't understand is that if you can't upgrade and modernize your energy grid, you're building in higher pollution. You're not laying the framework for a cleaner grid. And that's happening all over the country. It's not just the grid, it's everything on the environmental side. - Well, delays are bad for the environment. We need new transmission lines to take power from the solar, wind farms in the Midwest to Chicago. Well, you can't get a permit for it. And every permit is not, it's not a question of legal compliance, it's a question of trade-offs. Are the benefits of the transmission line worth the harm of cutting through a pristine forest? That's not a legal question, that's a political question. - And it's a judgment question. - It's a judgment call. And we've, and so the purpose of environmental review, as it was initially enacted, was to have a few months of review in dozens of pages that would alert the public to the fact that there are these issues that are political in nature that are gonna be decided. Instead, it's become this years-long, no pebble left unturned kind of process that virtually never, never ends. And we have to make trade off judgements in order for the country to move forward. - You've written, Philip, that, quote, "Rebuilding government requires not just a wrecking ball, but trust." Polls suggests that Musk is losing the public's trust. In a recent YouGov poll, only 13% of Americans, and 26% of Republicans, said they want Musk to have a lot of influence in the Trump administration. So can an initiative like DOGE survive if it doesn't have the trust of the American people, Philip? - One, no, and two, it also can't survive if he doesn't have the trust of people who work for government. One of the biggest problems in government today is if you make a decision to give a permit, there's always somebody who doesn't like it. - Yeah. - So they will attack you. So in my view, what senior civil servants need is, not to live in fear, but to have cover for important decisions. They need to be, to feel that the people in charge, Musk or whomever, will actually protect them when they make decisions. And so no organization works in an atmosphere of distrust, whether it's government or society. - We need radical disruptors. We need 'em in the entrepreneurial sectors of our economy, that's what we want. But that's not what we, that's not how you fix government's problems, for the reasons we just talked about. And Elon Musk doesn't really know what he's trying to do. He wants to cut $2 trillion in spending. Well, that's a nice goal. If you got rid of every single federal employee, 2.3 million of them, you would cut 5% of public spending and you wouldn't come anywhere near that goal. So he doesn't even really have an understanding, I think, of the end game. The end game seems to be here just disruption for its own sake, sowing fear, telling employees they're no longer wanted, tell 'em to stay home, sort of putting down whole agencies as worthless. And again, pretending that the problem is waste, fraud, and abuse, which is a really kind of simple-minded understanding of what's wrong with government. He thinks that there's just waste in large quantities lying around that he's gonna excise through this radical surgery. - There's one area with hundreds of billions of dollars in savings that requires major overhaul, which is in the healthcare administration area. And if Musk and Trump really wanted to save big amounts of money, they would simplify the healthcare reimbursement and regulatory system, because 30% of the healthcare dollar goes to administration, which is over $1 million per every American doctor in red tape. That system is crazy. And it needs to be completely, basically replaced. - Well, there is waste all across the government, okay. But it isn't sitting there in large piles that you can just go into a room and find. You have, it's like Elaine Kamarck, who was the re-inventor-in-chief for Bill Clinton, said, "It's like fat marbled in the steak." And so the point is, you have to go and find it. And the people that know where it is are the people who work in government. So if you go in there and you attack them and say they're worthless, and they're idiots, and they have to get going and pack up, and we're gonna shut their agency down because we don't need it, and everything they've been doing for 15 years is worthless, well, they're not gonna be very cooperative to you. So if you were serious about trying to find pockets of waste, or even fraud, these are the people that could help you find it. So again, it's just a marker of seriousness to me. If you were serious about changing government, you wouldn't go about it by attacking everybody in sight. - As Will said, it can't be done by just by amputation. It needs to be done somewhat more surgically. And I will say that the biggest supporters of my somewhat radical reform efforts have been the senior civil servants. They want more authority to manage the civil servants below them. They want more authority to cut through the process and get permits. They actually want to do these things. And they exist in this red tape jungle that doesn't allow them to. - Why do you think that is? Why do you think they are the ones who are most eager to see reform? - These are the senior executive service, which are the top civil servants, are people who have generally devoted their lives to public service and are experts in specific areas. And they actually get, their life work is making. - You're saying they're serious people. - These agencies happen and deliver the goods, and they can't do what they feel is necessary. - Over the course of American history, there have been several attempts to reform government, starting in 1883 with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act that established the modern civil service. And there was the Taft Commission, there were two Hoover Commissions, the Grace Commission under Ronald Reagan's presidency, and then of course, the National Performance Review, in which you participated, and you both contributed under President Clinton's presidency. What can Elon Musk learn, if he wanted to learn from American history, from these previous efforts? - Well, what I would hope he would learn is that he's right that periodically government has to be reorganized to look at if it's meeting its goals and to change how it meets its goal. What's happened through history is, actually, you've had changes in operating philosophy over the years. The last real change in philosophy was in the 1960s. - So what was the change in that governing philosophy, Phil? - The change in philosophy was don't trust anyone to use their judgment, because human judgment is fallible. And we need to create a new system that will guarantee that all choices are correct. Let everyone who complains have a hearing. And the result of that is paralysis. So I think the solution is to actually change our operating philosophy and go back to the one that the framers contemplated, which is one based on human responsibility. Law sets goals, law sets guardrails, law sets a hierarchy of authority to make sure that people don't do stupid things, but people make decisions. Law can't govern. And we've created this massive system over the, only in the last 50 years, on the premise that actually we can make government into a kind of a software program. - Will, do you agree with Phil's diagnosis of the governing philosophy that changed in the '60s. - I think I partially agree with it. It clearly did. We got a lot more liberal process-oriented attempts to protect citizens against abuses of government power, which was, government was getting bigger, and it was intruding itself in more parts of American life. And in the '60s, we radically expanded government under the Great Society, and we have been doing that ever since. And so it just became a more intrusive thing with tentacles everywhere. And that just built this kind of resistance, has built antagonism from the public that now saw government trying to do too much, trying to spend too much, and trying to direct them too much. And so I do think it has to do with the scope of government's responsibilities, and we need to have a serious conversation about that. - We have a question from one of our Hofstra University students, Mark Lussier. - Hello, my name is Mark, I'm from Connecticut, and one of my senators, Chris Murphy, said that we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis. I wanna know if you agree, and the step, and I also want to know the steps that the other two branches can take to address that, and their odds of succeeding at addressing it. - Are we in a constitutional crisis? Let me add to that, actually. Where are the other branches of government? We know that the judiciary is exerting itself, but why couldn't these reforms be legislated and then signed in by the executive branch? - That's a very good question. - Are we in a constitutional crisis? - Oh, yes, we are. I mean, I wrote a piece this week about ruling by decree. It's un-American, there's no basis for it in American history and no basis for it in the Constitution. The president can't just make policy willy nilly across the whole scope of what federal government does. That's why the courts are getting involved. We've got a raft of lawsuits. I think a lot of this is gonna slow down. But the point is the courts are doing their job. Who's not doing its job is Congress, and it's because it's under Republican control. He's got them absolutely cowed, and they're not raising objection to his taking over the power of the purse, which is clearly delegated to the legislative branch. So yes, that's a crisis. - Phil, do you think we're in a crisis? - Well, we're certainly building towards one, and now we have Trump saying that maybe the courts don't have authority. And if they really disavow court rulings, then we will have a constitutional crisis. - Do you have anything you wanna follow up on with, Mark? I wanna make sure you're fully answered because you had a couple of different questions. - Actually, one piece was what's the likelihood of them succeeding and like being able to address those concerns of a crisis, if we get to that point? - Well, hey Phil, you said we're getting there. You think we're there, you said we're getting there, especially if they just defy the court orders, then we'll be there. - Right. - So then what? - Well, here's what scares me. Suppose he defies the courts, in other words, the court's are the only thing that are, is the only source of resistance now to Trump's imperial will. What if he just says, "No, I'm not gonna do what the court's prescribed." The other possibility is that the higher courts, the Supreme Court, might side with him on some of these issues. - Well, you know, I do think they're gray areas, and I've written about this in large arguments and such about the scope of executive power. But whatever gray areas there are, you still have to respect the rule of law in this country. And I believe that the rule of law is a foundation that most Americans believe in, and that once you abandon it or disavow it, then we really are in trouble as a society, and we have to sort of come together and do something different. - Let me ask you both this. In 1990, William F. Buckley Jr's original "Firing Line" hosted a debate that was titled, "Government Is Not the Solution, It's the Problem." And of course, borrowing from Ronald Reagan's line, listen to this defense of government from none other than George McGovern. - This debate proposition reminds me of Groucho Marx's observation that marriage is the chief cause of divorce. (audience laughs) The answer is not to abolish marriage, but to strive for better marriages. And so it is with government. Government has caused some problems, no question about that. And I've spoken out against some of those problems. But it has also come up with some inspired solutions. - Right, so the question is, is DOGE's attempt to fix government an example of getting rid of divorce by abolishing marriage? - I'd say, so far, yes. And while it's true that, and Musk is right, the government isn't working very well, to the point that government is the problem, government should get out of people's daily lives. I mean, much of the resentment that got Trump elected was government telling people how to talk, how to get along in the workplace, how you run the local school. And I do think government is the problem when it gets in our daily lives. But I think government, in a crowded, global, really fearful environment of warring powers and such, government is incredibly important to make government strong. We can't be strong abroad if we're weak at home. So we need to make government work better, not get rid of it. - Will. - Well, you know, the problem with what Mr. McGovern said is that it's not about whether you like government or you dislike government. I mean, it's a necessary evil, as Jefferson said, we're gonna have it. And so the question is how can you make it a better servant of the popular will, but also how you constrain what it does so that it doesn't try to do everything, which when it tries to do that, it doesn't do anything well. - Last question to both of you. If you had one piece of advice you would offer to Elon Musk to get it right, if there were still an opportunity for him to correct course, what would it be? - I'd say focus on how government makes decisions. If you can streamline government decisions, give people authority to take responsibility, you will save countless billions, probably hundreds of billions of dollars, and make government much more responsive to public needs. - Will. - Well, the tragically-missed opportunity here is that Elon Musk could have done us a lot of good. If Trump had sent him over to the Pentagon, for example, and said, "Modernize this. Let's get software, let's get modern IT, let's get AI working." This is something he actually knows how to do. And what he's been set on is tasks that he doesn't know how to do, doesn't understand even how to define the problems properly. - Okay, so that's your analysis. What's your advice for Elon Musk? - Go back to the private sector and leave us a alone, please. - All right, all right. (laughs) With that, Will Marshall and Phil Howard, thank you for joining me on "Firing Line," here at Hofstra University. - Thank you. - Thank you. (audience applauds) - [Announcer] "Firing Line," with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, the Fairweather Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Cliff and Laurel Asness, the Meadowlark Foundation, and by the following. Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. (intense music) (intense music continues) (gentle music) (peaceful music) - You're watching PBS. Executive Power usage URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/capehart-and-continetti-on-trump-pushing-the-limits-of-executive-power VIDEO must click the link above to see TRANSCRIPT Geoff Bennett: From Elon Musk gaining unprecedented access to sensitive government information, to Democrats trying to build what they call a bigger and better party, we turn tonight to the analysis of Capehart and Continetti. That's Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart and Matthew Continetti with the American Enterprise Institute. David Brooks is away this evening. It's good to see you both. Matthew Continetti, American Enterprise Institute: Good to see you. Geoff Bennett: So, Donald Trump and his allies are making quick progress toward their stated goal of the deconstruction of the administrative state. We have got takeovers and the hollowing out of major government agencies, offering severance agreements to government workers, pausing federal grants and loans, which, of course, is now tied up in the courts. Jonathan, are the shockwaves being felt across the government signs of a super committed new administration shaking up the status quo, or are we witnessing the full assault on the limits of executive power? Jonathan Capehart: Both, Geoff. Both. Remember, Donald Trump campaigned. He told us this is what he was going to do. Project 2025 is all about doing what is happening right now. And so they are trying to deconstruct, as I think of Steve Bannon, who said, the administrative state. And they are — as I said last week, President Trump and Elon Musk, in particular, are taking a wrecking ball to the federal government by sowing, sure, chaos and confusion and fear. But he's following through on what he promised to do. Geoff Bennett: How do you see it, Matt? Matthew Continetti: I think Jonathan's right. This was a promise made, promised kept, as they like to say in Trump world. And I think what's important to understand about Trump and how he's going about these initial weeks is, he wants to deliver results. Trump always feels as though the political class that preceded him talked a big game, but never accomplished anything. So we had the Grace Commission during Reagan. We had Al Gore's reinventing government. We had the commissions dealing with the debt and taxes during the Obama years. Nothing happened. And so here he is. Elon Musk says he wants to treat the federal government like a new acquisition. Well, Donald Trump says, go for it. Let's see what happens. Geoff Bennett: What about the question Democrats are raising, Jonathan? Where are the guardrails? Who's going to stop any of this? Democrats in Congress obviously don't have any power. Republicans in Congress are moving in lockstep with this administration. The courts have stepped in where they deem appropriate, but obviously can't keep up with the velocity of the Trump administration. Is there any guard against his instinct to wield, to really claim and wield expansive power? Jonathan Capehart: Well, see, here's the thing. Right now, the courts are the only guardrail. And I think people need to understand that the courts operate on a timetable that is completely different than the rest of us. And we just have to appreciate that. The fact that citizens and lawmakers and organizations have gone to court to stop President Trump on a whole host of things, from birthright citizenship to the buyout plans, that is right now sort of the, for lack of a better saying, court of last resort. In the old days, Geoff and Matthew, it used to be that Congress would be the backstop, would be the entity, the legislative branch standing up for its prerogatives and saying, Mr. President, no, we are the ones who decide what agencies come and go. We are the ones who decide what the budget will be. But, instead, the MAGA Republicans who were there in Congress, from Speaker Johnson on down, they're happy. They're happy to go along with what President Trump and Elon Musk are doing, which is why they are silent on a whole host of things that even 10 years ago would have had Congress up in arms. Geoff Bennett: How do you view Congress really abdicating their role, ceding their power to the executive? Matthew Continetti: Well, I think this process of ceding power to the executive is decades in the making, and it's bipartisan. Congress has really just become an investigatory body that delegates tremendous authority to the executive branch of government and the bureaucracy. And we now see the results when you have Trump come in his second term wanting to leave a profoundly changed government in his wake when he departs the Oval Office. And you see that, because of acts of Congress, Congress' own denial of its role, the president has enormous power to wield. And let's remember, when President Obama said he had a pen and a phone, the first Trump administration used a lot of executive orders. Joe Biden tried to cancel student debt through executive order. This process we're seeing is long in the making. And I think one reason Washington is stunned is that you have an outsider in Elon Musk actually punching the delete button on some of these programs. Geoff Bennett: Jonathan, Matthew raised the question I was going to ask you, because that's what I have heard from Republicans this past week, that Democrats can't in good faith criticize Donald Trump, when Joe Biden tried to unilaterally without Congress waive $400 billion worth of student loan debt. And when the Supreme Court said no, you can't do that, he basically shrugged and then tried to do it via piecemeal approach. Jonathan Capehart: This is like comparing apples and cannonballs. What we're seeing coming from the Trump administration is executive orders uprooting and upending the federal government. And what makes this all the more galling and terrifying for a lot of people is that he has delegated a lot of power to someone who was elected to no office, to someone who was not confirmed by the Senate. He is accountable to no one, except for maybe, except for maybe President Trump. And President Trump has already said, well, he will only do things that we want him to do. Well, so far, Elon Musk is doing everything that Donald Trump wants to do. That is what is so terrifying about this moment, is that you have an unelected person, who also happens to be the wealthiest person in the world, and also the wealthiest person in the world who owns a huge social media megaphone, and is able to manipulate the information that the people on that huge platform receive. That's what is so dangerous about what is happening now. And as we're trying to compare President Biden's executive order on student loans and what Donald Trump is doing, Donald Trump is destroying. President Biden signed an executive order and, yes, pushed the limits of executive action, but to the benefit of people who were drowning in student debt. He did it in order to help people, not to destroy the government that the American people depend on for a whole host, a whole host of things. Geoff Bennett: Let's shift our focus back to Elon Musk for a second, because, Jonathan, we actually have the sound that you mentioned. Here is how President Trump responded to a reporter's question about whether he gave Elon Musk any red lines. Question: Is there anything you have told Elon Musk he cannot touch? Donald Trump, President of the United States: Well, we haven't discussed that much. I will tell him to go here, go there. He does it. He's got a very capable group of people, very, very, very, very capable. They know what they're doing. They will ask questions and they will see immediately if somebody gets tongue-tied that they're either crooked or don't know what they're doing. Geoff Bennett: So, Matt, it would appear that Elon Musk has a fairly broad mandate, in that it's not spelled out at all, I mean, if you take into account what President Trump is saying there. Matthew Continetti: I think President Trump has told Elon Musk, let's change the government, let's slim it down, let's dramatically reduce the federal work force. And if you need to go fast and break things, as they say in Silicon Valley, to do that, that's fine. I will say that if Elon Musk were the health care czar or the energy czar coming up with big plans for government spending or to combat global warming, I'd think there'd be a lot less uproar in Washington, D.C. It's the fact that he has the goal of changing the federal government and limiting it, at a time when we have record deficits and debts, that I think is angering a lot of people who are invested in the current system. Geoff Bennett: In the time that remains, I want to return to this open question about the path forward for Democrats, because, Jonathan, you wrote a column for The Washington Post this past week, the thesis of which is that the Democratic Party's issue isn't rooted in policy. It's rooted in perception. Tell us more about that and whether Ken Martin, the newly elected head of the DNC, can effectively change that. Jonathan Capehart: Well, the perception of the Democratic Party is it's filled with elites who only care about niche issues and don't listen to the rest of us. And, as everyone knows, in a lot of instances, perception is reality. I was one of three people, MSNBC anchors, who hosted the last DNC forum. And there were two instances that happened that sort of put this perception in high relief. One was a question asking for a commitment to dedicated seats for transgender folks within the party to be — the serve within the party in the governing structure. Another was protesters who were loudly screaming about climate change and getting big money out of politics, something that everyone on that stage was for. And yet no one wanted to listen to what they had to say. And what was great about — good about those two moments that were instructive, Faiz Shakir, a friend of "PBS News Hour," was the only person the stage who did not raise his hand on the transgender question. There was also one on the question for seats for Muslim DNC members. He said, I don't think we should be dividing people up by identity. We should focus on people who are up for the mission and the program of the DNC and have them bring their identity to the table. He's absolutely right. And then with the protesters, Jason Paul said, this is the way people in the country view the Democratic Party, and that is our problem. That's why I say the policy isn't the problem. Democrats have policies that address the American people's issues. It's the perception. And that is what Ken Martin has to do. And we're about to find out if he's able to do it, to change that perception. Geoff Bennett: Jonathan Capehart and Matthew Continetti, thanks again for being with us. I appreciate it. Jonathan Capehart: Thanks, Geoff. Prior Economic Corner : https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11483-economiccorner014/

hhhaa @Pioneer1 no this is why i call the series the economic corner. In the culture race and economy forum I wanted a series that would focus on economics, i must admit i was thinking about the original wall street journal in nyc, and originally the wall street journal didn't say anything non financial, so for example, they originally would assess a laws financial value not whether it is moral or amoral, good or bad or any cultural element, so I said what if I try to make a series that focuses on finance more strict assessment, and over time get better at it

MY LINKTREE https://aalbc.com/tc/clubs/page/2-rmworkposts/ RM WORK CALENDAR Flash Fictions February 2025 Candace Sulcus of the Sanawoc Cento Series 91 https://aalbc.com/tc/events/5-rmworkcalendar/week/2025-02-15/ RM COMMUNITY CALENDAR 13th amendment proposed, Juneteenth Lord Dunham's report on Canada Economic Corner 12- Black Individualism in the USA Valentine's Day U.S.A. Economic Corner 13 - Sports Franchise Investment Economic Corner 14 - Black Farmers in the USA Estimations of Change https://aalbc.com/tc/events/7-rmcommunitycalendar/week/2025-02-15/

make sure it is listed in aalbc https://aalbc.com/content.php?title=Submitting+Your+Book+to+be+Listed+on+AALBC

@ProfD definitely possible amongst other things

@ProfD yeah the sovereignty is the legal problem. Tiered sovereignty doesn't exist as it will need to for this. the biggest hurdle is what law is applied when one commits a crime. If you are a citizen of the african union and you commit a crime in nigeria against a mozambiquan nigerian law applies but does your african union citizenship get revoked? If you commit a crime in china and you are a citizen of the african union and the chinese legal system penalizes you by not being allowed in the country where do you go? It is legally intriguing. From those I know of working on this, it will work by being on top of citizenry to a member of the african union. That solves many legal questions but for DOSers how will that work,especially if someone cancels their usa citizenship which recently happened increasingly year by year, I haven't checked the numbers in a while.

Economic Corner 14 - the black farmer of the usa MY THOUGHTS In 1920 , white records have 925,708 Black Farmers, this doesn't include Black people still share cropping or farming through prison labor. Remember Alice [ https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1830&type=status ; https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1925&type=status ] How many Black people were actually farming in 1920 that did not own their own land, but were entrapped in legal while criminal situations? By 2017 the recorded number of Black Farmers in the USA is 48,697. That is 5.260514114602013% Ten percent of 925,708 is 92,570.8 so it is clear the numbers are not false. As the brother in the video said, when the war between the states ended the biggest problem is black people in the usa had no where to go[no lands whites havent been to], no revenue or products to get there[no wealthy blacks that could invest in some long journey like white jews later], and had no government willing to ship them[ala the English government that shipped tons of undesirables to the place they called the new world] So, Black people in the usa at the end of the war between the states had to live side their slavers... former slavers, now just abusers. It is illegal to enslave, but it isn't illegal to hinder or harm or stall or restrict as long as no shackles are involved or no evidence of physical harm can be found or will be found by the legal authorities who just happen to be nonblack. But,the Black Farmers need two things primarily. They need more but I will speak to immediacy. 1) they need financial support 2)They need a venue they have access to alone. The numbers are clear, white power, white violence, attacked the black farming industry, from the end of the war between the states to today and the local/county/state governments of the south where DOS farms are, were and are completely complicit in the attacks, whether legal or not. I could had argued Black Farmers need protection but here is the problem for the Black Farmer, specifically the Black DOS farmer. The federal government is the only aspect of government in the usa that is willing to help and that is only because of federal rules, the states/county/local governments are all against them. And you can't move a farm. so even though I say money+an excusive market is needed, neither will keep Black Farms from being attacked. Going aside other Economic Corners, Black Farmers could be given exclusive rights to producing the foods for the eateries in a black owned sports league or set of teams. but first the teams will have to be owned and they will have to be privately owned. I am 100% certain a publicly traded firm or a firm that earns government funds will be sued if it uses food exclusively from Black Farmers, simply because the history of white farmers is to lawsuit any gain by black farmers. I saw the video below and a black farmer said he needed $20,000... where are the black one percent ? $20,000 is not some mountain of money for 2025 Black One Percent. Beyonce/Lebron/Oprah earn far more than $20,000 a day right? So, the Black Farmers have been crying out for help since 1865, where are the Black One Percent to help them? VIDEO ARTICLE Black farmers fight to keep their land, cultivate next generation “It’s about fairness,” John Boyd Jr., a farmer and fierce advocate, said. ByMonica DelaRosa, Alison Lynn, and Anthony Rivas June 18, 2021, 10:47 AM John Boyd Jr., a fourth-generation farmer, grew up close to his 1,000-acre farm in southern Virginia where he now grows soybeans, wheat and livestock. Boyd, of Baskerville, Virginia, is also the founder of the non-profit National Black Farmers Association, which educates and advocates for Black farmers’ civil rights, land retention and access to public and private loans, among other initiatives. Boyd and his father farmed together for 30 years and his grandparents were sharecroppers after the abolition of slavery in 1865. “I know there were slaves and sharecroppers that helped build these barns here,” Boyd told ABC News. “You can see the logs were hand-carved by wooden axes. … Just looking at that reminds me of history, where I came from and where we have to go in this country.” As part of his efforts with the NBFA, Boyd has worked to attract more Black people who are interested in farming, as well as to protect their rights and their land, even riding a mule-drawn wagon and driving a tractor to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress. “The most powerful tool you can possess, only secondary to Jesus Christ, is land ownership,” he said. To be a farmer in the U.S. is to be part of an aging but crucial industry. Black farmers, especially, have seen their numbers plummet from nearly 1 million at the turn of the 20th century to only about 50,000 today, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While the reasons are complex, they ultimately come down to economics, migration -- mainly to northern urban areas -- and discrimination and racism, according to the Duke Sanford World Food Policy Center. In 2017, Black farmers were older than the overall population of U.S. farmers, according to the 2017 agricultural census, which said that their farms were smaller and the value of their agricultural sales were less than 1% of the U.S. total. Due to more complete data collection, the census found that the number of Black producers was 5% higher than in 2012, but the number of Black-operated farms dropped by 3%. In all, 57% of Black-operated farms had sales and government payments of less than $5,000 per year, according to the census, while 7% percent had sales and payments of $50,000 or more when compared with 25% of all farms. A rich history of farming Black people have a rich history in farming predating slavery. Leah Penniman, co-director of Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, New York, said that the Mende and Wolof people of West Africa were expert rice farmers kidnapped from their homes and taken to the Carolinas. “Our ancestral grandmothers had the courageous audacity to braid seeds into their hair,” Penniman told ABC News, adding that they were transported in slave ships with okra, cowpea, egusi melon, sorghum, millet and eggplant seeds. Hundreds of years later, when enslaved people were given freedom, they were also promised no more than 40 acres of Confederate land along the Atlantic coast, a plan from the federal government that came to be known widely by the phrase “40 acres and a mule.” The government’s promise was broken soon after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, when his successor, Andrew Johnson, overturned the order and the land was given back to its original owners. “If ‘40 acres and a mule’ had been a promise kept, that [land] would be worth almost $7 trillion today,” Penniman said. Many of the former slaves became sharecroppers, often renting land from their former owners. “It didn’t just stop when we were freed,” said Boyd. “Where were we free to go? We didn’t have any money. We didn’t have any resources. So, many Blacks stayed on these farms like my forefathers. … That’s how Blacks got land in the first place.” Boyd said the challenge for Black farmers has been holding onto the land and believes the federal government has failed to adequately support farmers of color. “The last plantation,” as he calls the USDA, is “the very agency that’s supposed to be lending me a hand up, [and it is] the very agency putting Black farmers out of business.” Boyd said that even up until the 1980s, he would see the word “negro” on USDA applications and that at his area’s USDA office, the only day they would see Black farmers was on Wednesdays. “We named it Black Wednesday,” he said. The USDA said in a statement to ABC News that it did include the word "negro" on the application Boyd referenced until at least 1988 and that it used the terms "Black" or "African American" since then. It also said the "scenario" Boyd recalled with regard to Wednesdays "is a reprehensible one, but we have no information to support the claim." "It is clear that for much of the history of the USDA, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian American and other minority farmers have faced discrimination -- sometimes overt and sometimes through deeply embedded rules and policies -- that have prevented them from achieving as much as their counterparts who do not face these documented acts of discrimination," the USDA said in its statement. "We are committed to building a different USDA, one that is committed to equality and justice, celebrates diversity and is inclusive of all customers." Boyd said that since 1995, “a half-trillion dollars -- with a ‘T’ -- have been paid out to large-scale farmers in this country in the form of just subsidies” by the USDA. "That doesn’t include farm ownership loans, farm equipment loans, any of those things, and little to none has went to Black farmers," he said. In 1999, the USDA settled the class action lawsuit Pigford v. Glickman, and eventually paid more than $1 billion to Black farmers, who claimed they were unfairly denied loans and other government assistance. “It’s about fairness,” Boyd said. “It’s about dignity and respect.” For Black farmers, the tide is showing signs of turning. In March, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act, a nearly $2 trillion law that directed $5 billion to farmers of color. Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, co-sponsored the bill, which is meant to provide additional relief to Americans impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. “The COVID-19 pandemic both illuminated and exacerbated long-standing health disparities and economic disparities,” Warnock told ABC News. Lestor Bonner, a Vietnam War veteran and fifth-generation farm owner, said that in 1893, his great-grandfather bought the farm that he now works on. He said there’s only 136 acres left and that he needs $20,000 to save it from foreclosure. The relief money, he said, could help jumpstart his business after a difficult year living through the COVID-19 pandemic. Bonner said he thought he would have the money by now “so I could get a crop in the ground this year,” he told ABC News. As part of the American Rescue Plan Act, the USDA had set up a loan forgiveness program that would have helped Bonner pay off his outstanding loans, as well as pay for supplies and equipment to help him continue farming. But this month, a federal judge in Wisconsin ordered the government agency to stop forgiving loans, saying the program unconstitutionally uses race as a factor in determining who is eligible. Penniman says her organization’s mission is to help Black farmers hold onto their land, as well as to introduce young Black potential farmers to the occupation (the average age of Black farmers is over 60). “We have between one and 2,000 folks who come through for these courses every single year at the farm to learn everything from taking care of the soil to planting a seed,” she said. Penniman said that many important agricultural techniques, including many of the practices in organic farming, like raised beds, composting and cover-cropping “come out of an Afro-indigenous tradition.” Boyd, for his part, said he’s “proud and excited to see young people” taking an interest in land ownership and farming. “There’s a new generation of Black farmers. I love that win,” he said. “So, I welcome them to the fight and welcome them as farmers and stewards of the land and contributors to agriculture and the fruit base in this country. That’s what my fight is all about.” https://abcnews.go.com/US/black-farmers-fight-land-cultivate-generation/story?id=78338282 IN AMENDMENT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWpUNrv6_P0 TRANSCRIPT 0:00 the systematic exclusion of the black 0:02 farmer has been an ongoing fight since 0:04 the days of lincoln 0:05 and no one knows that fight better than 0:08 the one man who's been in the trenches 0:09 for the last 30 years fighting the 0:12 united states government for the rights 0:14 of black farmers look at these yes you 0:17 guys do a big crop this is an ocean this 0:20 is a beautiful crop i don't think i've 0:21 had a crop like this probably in 20 0:23 years 0:24 meet john boyd jr a fourth generation 0:27 farmer and founder of the national black 0:30 farmers association 0:31 his 1993 lawsuit against the united 0:34 states department of agriculture led to 0:36 their first ever settlement with an 0:38 individual 0:39 and the subsequent class-action lawsuit 0:41 resulted in the largest ever settlement 0:43 from the federal government 0:45 but only a fraction of those represented 0:47 farmers have been paid out so i'm here 0:50 on his soybean farm in boyton virginia 0:52 to hear how the fight's going 0:55 they look brown well these are beautiful 0:57 i'm gonna get you to open one too okay 0:58 here i come what's your method you break 1:00 it right down the middle you hold it 1:01 like that okay 1:03 and you press it right down the middle 1:05 it's like a little pee you can actually 1:07 chew them 1:08 oh 1:09 you see our taste it's sort of nutty too 1:11 and it really is dense it's like almost 1:13 it's like it it like sticks in your 1:14 teeth in a good way 1:16 like fudge almost it's meaty 1:19 it is it's meaty and it's soy burgers 1:22 yeah yeah mixed soybeans up in 1:24 everything 1:25 if we're going to talk about soybeans 1:27 gotta talk about george washington 1:29 carfur because in the 19th century after 1:31 years of cotton and tobacco crop 1:33 cultivation the soil was completely 1:35 depleted so the hyper-intelligent george 1:38 washington carver taught farmers about 1:40 the importance of crop rotation and 1:42 showed them that planting peanut crops 1:44 will help replenish much needed nitrogen 1:47 in the soil 1:48 but then the southern farms were left 1:50 with a surplus of peanuts so george 1:53 washington carver had to come to the 1:54 rescue once again 1:56 dr carver went into his lab and didn't 1:58 come out until he published a paper 2:00 entitled how to grow the peanut and 105 2:03 ways of preparing it for human 2:04 consumption 2:06 the peanut was the new cash crop and 2:08 both he and the little legume were 2:10 credited as having saved the southern 2:11 farm economy 2:13 both white and black farms alike 2:17 so if black farmers like george 2:18 washington carver were innovative 2:20 preservationists why don't we see more 2:22 black farmers in america today 2:25 the decline in the black farmer 2:28 had a few facets to it one was the great 2:31 migration and then you had horrific laws 2:34 of jim crow 2:35 where blacks weren't able to uh 2:38 obtain credit oh 2:40 yeah uh under the dakar administration 2:43 they came up with the farmer's home 2:44 administration that was supposed to help 2:46 blacks get loans and it did it did the 2:49 opposite we're getting farm ownership 2:51 loans you work in farm operating loans 2:54 i take a step into the united states 2:56 department of agriculture and i stepped 2:58 back in time 2:59 387 days to process 3:02 a black farm loan request in less than 3:05 30 days to process a white farmer's loan 3:08 request 3:09 in the top 10 percent getters and u.s 3:12 farm subsidies get over 1 million 3:14 dollars per farmer 3:16 and the average subsidy to a black farm 3:18 is 222 dollars 3:22 no comparison we're not even in the same 3:25 uh league and we haven't even made it to 3:27 that book 3:28 and as that process became more more 3:30 difficult more blacks left left farming 3:33 you see both federal and local 3:35 governments have worked very 3:37 specifically to deprive obstruct and 3:39 prevent land ownership by black people 3:42 local banks can deny loans local 3:44 governments can write legislation that 3:46 bolsters those banks racist practices 3:49 and the same thing happens on a federal 3:51 level too which has resulted in 3:53 catastrophic losses within the black 3:55 farming community 3:58 so we experienced that from the 3:59 government and and banks 4:02 but we also faced that at local markets 4:05 there was a time period where tobacco 4:08 brought a higher price when i sold it 4:10 through my white neighbor than it did 4:12 when i sold it on my own 4:14 oh 4:15 are you serious yeah what year 4:18 ah this is in the 90s 4:20 yeah 4:21 and the i think you mad it makes me so 4:24 mad well it makes me it makes me mad 4:29 it gave me the drive and the motivation 4:31 to want to fix it yes 4:34 and 4:35 that's what i sought out to do and 4:36 that's what i've been doing for the past 4:38 30 years 4:39 when black farmers sued the usda for 4:41 racial discrimination in 1993 and won 4:44 they proved in court that the federal 4:46 government was systematically denying 4:49 loans and financial support to black 4:51 farmers 4:52 that led to the largest civil rights 4:54 settlement in u.s history but that 4:56 settlement money has only made it to 4:58 roughly 20 000 farmers of the 100 000 5:01 plus 5:02 that were represented in this suit 5:04 why 5:05 because bureaucratic red tape has caused 5:07 the proverbial can to just keep getting 5:10 kicked and rebundled under new bailout 5:12 packages 5:18 [Music] 5:32 you English (auto-generated) IN AMENDMENT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO2kWD1EjuM TRANSCRIPT 0:02 we're back with more of the exploitation 0:05 of black farmers in America now several 0:08 of them have sued and recently received 0:10 back pay after it was discovered by the 0:13 U.S labor department that immigrant 0:15 workers white immigrant workers were 0:17 being given more money than the black 0:19 farmers and the black farmers were doing 0:21 the exact same job it's a disturbing 0:23 reality for many black American farmers 0:26 whose numbers are dwindling by the day 0:28 still with us is John Boyd Jr he's the 0:31 founder and president of the national 0:32 black Farmers Association now John when 0:36 you were here uh we wanted to address 0:38 some of the concerns we've had this 0:40 conversation but we want to go deeper 0:41 recently we saw that a federal judge 0:44 dismissed your lawsuit about the four 0:46 billion dollar debt relief program for 0:49 black Farmers essentially that was 0:50 President Biden including a specific uh 0:54 element of that package that was 0:55 supposed to provide relief to Black 0:57 Farmers he reneged on that promise you 1:00 uh and attorney cromp and others file 1:02 suit and now it's been dismissed where 1:04 do you go next in this case 1:07 well we have filed an appeal uh to 1:11 appeal that decision and and federal 1:13 court and I'm hopeful that the courts 1:15 will take a deeper look at I'm going to 1:17 use your words a deeper look into what 1:18 really happened uh to Black Farmers you 1:21 know every time uh that we're promised 1:23 something in this country uh as black 1:26 people and in this case black Farmers 1:28 they find a way not to get us through 1:31 the resources that are promised to us we 1:33 were promised a hundred and twenty 1:35 percent debt relief for that's for every 1:36 uh black farmer who is eligible and 1:39 other farmers of color uh that means 100 1:41 debt relief 20 uh to pay the taxes and 1:46 Congress repealed it under the 1:49 leadership of uh President Biden and and 1:52 recently he just we lost a big decision 1:55 and affirmative action people black 1:57 people going backwards we need to wake 1:59 up here we lost a big decision and on 2:01 affirmative action and the President 2:03 says he's going to dig deeper uh to come 2:06 up with something from on the stroke of 2:08 repent from from his desk to help get 2:11 around a possible on the actual debt 2:14 relief measure for for college tuition 2:17 and all of these things we need him to 2:19 use this stroke of the pen to help get 2:21 around the issues that facing America's 2:23 black farmers and uh you know why I 2:26 wasn't at the same outrage when this 2:28 Administration went back on its word to 2:30 do that we're always overlooked and the 2:34 fixed problem in this country and we 2:36 were the nation's uh first first black 2:39 occupation here in the country for black 2:41 people so I turned to I turned my fight 2:43 to the federal courts hoping that we can 2:46 get some uh resolve there if not I'm 2:49 going to take my fight to the upcoming 2:51 presidential election 2:53 and to let Americans know that we've 2:56 been left out and uh for people on the 2:59 hill telling me Boyd you got to take 3:01 this one on the chin uh you don't have a 3:03 way out on this uh I'm gonna take my 3:06 fight right out here to the American 3:07 people and let the American people make 3:09 the decision on how we were treated as 3:12 as voters in this country because we 3:15 voted probably 99 for our president uh 3:18 bidener hasn't been a sit-down meeting 3:20 with the president 3:21 and there hasn't been a seat a sit down 3:24 meeting with his act secretary I mean 3:26 come on people that's a given for a body 3:28 of people who voted in a block uh to 3:31 support this Administration well and 3:33 also John Boyd an Administration and a 3:36 president that said during his 3:37 inauguration speech that he did owe 3:39 Black America to your point of his debt 3:42 uh that he owes the black electorate uh 3:44 as to the result of him even being the 3:47 46th president of the United States 3:49 something else I want to bring up is 3:51 something you said in our previous 3:52 conversation before the break here you 3:54 said that Black America needs to realize 3:56 that we've got more work to do talk 3:59 about how important it is that black 4:01 America kind of connects the dots what's 4:03 happening and the distributment of black 4:05 Farmers what's happening with the 4:06 gutting of affirmative action what's 4:08 happening with black people 4:09 disproportionately caring more student 4:11 loan debt that they will not get relief 4:13 from in your 4:15 experience because you are a man of 4:17 significant lived American Experience do 4:19 you believe that what's happening right 4:21 now John Boyd is a backlash of what some 4:25 Americans some white Americans uh some 4:28 federal government leaders feel has been 4:30 too much quote progress of Black Folk in 4:32 this country 4:34 I believe it's a continuation a slow uh 4:40 drag now or takedown uh might I describe 4:43 it as what's happened to us as uh black 4:46 Farmers didn't just start with uh 4:49 President Biden where uh openly 4:52 supported him and got on early early on 4:54 it took a chance with this uh president 4:56 early on when there were many candidates 4:58 in the race I supported this president 5:00 from the administration to 5:02 Administration from Congress to Congress 5:04 we failed to fix the problem at the 5:07 United States Department of Agriculture 5:09 and his farm lending programs around the 5:12 country and and AG lending and the top 5:15 10 agriculture companies these are all 5:18 issues that we're facing every day we 5:20 are those big names that were that 5:23 haven't down you know my number to talk 5:25 about this get educated on it and to see 5:28 how they can lend their voice now 5:31 sometimes people is not your checkbook 5:32 sometimes it's your voice saying that I 5:36 support the the black Farmers Movement 5:38 we support uh the lawsuit we support 5:40 these black Farmers getting Justice well 5:42 listen John boy Junior what we know is 5:43 you are not going to take anything on 5:45 the chin you're not going to take 5:46 anything lying down nor should you and 5:48 here at the grill we look forward to 5:49 helping you amplify IN AMENDMENT In July of 2024, the National Black Farmers Association, helmed by President John Boyd, Jr., secured a $2.2 billion payout for discrimination in farm lending by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This victory is historic: it marks official acknowledgement and restitution for Black farmers, who for generations, have faced unrelenting discrimination in the farming industry. https://www.brookings.edu/events/denied-no-more-a-conversation-with-john-boyd-president-of-the-national-black-farmers-association/ Prior Economic corner : https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11479-economiccorner013

@ProfD I have to apologize I forgot to mention two things. First, in the sport of soccer the way it is designed globally, you have FIFA the global body, then under fifa are confederations, which are something like continents, and in confederations you have football associations which are like countries. Black ownership in soccer teams in black countries is very very high. Jamaica/Haiti[yes even fiscally poor haiti]/nigeria/south africa/ethiopia all countries with a majority black populace with a decent size, not city states or very tiny countries like a cape verde or similar have many football clubs 99% black owned. so, black owned sports leagues or clubs are common in the world, in the larger humanity, essentially in majority black countries. Second , I forgot all about the Big 3 league I think Ice Cube owns it, I am certain he has black partners, though definitely white partners. It is the premier, 3 on 3 so it is a major league. I admittedly forgot. it isn't widely advertised but i know it has grown. So black people in the usa aren't interested, but it isn't a global problem. as I say in sports groups online, black people complain about owning sports teams in white countries but we own a lot of sports stuff in black countries. Making a bridge, since Black DOSers in the usa with money seem in love with investing in white owned sports team in the usa or elsewhere, considering black owned sports teams exist in black countires, they need to be convinced to making an investment in a black owned team/league outside the usa. I say South Africa is the best candidate. First, the safest legal environment cause wealthy black DOSers are the most risk averse. Second, not the most financial potential but in the top ten, arguably others have more but I can say top ten by some angles over all. Third, english speaking, so communication isn't a problem I end with the black populace in the usa is becoming a hyrbid of DOS with Modern Immigrant which in twenty years will yield a definitive comfort with the black populace outside the usa more than in the past which will change financial habits so...

@ProfD Well I can give two answers to your question. 1)The simple but not complete answer is no 2) The complete but complex answer is, DOSers in the american continent , with forebears enslaved in majority non black countries have two aspects, one that is common to many peoples in humanity. and one that is a particular. The one that is common is statelessness. The Romani in Europe are a stateless people. The HAbshi of India, fellow Black DOSers ,are stateless. Being Stateless is a condition . All human peoples have a heritage or culture, ways they carry from the past or grow to the future. But, not all human peoples have a state/ a government/ a land they control. This is why white european jews wanted israel. It wasn't for money. The white european jewish community didn't need israel for financial wealth, doesn't get most of their wealth from israel[that still comes from being allowed to do business as a tiny minority in other peoples countries]and most white european jews don't live in israel, but israel serves a function that white european jews can't get in any other country in the world, including the usa. It is the gap between influence and freedom. And to that end Black DOSers whose forebears were enslaved in the USA/Brasil/Mexico/Venezuela/or similar [not haiti or jamaica which are black DOS countries, Black Haitians or Black Jamaicans are Black DOSers but Black DOSers with enslaved forebears in the usa have no state to claim on birth ] are stateless. The one that is unique is the homeland identity. The homeland of Black DOSers of the American Continent [Canada to Argentina] is actually Africa itself. This is why I have always been against Gates jr. genetic based genealogy. What his line of thinking tries to do is match Black DOSers to whites but that isn't the truth of Black DOS situation. For example, when someone immigrates to the usa from a state in africa today, what do they say? they are south african or nigerian or ethiopian but then they will say, I speak the language of X. Meaning a majority of people in Africa today see themselves as being of a specific people in a state. this is derived from recent african history, as the states were designed by white europeans while the peoples in africa have their own map, so you get this dual factor. But Black DOSers forebears didn't come from any of these modern states made by white europeans. If you I or any Black DOSer in the American Continent spoke to our forebears and asked them , how was senegal or ghana or nigeria or cameroon or dr congo, south africa, namibia, ethiopia, madagascar,algeria, morocco, oman, egypt, or another country in africa, most would have no idea what we are talking about because those countries didn't exist. The only four that they will recognize by name is egypt/madagascar/ethiopia/congo. And they wouldn't comprehend two congos, abyssinians would comprehend the greek name for their country, the various people of madagascar would comprehend the european name of their island , kemet was called commonly egypt at the time our forebears were enslaved, only Ethiopia then Abyssinia actually existed as a government. And Black DOSers tribal heritage is simply mixed African. When I went to various countries in Africa one thing I noticed is that DOSers tend to have a huge variance in our appearance locally unlike folks in Africa who tend to be similar in appearance in regions in a country. And that makes sense cause our forebears were mated to each other absent any demographic concern outside skin tone labeled Black. So, Black DOSers whose forebears were enslaved in the usa have only one possible homeland, which is the continent of Africa itself. I am 100% certain my forebears came from all over the continent, and not from any of these post european colonial governments. Now looking forward, two questions. 1)can a stateless person join a state? yes. Which is why I said DOSers can or can not attach themselves to the USA. The key is the freedom DOSers have because of our unique heritage. IT is that simple. All others in the usa don't share our heritage with the usa and sequentially they are attached by their own heritage to the usa, while Black DOSers are free to choose. But Black DOSers have to choose. And if one doesn't, like myself, you are stateless and that isn't a bad thing. I can't see the future, maybe I will never have a homeland, a place I choose to call a home, that isn't uncommon in human history. But it is a choice I like all Black DOSers whose forebears were enslaved in the usa have. 2) Can continental Africa be a homeland? yes. The AFrican Union already exists, which is the government of the continent of africa. like the european union is the government for the continent of europe. Does the government of africa have a state for individuals? no. Does the ORganization for American States, the government of the american continent? no. so, it is not common for governments of continents to have the same citizenry functions as the countries that compose them, but in my own travels, I know many in Africa have considered this idea, for various financial or cultural reasons. And I admit , if the African Union had a citizenship path I would apply. South Africa or Nigeria or Tunisia I can't say is my home, but I knowing my forebears history, I can say Africa is my home. Now how does one be a citizen of Africa but not a citizen of a country in it is a question for another time:) So, I have explained why the only land a Black DOSer whose forebears were enslaved in the USA can return to is Africa itself. Is it currently available? no. Is it possible in the future ? yes. Can an Individual Black DOSer whose forebears were enslaved in the USA thrive in Africa? Based on the definition of thrive yes, because I know Black DOSers from various places in the east coast who left to various place in Africa as individuals, not as a group, and are doing well. Are they billionaires ? no. So depending on what you mean by thriving the answer is no based on examples. I know I can be verbose but all these words serve a function, to meet the particular realities of black dosers. Our forebears lost wars, that is why they were enslaved. Wars against fellow Black people+ Wars against Whites. Losing wars makes your history complicated. Germany + Japan lost in two phases of the Global White Imperial Wars, Germany has two halves of itself that don't fit and no standing army bordered by england and russia. Japan don't have an army legally allowed to start wars while bordering china. The Russians lose the third phase, they are still trying to figure themselves out. This is what losing wars does to any peoples. The people who won imposed on you things that you can't simply whipe away with a magic wand because you lost the war. Black DOSers forebears lost many wars so.... Fear + Idolization. and I argue while fear was the majority deterrent in the past it is idolization today. As eddie murphy talking to an audience, i paraphrase "yeah I see you out there, nobody enslaving me, the first brother off the boat thought that, and then WHIP oh yes! MASSA! whatever you say! I'm TOBY! I'm TOBY!" The fear blacks have to whites was and is well earned. But in modernity, it is idoltry to whites. and whites aren't the sole genesis to said idoltry. In the USA at least, I think the problem started once Black leadership made their choices in the war between the states. Once they decided to guide black people to integrate to whites in the usa they set the table for idoltry to set in the Black DOSer populace. all things have positives + negatives. The positives of integration is it allows an unarmed black people still being extremely terrorized by white people to have a nonviolent way to gain financial profit and with that a better quality of life, it also allows a black peoples who are constantly attacked the second they have any movement to arm themselves by whites to survive being protected by white presence while unarmed. I comprehend. The negatives though is it requires careful monitoring in how black people apply their identity or goals to integration, especially as a minority populace, more whites live in the usa than blacks. People forget slavery is a form of integration. Jim crow is a form of integration. A black person in missisippi has a governor and two senators in a position of representation to them who are all white. county sheriffs in a position to protect or serve them who are all white and KKK members. Your not segregated because whites don't let you use a fountain, white people still come to your home to collect rent. white people are simply dictating the integration. Integration became for many black people the goal, and if integration is the goal then you don't need a self sufficient black populace because your goal is to be part of the already self sufficient statian/american populace. And to individualism, many blacks see their goal as being an integrated individual in the usa over being part of a strong nonviolent integrated black community with the rest of the populace in the usa. Impediment to self sufficiency if the goal is communal, but not if the goal is individual. even enough I miscomprehended, I tend to focus on majority, and your language focuses on positivity, which correctly, focuses on those that are doing positive, regardless of else. Well, I will not speak robustly for Black DOSers who are stateless, like myself. To said black DOSers they have to find that place, and they may not find it. that is the reality/challenge of being stateless. It is nothing to be ashamed of and doesn't mean you don't have a heritage or culture. But I will say for Black DOSers who have chosen the USA as their homeland their majority has already decided how they want to relate to the usa so the answer is straight forward but has not been reached. The majority Black DOSers who have chosen the USA as their homeland, yes the whole thing like a tribe called quest, clearly want the ability to exist as individuals anywhere in the usa with full opportunity/freedom/protections from local/county/state governments anti black ways or the anti black ways of non blacks. That is the positive environment goal they want. I base this on black people i have communicated to who live in the deep south, the midwest. This is why as I said before in this forum, Federalism is so popular in the modern Black populace in the USA. Federalism is the only thing that has protected black people in the usa from the texas rangers, the missisippi sheriffs, the small white town mayors. I argue Black people never forgot as long as the union army was in the south white violence against them existed but had some stoppage, once the union army left... welcome to hell. So the most positive environment Black DOSers who have chosen the USA as their homeland can reach has to be made in the USA, not found outside the USA as with the stateless Black DOSers. The greatest deterrent is whites in the usa have a complete history of violence against blacks in the usa, it is a constant of usa life for whites, abusing blacks, so it is a heritage and a strong heritage that is older than the usa itself. White Violence against Blacks is the second oldest heritage whites in the usa have, the oldest is killing first peoples, both are far older than the constitutional equality. So, Black DOSers like yourself got one hell of a challenge that many other Black DOSers in the USA aren't apart of as stateless. let alone Black peoples who are not DOSers in the modern immigrant mode who have a duality with a country outside rare for a DOSer. Well I will speak on those who fought against the USA first In the war of secession from the english empire most free blacks , blacks who were not enslaved to whites, were taken to canada. But in the war of 1812 which proves my point about tribes, most free blacks fought against the usa again, said blacks were hanged/killed/enslaved/ a few left the usa. And the black populace has always had anti statians, if you will. Now why didn't said black folks leave. I will split into two groups. First, the originals at the secession from the english empire. If england would had won, no USA exist. and england based on their own actions in failure would had definitely demanded Black Citizenry, the english would not had ended slavery but they would had ended the block on black freedom, not for love to blacks but to empower a deterrent against the whites in the usa. I think many blacks viewed the usa with a vendetta and wanted to destroy it, blood feuds work that way. while whites enslaved blacks for money, blacks didn't view their enslavement as financial. This is a blood feud and as such , only the shedding of blood can sate. To why Black DOSers who are anti statian don't leave. Well... stateless people have the hardest time getting a homeland because a true homeland isn't about money or owning land, it is about an embrace to a place as tied to your soul, and well... that is one of the hardest places to find. Second, to the enslaved black people. Well they were enslaved to whites. Slavery is a physical thing, they were not free to leave the usa, they weren't free to move about in the usa. Now I will speak a little on the underground railroad focused on Black people who escaped slavery before the war between the states... It is known HArriet Tubman wanted black people to leave the usa, go to canada. But Frederick Douglass/most Black advocates before him and Black churches and white churches wanted Black people escaped from enslavement to stay in the usa. They each had their own reasons. White churches wanted congregants. Black churches wanted congregants especially as they couldn't move their church to canada. Douglass + the others like him before chose the usa to be their home and simply wanted other black people to do the same,. The heritage of getting other blacks to do your way is still strong in the black populace in the usa today. They didn't convince all but they convinced most to stay in the usa. I know it is cheap in hindsight but it is clear Harriet Tubman and blacks like her were correct. If all free blacks go to canada, that changes human history. For better or worse overall I don't know but it changes abolition in the usa or the greater north america. The reason being it gives abolition a focus. As a white southerner once said, i apraphrase:"you northerners speak of living equal with the negro but i never see your daughters with them" White abolitionist wanted to end black enslavement to harm the business model of the wealthy white south but wanted black people to stay in the usa as a cheap labor source. If free blacks moved out more it would change Canada. to Black people after the war between the states who became free without escaping, most of them, didn't have the courage to try to escape so they have a compiunded problem. They are anti white, very frightened of whites, have little to no history of communicating as an equal human to anyone so travel is dangerous, very frightened of leaving the slave grounds by white terror, need to find a place for their own comfort. Did they want to leave? Yes. Did they have anywhere inviting them to come? no. Did they have anywhere to go regardless of invite where a penniless people could go? no. Did they like the USA or whites in the usa enough to embrace or choose the usa? no. What you get is a stuck people. But they tried to give Frederick Douglass a chance, the black church a chance. Maybe if white violence or the union army could had waited twenty years , that may have been enough and history is changed , but in three years after the war between the states, whites are terrorizing black people so much so most white historians argue the violence by whites to blacks after the war between the states is worse than before. And so absent any time to settle in and believe in the usa, most Blacks are in the Jim Crow, the second phase of slavery.with all the problems they had before plus more, and thus no movement, no anything all based on honest expeirences, which leads to Black Individuals being the sole examples of success and the strenghtening of individualism to be the majority way of life for those in the black populace in the usa.

Economic Corner - what is the truth of investment in the sport industry in the usa? Key points One hundred and fifty million is the most recent value of starting a WNBA franchise , fifty million initially and then one hundred million through promised infrastructure plans. The WNBA franchise in Chicago was started for five million dollars, in Oprah Winfrey's beloved town, by a white man who had less money than Oprah, and was absent any promises of future investment. No major league, major league defined as a team determined the primary athletic tier, from the NFL to the National Women's Hockey League has a black owner. For example, baseball has a black owner in the minor leagues of baseball. Opportunities to invest in the sporting world in the usa and become the owner to a franchise exist that are affordable. The Black populace in the usa through individuals or group of individuals have the annual revenue or saved wealth to make the investments. Now some restrictions, most sport organizations in the usa, demand owners be single individuals. There are cases of ownership groups but they are not common. Sometimes investment firms or corporations are allowed to own a team, like RedBull owns RedBull NY but the process of a large set of individuals to become a corporation and then to own a team is a longer process time wise, and in that time will challenge the devotion of the members. So based on womens sport leagues financial growth, black individuals of the highest financial caste have already missed out on financial growth of circa ninety six percent. That is financial failure. * Why aren't the Black wealthy, the black one percent, investing in sport to become owners of franchises in the usa? What is the truth of investment in the sport industry in the usa? * If an opportunity to invest to become an owner exist, if you have the money to make the investment safely, then the question is why don't you ? Only five answers exist, and I will list them first. They aren't investing because: 1.they don't know the opportunity exist 2.they know the opportunity exist and want to but can't do it alone 3.they know the opportunity exist and want to but can't get a group 4.they know the opportunity exist and don't want to because they are interested in investing in other fields 5.they know the opportunity exist and don't want to because they are interested in investing in the sporting field but want a safer investment * All are possible. 1.I know of blacks who don't like sports for various reasons so I can believe some don't know , they have such a dislike of sport that the thought is away from them. 2.Five million is a lot of money and the average Black millionaire in the usa can't risk five million dollars. so I can see many can't do it alone. And adding the modern heritage, a lack of communalism in the black populace in the usa, reaching out to a financially wealthy black stranger does not seem common. 4. I know of a black former nba player who owns a tech firm another who owns a car dealership network. So, just because a black person is involved in sport doesn't mean they want to invest in sport and that is fine. Again, it is called free market capitalism for a reason. It isn't slave market capitalism. You are free to invest how or where you want, that is the point. 5. I don't have private financial data to the black wealthy, one million or more saved or earned, in the usa. But, from white owned media, most black sports investment is as shareholders, not majority owners. So based on advertising, most black wealthy seem convinced in safer bets in the sporting world. I will rephrase, black wealthy like hedging their bets where white wealthy can cover for them. The positive angle is Lebron James for example. He invested in one percent of Liverpool football club. Now, the investment group from boston that owns the red sox and bought Liverpool is looking to sell. Upon the sale, Lebron can cash in and earn more than he put in or keep it in and ride the growth for longer. I can think of many shareholder investments in sport by the Black wealthy. Looking to sell is a common tactic in modern sport, buy and wait for a few years and then sell where you cash in or keep your money in and have it grow. After a sale to some buyer somewhere for more money who has a similar plan, to sell after a set of years, or isn't looking to sell and has a non financial agenda. I have seen this with some WNBA teams with ownership groups who never want to sell the club , just want it is a long term investment to leave to the next generation it seems. The negative angle is the preaching from black millionaires or better to the black financial poor or common in the usa concerning becoming investors when black millionaires or better are not willing to invest? If Black financial speakers don't complain about black wealthy evading ownership and becoming shareholders, then said black financial speakers need to not speak on black poor or non wealthy not willing to risk their pennies. The bigger issue is, if you don't own , you don't control. Minority investment, minority shareholding , is a great way to make money off of others risk but a terrible way to control things, cause you can't control any firm unless you are a majority shareholder or owner. 3. you may have noticed I put this last. The one thing I rarely hear, i did hear about Tony Parker with a set of other athletes investing as a group into Olympique Lyonnais, is group investments in sport. I remember when Isiah Thomas owned the remade CBA, and I wondered who else invested with him. I never found out but I do wonder about many black wealthy people and their collaborative abilities with other blacks. I can believe Oprah Winfrey can't make a group to easily cause it is public knowledge she has many who don't like her in the black one percent. But it is clear the Black one percent need more internal interlinking. URL https://www.thestar.com/business/edward-rogers-argued-against-a-toronto-wnba-franchise-but-tanenbaum-went-ahead-and-got-one/article_dde69db8-1dea-11ef-8828-3fa01376cfbd.html Edward Rogers argued against a Toronto WNBA franchise — but Tanenbaum went ahead and got one. Who was right? Fifteen years after being denied a Toronto women’s team by the NBA, economic experts say Kilmer Sports Ventures’ $50 million purchase of a WNBA franchise will likely be a slam dunk. Updated Dec. 12, 2024 at 1:47 p.m. May 31, 2024 By Josh RubinBusiness Reporter What did Larry Tanenbaum see in a WNBA franchise that Edward Rogers didn’t? Plenty, say sports business experts and women’s sports advocates, who argue the franchise granted to the Toronto businessman and sports industry investor will be a big success — at least off the court. “I think it’s going to be a success. I think the franchise is going to be worth $100 million, $150 million in the next few years, pick a number,” said long-time sports industry executive Richard Peddie. Tanenbaum, through his firm Kilmer Sports Ventures, was recently awarded an expansion franchise in the premier women’s pro basketball league in exchange for a franchise fee of $50 million (U.S.). As part of the deal with the league, Kilmer also agreed to other financial commitments — including renovations and building a practice facility — which a league source says brings the total value of the deal to $150 million (U.S.). More than fifteen years ago, when he was CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, Peddie was a big proponent of the organization’s push to get a WNBA franchise. He and Tanenbaum — who still owns a chunk of MLSE — were shot down by then-NBA commissioner David Stern. Tanenbaum, said Peddie, never really gave up his hope of a team. That vision clearly wasn’t shared by Edward Rogers and Tony Staffieri, the chair and CEO, respectively of Rogers Communications, one of MLSE’s parent companies, along with BCE Inc. and Kilmer. As reported by the Star, Rogers and Staffieri argued against MLSE bidding for a WNBA team, despite an internal MLSE business case which projected the team would eventually become profitable. Expansion franchises in any league can have a shaky few years when they start. But there’s already ample precedent in Toronto for a new team proving to be a good investment, said Peddie. “You think about Toronto FC. There were people who thought us buying Toronto FC for $10 million was crazy, was the stupidest idea going. Now, some people would say it’s worth $700 million. That’s where Larry’s coming from,” said Peddie. “When we bought Toronto FC, we weren’t projecting it to make any money right off the bat. But we were amazingly profitable in the first couple of years.” Victor Matheson, a professor of economics at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts who specializes in the economic impact of the sports industry, says there are plenty of reasons to expect Toronto’s WNBA team will be a financial success, including the precedent set by the NBA’s Raptors. “Toronto certainly has a chance to be a good market for the WNBA. The reason we know this is that obviously it’s been a great market for the NBA — a lot of success with the Raptors,” said Matheson, who added that Toronto also has a track record of supporting high-level women’s sports. “The Canadian women’s soccer team has done fantastically. And there was just a spectacular inaugural season in the PWHL.” So why wouldn’t those factors be obvious to other potential investors in addition to Tanenbaum? A failure of imagination, said Matheson. “I think what a lot of owners and broadcasters have lacked is the imagination to realize what a hit women’s sports can be,” said Matheson. “They say ‘well, why should we even try to ask for a lot of money for TV rights, or why should even think about paying a bunch of money for TV rights. I can’t imagine anyone going and watching these games,’ so they don’t even try.” Having the star power of rookie Indiana Fever point guard Caitlin Clark in the WNBA is helping everyone from sponsors, teams and the league itself get that spark of imagination, Matheson said. The season-opening game of the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun against Clark’s Fever was a sellout, with more than 9,000 fans, the team’s highest attendance in 20 years. “They weren’t just paying the $10-$15 WNBA price, but scalping tickets for $50 or $100 apiece. As soon as people see things like that, they can start to imagine that ‘hey, this is something that really could work,’” said Matheson. The fact that big-time sports investment has traditionally been male-dominated has also played a role in the failure of imagination, says Allison Sandmeyer- Graves, CEO of Canadian Women and Sport, an advocacy organization. “It’s a safe bet that was a factor,” said Sandmeyer-Graves. “When you start from a place of not respecting women’s sports, it’s really hard to see the value in it.” Recent surveys done for CWS, said Sandmeyer-Graves, give plenty of cause for optimism that Toronto’s as-yet unnamed team will be a financial success. Sandmeyer-Graves pointed to results which found that 17 million Canadians called themselves fans of women’s sports. And the gender breakdown wasn’t what some people might have assumed. “What was really cool in the research we just released was to see actually, fans of women’s sports are almost 50-50 men and women, and it’s even a little bit higher for men,” said Sandmeyer-Graves. And, she added, the surveys were done before the inaugural season of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, which has a franchise in Toronto. “So it’s not just the novelty of the first season of this new league, said Sandmeyer-Graves. “There’s latent demand in Canada for women’s sports that hasn’t been fully met.” Still, there will inevitably be bumps in the road, just like there are with any start-up franchise. Detractors, she argued, won’t be playing fair if they use those bumps to try and shoot down the team’s long-term prospects. “I think we need to give this team the same grace and patience that we have given to other teams in the past. So often, when it’s not a success straight out of the gate, it’s seen as just more evidence that women’s sports just aren’t successful,” said Sandmeyer-Graves, adding that Tanenbaum seems like a patient investor who’s in it for the long haul. “I’m not saying MLSE wouldn’t have been the right fit, but clearly, they didn’t feel like they were the right fit. … Where it goes in five years, we’ll see. But it seems like they’re starting off on the right foot.” Josh Rubin is a Toronto-based business reporter. Follow him on Twitter: @starbeer. Prior Economic Corner: https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11475-economiccorner012/ IN AMENDMENT What is annual average cost [players/stadium/staff/utilities] of the least costly to operate professional, meaning paid athlete, sport team in the city you live in? The following is content in normal weight font unverified . I did a general search, "average yearly cost of LEAGUE NAME team" New York City has all the major leagues and many minor. The cheapest team is a Premier Women's Hockey Alliance or Roller Derby, the womens football alliance team in nyc folded. Now, white people say Washington DC/Atlanta/Charlotte are the three cities with the most black millionaires. Jackson Missisippi is the only city in the usa with over eighty percent black population. But NYC has a larger population of black people than any city in the usa by a distance. So the question is are any of the sports franchises with the lowest annual cost cheap enough for a black multimillionaire in new york city to risk? i argue yes, but to each their own. WNBA The average yearly cost of an WNBA team is estimated to be around $13.2 million1. The average team is worth an estimated $96 million Premiere Lacross Leauge The average yearly cost of a Premier Lacrosse League team is estimated to be around $10 million1. The revenue per employee for Premier Lacrosse League is $203.2K2. The company operates in the Spectator Sports industry3. Premier Womens Hockey League The average yearly cost of a PWHL team is around $56,500 USD2. The league requires each team to average between $45,900 and $60,500 per contract in lieu of a salary cap1. The minimum salary for PWHL players is currently $35,000 USL League 2 team The average yearly cost of owning and running a USL League 2 team ranges from $600K to $1M2. The initial franchise fee to buy into a USL 2 franchise is $75,000, which can be split into payments of ~$25K each year for three years3. Expansion fees in the USL Championship are $12 million in 20205. Womens Football Alliance- the gridiron The average yearly cost of a Women's Football Alliance (WFA) team is estimated to be around $20,0001. This budget covers expenses such as field rental, equipment, uniforms, videography, web hosting, and some travel. If teams participate in the playoffs, the cost can be higher2. Frontier league baseball team The average yearly cost of a Frontier League baseball team is around $75,000, with a salary cap of $72,000 per team125. Most players earn between $1,000 and $2,000 a month during the summer2. The highest paid players can earn up to $4,000 a month2. Major league cricket The average yearly cost of a Major League Cricket (MLC) team is estimated to be slightly above $1.1 million2. The salary cap per team is $1,150,000, of which $320,000 is spent on American players Overwatch league The average yearly cost of an Overwatch League team is approximately $1 million14. Team owners bought into the Overwatch League for $20 million per slot ahead of its launch in 20183. The average annual pay for an Overwatch League player in the United States is $121,7652. Roller Derby Travel costs: Gotham Girls Roller Derby $58,260 Gotham paid out 23,051 in 2011. Not sure where you got the other number from. Websites that state cities with the large numbers of black millionaires https://propertyclub.nyc/article/richest-black-neighborhoods-in-america#:~:text=Washington D.C. has the most Black millionaires in,of government and military jobs in the area. https://blackelites.com/top-cities-in-the-u-s-with-the-highest-number-of-black-millionaires/

@ProfD well... I am not going to go into the history of liberia cause it is complicated and is done a disservice with simplicity, but I will say that the DOS original immigrants brought by whites and other Black immigrants afterward brought by whites came to liberia with a unity in individual purpose, that being a free happy home for themselves away from whites while surrounded by blacks. But, they came with a high variance in communal purpose. That is where the chaos ensued. The indigenous inhabitants did actually make a legal agreement with DOSers alongside the whites who brought them but the DOSers lack , absence, of a common communal purpose is the source. While in the usa, the country of individualism, individualism is purposeful, vital, important, needed , warranted over communalism. But when a group leaves the usa, especially one that wasn't ever allowed to be a group in the usa, to a new place the absence of a common communal purpose will lead to pain, catastrophe. Liberia at the end of the day, has a minority made of the DOSers who are financial aristocrats. Historically that isn't true. We who is we, I repeat, you are not speaking about me or DOSers like myself. Now I will speak a bridge which I have said before in this forum. DOSers unlike any other peoples in the usa based on our history have the freedom to say the usa isn't our homeland as well as is our homeland. The First People's must cause they were the first humans to these lands, they also have the right to say they have the first rights unlike any other. Non DOSers, including other black people can only say the usa is their homeland because they or their forebears in totality freely embraced this land. But, the DOSers is free to be attached to the USA or not. That is a truth unique to DOSers, I think it unsettles many DOSers , especially those who embrace the usa and want DOSers to be like all others so to speak. But, I hope one day, all dosers realize all a unique freedom. We do oppose in this case. I must say DOSers in the usa have built towns/churches/communal places like the renaissance ballroom in harlem. I was speaking specifically about a website like tiktok. But I have accepted something that I think you either don't accept or don't want to accept. The communal nature of the black populace in the usa in the past is no longer a majority culture in the black populace of the usa today. And I don't think it is a negative. You say black people in the usa dont want anything of our own , but I don't think most black people in the usa are thinking of an our own in the first place. You are not accepting that white violence in the usa has broken the black communal desire in the usa most black people in the usa had in the past and that communal desire has been replaced with an individualism. Black individuals in the usa are sacrificing on their own for their own things, they are not trying to collaborate much. In small tribes yes, but nothing grand as in the past. And I think you see that as a problem. So in your opinion, most black people in the usa live in a positive environment. I am fortunate enough to communicate to various black people who live in various places in the usa. I don't think any of the fifty states in the usa are a positive environment for black people. Now if you are saying based on black people doing financially well that the negative environments don't matter, well ok. You are not the first black person I have spoken to who disregards the environment in the usa because of the existence of black people who are financially doing very well. This whole thing started about black twitter remember. on Troy's post. and it went into a discussion on black owned websites, and you keep pushing it into the general field. And in honesty I comprehend why Profd. I get it. You are a black person, a DOSer who is an American, I don't know if you are proud, but you are American. And like the free black people who fought for the creation of the usa, even as most black people in the european colonies were enslaved and stayed enslaved on the usa's creation, you see in the usa a beautiful thing, a thing that you want to be a part of and you are willing, like those blacks who fought alongside the founding fathers of the usa, to fight blacks/non blacks or anyone else to strengthen the usa. But it will be nice if black people like you in the light of the free blacks who fought to create the usa, realized the two other groups: free blacks fighting against the creation of the usa + enslaved blacks who want nothing to do with whites or the usa survive in the DOS community today as well , regardless of the articulateness of DOSers.

@ProfD It would be revealing, I gamble most black churches in the usa are financially private clubs in 2025 I must say I don't claim liberia but i think an argument for liberia is valid. But since we both accept DOSers in the usa have no external land then the tiktok method is impossible cause the chinese were able to use government powers that DOS don't have in the usa and never will have, unless the black population in the usa becomes majority and that is never going to happen with the white europeans/white asians/white muslims/white arabs/white latinos well yeah, that has always been the unique problem with the DOSers in the black populace in the usa or the european colonies preceding it. Those perspectives range to wide to build a bridge. I argue that no group in the usa has such a variance, but that isn't a fault on DOSers, that makes since cause DOSers shouldn't be in the usa based on their own forebears desires. But I wonder how anyone Black can think the usa is a positive place for a majority of blacks at any time in its history. In 2025, the black towns that are throughout the south, don't tell me black people think those towns are in a positive environment with the states governments of texas/missisippi/ or similar. I have to say Profd, can you provide links to a black person, any black person in the usa, saying a majority of black people live in a positive environment in the usa? I have never heard a black person say that offline but maybe online it happened. Please share, it seems you know someone or maybe you see it this way yourself. No it is also venture capitalist firms, private investment and many others, but my point was none of these ventures will invest in a black owned losing business for years which is a reality of all popular websites, they are all losers financially, money pits really, until they are not or they are closed cause the money line has dried up. I comprehend that, the problem with crowd funding or grassroots, is you need to come through and can that be guaranteed. I know of failed grassroots or crowd sourcing attempts by black artist that angered black people who invested. I admittedly, accepted the money can be lost but most will not . So the trust issue comes up, and websites are fickle historically, many love the good stories and forget, most websites fail. If the website fails black people will correctly never trust the designers of the project again and the black populace in the usa, correctly, has a short leash of trust. ok well:) From what you have wrote,....why don't you start a crowd fund for aalbc then?

@ProfD first I have to state the question I am answering. The question I am answering is how do most black folks in the usa become financially wealthy, wealthy defined as the highest financial brackets among the black populace in the usa only? I know it isn't your question but your question relates to the black populace in humanity, each country is its own field, you can't compare black people in brasil to black people in nigeria to black people in india to black people in phillipines to black people in spain to black people in the usa, each place has important variances. And I have to specify the financial field as well, black people in the usa for some reason like to compare our financial situation to whites which is unfounded. Billionaire oil barons in Nigeria or their forebears had /have/will have opportunities black folks in the usa never had/don't have/will never have, white people in the usa murdered and killed blacks in the usa to make they didn't/don't /will not. so...how do most black folks in the usa become financially wealthy, wealthy defined as the highest financial brackets among the black populace in the usa only? The entertainment industry, owned or controlled by whites from before the war between the states, is the main engine of the black wealthy. Black people do legal nonviolent work and over time gain enough wealth, not as much as the white owners of the entertainment industry that predate the 13th amendment but... Black Churches raise money through their members, but I don't know about where you live but I can tell you many black churches in harlem. harlem defined as all of northern manhattan, are dead/gone/empty... yes, some black churches are present or a little above water, but most or many are dead or dying. yes i know, that is one of the long standing points of contention in the black populace in the usa, older than the usa itself, started in the 1500s well my point was about the environment black people live in the usa. It was never and isn't a positive environment for a majority of black people. Now maybe in the future it will be but I think the odds are low, very low, on that. This is the economic corner liking to dislike is fine but I rather be informed, especially among financial affairs. To the investment banking, please state the banks black people in the usa have access to that will invest in a losing financial venture owned by a black individual or group, which is how all websites in the usa started? Please name the banks. I am not ashamed to say I have no idea which banks will invest in a losing enterprise owned by blacks for years. I am glad you know, please inform in the economic corner. And please state how black people in the usa can make a website incubated from non blacks in the usa or others outside, like the chinese in china, a nuclear powered country that is actually majority chinese, can to all outsiders? I am all ears. I do not know is the beginning of all wisdom, since you seem to know then please inform. I never said you did but the topic is about a black owned website so since you have a fine tuned financial strategy, you should be able to apply it to any circumstance theoretically, and in the financial corner that theoretical finance is part of the message.

@ProfD I apologize... I didn't say Garveyism is the most today but to this day, meaning in history. Garveyism which is more than pan africanism, is not popular in the black populace today but no movement in the history of black people in the usa is more popular than garveyism at its height. Well... a leader can be a teacher, can teach, a teacher can be a leader, can lead. So a leader is someone who is in a position to influence a larger group. Leading or caring or nonverbal acting is not a prerequisite for being a leader. A teacher is someone who is looking to teach another. So, if a teacher is not a leader then what that means is said teacher is not in a position to influence. But is that true of Fuller or Charles barkley or Obama, all of whom have publicly claimed they are not leaders in the black populace in the usa. I argue Fuller is... was a leader, like Barkley or Obama. And like his contemperaries he decided not to lead/nonverbal act communally. And that is fine. Again, if a leader is unwilling to lead that doesn't mean they are not a leader, it just means they don't want to lead. If you know your Zen from China that is actually very acceptable. But I don't want to go away from the topic. The Great Shirley Chisholm, one of my personal favorite black elected officials, never said she wasn't a leader, she admitted she wasn't leading. That is true wisdom, rest her soul. And Before her spirit flew she said black people in the usa need to focus on finance. She didn't say black people in the usa should be uncaring to government, that will lead to a return to most of white violence or terrorism to blacks circa 1865 to circa 1990. Looking forward in the usa, not the black populace outside the usa which i see disconnected to the black populace in the usa while also significantly much larger even in parts, the black populace in its individualism needs a culture of "financial titanhood" I will explain. Since most black people in the usa are about the individual or a small tribe and not the black populace, the best financial model is one where black individuals have a financial ambition as part of their culture. This is opposed to the careful financial culture that most black wealthy have. The Black financial poor can't afford to be ambitious as their financial level can't afford risk. In all financial activity risk exist but when one is financially poor, it is very dangerous to invest riskily. But without a heavy riskiness one can not be deemed financially ambitious, especially when one can not financially cheat. Again, many whites in the usa have cheats in their financial history that blacks will not be allowed or afforded as the usa is a white country so, risk is mandatory for ambition when one has to be within the rules. And this connects to a black owned website becoming the most followed in the world or at least in the black global online populace. Myspace/Yahoo/Google/Youtube/Facebook/Twitter all at one time or another were the most popular website in humanity or at least the usa by some measure. But all of them started the same way, investment banks after the fall of the soviet union's global ambitions and before the rise of china financially, an environment that doesn't exist today. Said banks allowed all of said firms who were financial losers , some for many years, to hold on till they found a financial balance. The problem with that model is , said banks would not do that for a black owned website. Tiktok is the biggest now but its model is even more impossible for blacks of the usa. China through military power has an insulated environment, so they make their own websites in china and give them preference. Douyin was doing great and then they made the mirror of it and called it tiktok for outside china. it is the biggest website in the world today. But black people in the usa:) would need to go back circa 1865 and change the path black leaders put us on. Most Black Leaders in the usa back then went against all the ideas that could lead to the governmental abilities to have protectionism like china. If the exodusters had succeeded , maybe today, but black people themselves, like frederick douglass, opposed the exodusters so...the way in which tiktok became what it is, isn't replicatable by blacks in the usa. Blacks in the usa, especially DOSers don't have a country of their own. The modern usa government can't even accept black happiness or positive history in media. So... absent a powerful banking network that can commit financial crimes or their own country to be an incubator, black people in the usa who want a stronger website can't do what white europeans or white asians did for the most popular websites in history. Profd, you talk about Fuller's method so much, your plans, well let us see some prose, adapt them to owning a website?

@ProfD Well, appealing with humans is best nonverbal. A white german man admitted as a kid he loved the nazi's. Not because of hitler's speeches but because of the non verbal improvements by the nazi party in germany. The lesson which Fuller jr should had known as an academic, a student of human collective action, is that non verbal action always warrants being heeded while verbal action is at best an optional to humans, through out all human history, including the future on mars when humans will say similar about being abused by the terrans. It wasn't calling black people nigger or calling first peoples of the americas savage that appealed to whites, it was the free land most were able to get without getting their hands dirty, it was the access to large quantities of labor extrmest under market value to make the revenue to give to make the lives of their loving ones happy. This is why Garveyism to this day is the most potent movement in the black populace in the usa. Garvey spoke or wrote but at his core he was a non verbal doer. He emphasized non verbal action to black betterment , not words not gambles not lies, unlike many others in Black Leadership positions in the usa especially, including Fuller jr. Any human's speeches, whether condemning or calling out or praising or inspiring is impotent or negligent or dysfunctional in comparison to non verbal action; and that is why any human at any time who uses speeches is unheeded. They aren't delivering the best thing to heed, and that isn't visions but solid things, things you can grab, hold, treasure

This economic corner is a manipulation of a dialog between me side @ProfD side @Troy I felt it is warranted because the post it was started in is about Black Owned Websites and while the overall dialog with Troy maintained a focus on black websites, the dialog between me side profd did not. So I placed my replies to their post within the multilog, with no demand to a reply. A majority of blacks in the usa are individualist and that isn't a negative thing. It is something born from being in majority terrorized by whites from the early 1500s to circa 1980. Black people have done everything possible in the usa to nonviolently grow. Everything possible. The failure was in who black people existed nonviolently next to, non blacks. Now in 2025 in the usa I think it is clear from the black 1% or the black financially wealthy, black elected officials, black places of worship, that the black people with the most financial wealth or access to power or resources are individualist. Actions speak louder than words. So, when it comes to group actions across 50 states, I argue all those are foolish endeavors in modernity. The old black populace in the usa is dead and is never coming back. And that is fine. Black communalism in the usa isn't dead but it is local, tribal. So to a black website in the usa or any communal activity in the usa , they are all best as tribal acts. The faith in nonviolent communalism is silly, unwarranted. I don't know if anyone notices but for a while I don't use the term "black community in the usa" cause for me that is a lie. The black populace in the usa exist. but the black populace is not a community. And I repeat, that isn't a bad thing. It is warranted. The Black populace spent a solid one hundred years in the usa , being communal like no other people on earth at the same time , or very few in human history, and white power crushed it all. yes, some will argue, try again, but that is silly or stupid. Black people in the usa repeated anything someone black says needs to happen multiple in the past as a community, white power crushed it all. No need for the black populace in the usa to try again all the things that failed in the usa by way of white power. If you are black in the usa, embrace your small tribe, or embrace individualism but stop all the unwarranted talk about the larger populace doing communal action. Look positive to the future in a new road, a wise road, a financially more honest road. IN AMENDMENT Troy suggested the specific issue of black websites but it is a general affair so I placed it here alongside anything I have to say as it isn't specific to the black websites issue. THE DIALOG BETWEEN ME SIDE PROFD SIDE TROY https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71601 @ProfD On 2/6/2025 at 11:02 AM, ProfD said: find it mind-boggling that Black brain-power and wealth are not working together to create our own platforms. I find it disturbing that Black folks are perfectly fine with enriching white folks at every level. Social media platforms is one example. If individualism is the majority position among Black people with the revenue or resources to invest in owning a website fit for modern esocial activity, then it does make sense. I don't think an individualist sees it as enriching a community, they see it as an individual investment. If you are individualist, you don't see your actions as part of any populace in humanity, only the larger humanity itself. @Troy On 2/6/2025 at 5:30 PM, Troy said: It takes a ton of money to run a robust social media platform capable of supporting even tens of thousands of users -- let alone hundreds of millions of users globally. So, any site we use will need serious funding and only comes from investors who believe there will be serious returns on their investment. thank you, too often black folk seem to think investment in things just needs pennies from the black poor. Something require grand investment To @ProfD + @Troy On 2/6/2025 at 6:16 PM, ProfD said: Black folks invest a whole lot of money in churches though. Maybe we need to call the Black platform Hallelujah On 2/8/2025 at 11:25 AM, Troy said: That is actually a Great idea man a Christian social media site, surely one most already exist. I found on first page search only the following http://www.blackandchristian.com/ Its funny facebook was started through colleges, Historical black colleges through the fraternities or sororities can idealistically do similar. https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71607 On 2/9/2025 at 9:56 PM, richardmurray said: I found on first page search only the following http://www.blackandchristian.com/ That website is defaulted. It has not been maintained for years and the length to the forms is broken. The fact that it ranks well in search seems to indicate there is no active website in the space. I wonder if there’s even a desire for one. I suspect most church communities have their own websites and online social platforms. On 2/8/2025 at 12:00 PM, ProfD said: Regardless of religious affiliation, I was thinking that could be the name of a Black-owned platform equivalent of Tw8tter (X) Well, from the example that Richard provided the idea of a Black Christian website didn’t seem to work. As far as a black on website, the equivalent of what’s already out there we already know that won’t work at least not originating in the US. On 2/9/2025 at 9:56 PM, richardmurray said: I don't think an individualist sees it as enriching a community, they see it as an individual investment. Of course anyone buying in stock in Meta or Alphabet are doing so to make money for themselves. Now, while Facebook makes itself out itself as bringing in the world closer together people don’t invest in them for that they invest solely to make money. There are other businesses types that are mission, driven B corps and not for profits. people invest in them to improve society, but those aren’t the organizations that make all that make money for investors or create wealth. It has been suggested buy some, that AALBC should become a not for profit. https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71608 @Troy On 2/10/2025 at 10:30 AM, Troy said: The fact that it ranks well in search seems to indicate there is no active website in the space. I wonder if there’s even a desire for one. I suspect most church communities have their own websites and online social platforms. Local Churches historically tend to be competitive to each other, they may share a similar faith but they rarely like to share prominence. Well, youtube tried short videos before tiktok was created and it didn't catch fire. so, what that one scenario proves is, the packaging/algorithm/style of such a website is key. People like websites when it offers a simple straight forward interface while provides an aspect to communication online that they didn't have before, not necessarily as a tool , but in the style of the tool. I think "HAlleluyah" can work, but imagination will be needed in how it operates. I argue AALBC should stay for profit but it will be wise if you have a contingency plan for non profit upon your death or some bad situation https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71609 On 2/10/2025 at 10:30 AM, Troy said: As far as a black on website, the equivalent of what’s already out there we already know that won’t work at least not originating in the US. Again, I was not advocating for a Black Christian website or platform. That's not my thing as the resident agnostic around here. Half-Jokingly, I only used the name Hallelujah because many Black folks would check it out due to upbringing. On 2/9/2025 at 9:56 PM, richardmurray said: thank you, too often black folk seem to think investment in things just needs pennies from the black poor. Something require grand investment Many poor people still give church offerings, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and do drugs and shop. So, they can contribute along with other investors. https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71610 @ProfD On 2/10/2025 at 12:14 PM, ProfD said: So, they can contribute along with other investors. Can they? I don't smoke cigarettes, but I know cigarettes cost money, so if a human being, likes smoking cigerattes and they are a financially poor person, they probably don't have money to invest in a website, even if what they can invest is not even a miniscule fraction of a percent of the funds needed . https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71611 On 2/10/2025 at 5:55 PM, richardmurray said: Can they? Yes they can. On 2/10/2025 at 5:55 PM, richardmurray said: ...so if a human being, likes smoking cigerattes and they are a financially poor person, they probably don't have money to invest in a website, even if what they can invest is not even a miniscule fraction of a percent of the funds needed . Reads like you're making excuses. Where I come from, I know for a fact that poor people know how find money. Obviously, not enough money to become rich or wealthy in most cases. But, it's enough to maintain habits. Many campaigns are funded by small money donors. Some churches operate the same way. It adds up. https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71614 @ProfDnot an excuse, being happy isn't an excuse to anything. if any human being does something that makes them happy, they want to do that more right. At least for me, i will rather be happy than sad and i think any other human will rather be happy than sad. So fi your happiness is an expense , you still need it and some investment into something that will not lead to you being happy will not be maintained for long. yes example of consistent small donors to certain financial endeavors exist, but to be even, cause the dialog is swaying away from the theme of the topic... my original quotes were in concert with Troy's concerning black twitter, more specifically websites, online websites, it wasn't a generalization. and in an endeavor like a website big donors are mandatory , needed. Not one heavily followed website had small donors. throughout its history. That isn't laziness or an accident or something small donors can undo, it is the reality, big donors are needed for any website to grow a certain size. And to the current environment , many websites even after massive financial investment are failures. Look at china really. The blunt truth is that western european countries/japan/india/russia all have websites to their local markets but none were like china, willing to invest enough to get websites that are global brands. And it took money for that, not small donors of the chinese people. Rich chinese so I repeat my point to troy: too often black folk seem to think investment in things just needs pennies from the black poor. and I amend, that is not true. Black pennies from the black poor is good for local, local defined as city region or town level investments. A house/ a community center/a retail shop/small scale operations. that are bounded to the region of a city or a town. But if you want industry leading firms across the usa, with over three hundred and fifty million people or moreover humanity, the black rich not the black pennies from the black poor have to be the primary investors. https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71618 21 hours ago, richardmurray said: @ProfDnot an excuse, being happy isn't an excuse to anything. if any human being does something that makes them happy, they want to do that more right. At least for me, i will rather be happy than sad and i think any other human will rather be happy than sad. So fi your happiness is an expense , you still need it and some investment into something that will not lead to you being happy will not be maintained for long. Right. Reminds me of people who claim they want to lose weight but refuse to diet and exercise because eating makes them happy. Instead of a gym membership, the overweight person who claims they want to lose weight would rather spend that money on more food and snacks. A pack of cigarettes in NYC costs $13 dollars. That's almost 1 hour of minimum wage work. If we're serious about it, 4 million Black people investing $25 dollars (2 packs of cigarettes in NYC or a large pizza) in a business venture adds up to $100 million dollars. https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71621 @ProfD 21 hours ago, ProfD said: A pack of cigarettes in NYC costs $13 dollars. That's almost 1 hour of minimum wage work. it's funny, i haven't heard of a person buying a pack of cigarettes in a very long time in nyc. I see people buying singles at stores or asking for singles from their fellows or strangers. A pack? no one has money for a pack Profd. that fact that you suggested that ... you haven't been in a place like nyc in a long time have you? I don't get snap but many are complaining about snap benefits ending. ...I repeat, because it is important, black pennies will not do it. Do you know across the demographic board of NYC, if the school food program goes under, half of the children in nyc's schools, not just black, the non black as well whom you like to suggest so financially astute, will go hungry, across the board 50% , fifty percent of the children in public school. 21 hours ago, ProfD said: If we're serious about it, 4 million Black people investing $25 dollars (2 packs of cigarettes in NYC or a large pizza) in a business venture adds up to $100 million dollars. I will love to know who has bought two packs of cigarettes in a month in nyc ? only people with money in the first place are doing that. but you get to the nitty gritty. Who is going to be in control fo that hundred million dollars? Profd? It will not be me. who? obama? sharpton? mrs obama? clarence thomas? who? historical black colleges? I can't name one black individual or group in the usa who has the desire+ imagination+trust to do anything with 100 million. if it was gathered. This goes back to our million man march dialog. Assuming someone had the trust or could gain the trust, trust must be earned, of five hundred thousand black men who attended the march , with your $25 dollar assumption, that twelve million and five hundred dollars? but who canthose 5000,00 trust? you? me ? iargue none class. https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71627 19 hours ago, richardmurray said: @ProfD it's funny, i haven't heard of a person buying a pack of cigarettes in a very long time in nyc. I see people buying singles at stores or asking for singles from their fellows or strangers. A pack? no one has money for a pack Profd. that fact that you suggested that ... you haven't been in a place like nyc in a long time have you? You're missing the point but it's OK. I was just in NYC last year. Saw Black folks spending money too. 19 hours ago, richardmurray said: n in nyc's schools, not just black, the non black as well whom you like to suggest so financially astute, will go hungry, across the board 50% , fifty percent of the children in public school. NYC is the same place spending millions of dollars housing illegal immigrants. They could easily feed the children if ut was a priority. 19 hours ago, richardmurray said: Who is going to be in control fo that hundred million dollars? Profd? I can't name one black individual or group in the usa who has the desire+ imagination+trust to do anything with 100 million. Right. Therein lies the biggest obstacle. On one hand, you don't 1) believe Black folks can raise $100 million dollars through grassroot efforts and 2) can't trust any steward of the $100 million dollars collected. But, you'll suggest folks like Oprah Winfrey and others put up $100 million dollars of their money. My point is that Black folks can do both. 19 hours ago, richardmurray said: This goes back to our million man march dialog. Assuming someone had the trust or could gain the trust, trust must be earned, of five hundred thousand black men who attended the march , with your $25 dollar assumption, that twelve million and five hundred dollars? but who canthose 5000,00 trust? you? me ? iargue none class. It starts with having a solid plan/agenda, goals and milestones. That requires a herculean effort of oorganization among Black folks especially in a climate of individualism and tribalism. MY CONTINUATION @ProfD I comprehend your point, it is that the financial poor in a populace can lead a populace, in fiscal capitalism, always. well I don't know about ease, I never say anything is easy. Nothing is easy. Technically, NYC is spending federal money on housing illegal immigrants, thus appropriated money, thus money that must be used for specific reasons. I doubt the representatives of many states in the union will desire federal money for immigrants into nyc Well, I must first say, I call any populace in humanity foolish if they put up large funds without trust. You first have to have the trust before the money. It is rare but sometimes the number 2 comes before number 1 this is one of those times. You have 1 but 2 is a key element to why 1 exist with me. Yes, Profd, here is a simple example. If I am a billionaire, no a multibillionaire, lets say I have ten billion. so ten percent is one billion. one percent is one hundred million. So, now someone, like myself says, why don't Rich spend one hundred million, which is one percent of rich rich's wealth in this example right? Now, that 100 million is Rich Rich's money right? Rich Rich can do what he want with his money right? So, if Rich Rich don't invest in the community that is perfectly acceptable because Rich Rich is free to not invest or invest with Rich Rich's. While, if rich rich is honest, if he is me he is, Rich Rich will publicly say he isn't helping the black populace in the usa and is responsible for not helping as one of the wealthiest black people in the usa. Cause that is the truth. If someone like Profd says in some forum, you guys want Rich Rich to invest his money , but can't trust a steward . and someone will say, Rich Rich said, as a fiscally wealthy black person in fiscal capitalsim that I have to invest first, before any fiscally poor black person, and if I don't invest, I am free to but anyone can tell me to shut the fuck up if I chime in on the village. Yes, if I was a billionaire and freely chose to not invest in the community but like to chime in on this show or that, any black person has the right to tell me to shut the fuck up. To the obstacle of trust.... YEs in the past the black churches in the usa had the ability to garner grassroots, but the stewardship of the black populace in the usa by the black churches in the usa failed. From circa 1865 to 1990 the black churches in the usa had their time and it ended with the majority of the black populace in the usa correctly rejecting their stewardship from the black churches. The black churches in the usa had three tenets: nonviolence/grassroots activity/be of the church. Be of the Church is very interesting historically. The black populace in the usa at one time was 99% christian. Comprehend the percentage of jews in the white european populace/buddhist in the white asian populace was larger than non christian blacks in the black populace. So, the entire advantage to black churches existed , in terms of maintaining a strong role in the black populace, and sequentially membership. But I think the 1950s, was the beginning of the end for the black churches in that be of the church mantra. Atheism/Islam/Buddhism/Belief systems or faiths older than christianity or islam or judaism while indigenous to africa grew in influence. The Black churches in all earnest, were never flexible enough when it came to the potential internal variance of cultures in the black populace in the usa. And their relationship to: Historic black colleges or universities, the NAACP, the garveyites, the black soldiers from the first two phases of the white european imperial wars W.E.I.W., black newspapers, the panthers, the nation of islam and many others all should had been integrated with black churches more but none were. The colleges or universities were initially 99% financed by white churches , black people had no money when the 13th amendment was signed because our populace was mostly enslaved not to long before. So I comprehend that white churches wanted the colleges to get black members to their churches. But black churches needed to merge with those colleges, comprehending that at their core they are places of learning not religion. The garveyites, again, malcolm's father was a pastor. But, not all churches supported garveyism. and that was foolish to me. The NAACP financed by white jews and has a black 1% workforce in it, but link to them. and they didn't. Black Soldiers, so many black soldiers in the first phase of the W.E.I.W. came back to the usa invigorated , but alot of times they organized away from the black churches, not through it. I comprehend that many soldiers don't share the position on violence many church folk will want but embrace these people. Newsppapers/Panthers/ Nation of Islam the black churches simply didn't make an effort to bind with black organizations or groups over the years. It isn't about people coming to them but they needed to lead and go to others, and they didn't and the results are easy to see. The modern internal multiracial reality in the black populace in the usa has left the black churches behind, but they never embraced it, even among themselves. What always knocks me out is how little black churches helped each other. Very individualistic black churches are. Grassroots activity is huge, initially the most positive. Black churches were able to manage black money/time/muscle into building schools, being active in government affairs. Again the 1950s, was a time of change. Circa 1865 most black people in the usa were correctly, financially worthless, as they came out of enslavement. But by 1955, and moreso in 1965, you see the rise of what i call the black one percent. Nonviolently, evading or surviving or overcoming all sorts of white violence/attacks/bullying/terrorism some black people , with the help of the village cause no one does it alone no matter what they tell you, achieved financial wealth. Not white wealth levels, again, white people killed first people to take their land and enslaved black folk to till that land, so having access to land + labor that you are not paying at market rate or in various tax system or rulesets helps catapult financial revenue streams, which black people wierdly seem to think can be better legally. But the black wealthy circa 1950s had developed a culture started from 1865 that influenced black churches badly. The black wealthy all went to black churches and started manipulating how they operated , whereas circa 1865 black churches sought to help the black populace, circa 1955 black churches are telling black people to help themselves. Black business owners flipped the bill for alot of activities in the 1960s but the black churches should had by that time been more involved. But the death of grassroots activities from black churches to the larger black populace in their regions started to change how black people related to the churches. Kwame Ture, some know as Stokely Carmicheal, said it best himself, about Martin Luther King jr, can you imagine a black baptist preacher doesn't accept a cadillac. The Black Preachers by the 1960s in majority were not about the flock but themselves, that is why they never voted for MLK jr to be head of the southern black christian leadership conference. And in parallel, the wealthy black churches have survived well to this day each in their individual glamour while the fiscally poor churches said rich churches didn't even think warranted a grassroots activity to save died and with them a huge disassociation from the larger black populace in the usa. Nonviolence:) I saved this last, cause i argue this was the biggest injury black churches had to their leadership position in the black populace in the usa. So many black people were beaten , the tragedy of the usa, is alot of times, black people ourselves, focus on the hangings, the burnings, the action from whites that lead to death, but i think the violent actions from whites that are not lethal are more interesting. How many black women were raped? I know in one town all the black women were raped by whites, a common knowledge around black people in that town. How many black men were beaten by whites, unsheeted circa 1865 to anytime now sheeted circa 1875 to circa 1965 uniformed circa 1865 to anytime now. The Black Churches circa 1865 had a vote where they decided a collective stance, an agreement between black churches on the stance towards violence [I am trying to find out all i can about this and add it to the DOS EARLY LITERATURE GROUP, it will be one of my best finds if I can] , to support nonviolence. And I don't mind that, but here is the problem, when you promote nonviolence aside a communalism circa 1865 black individuals don't feel alone, but from circa 1950s to modernity the nonviolence is aside individualism. In the 1970s white people still enslaved black people straightly, albeit illegally, while black churches in the same 1970s are talking about bootstraps. Said enslaved black people: can't chew through metal, block a bullet to their arm or deal with a ax hit across their foot, can't attack an armed person with the power of faith. Black people needed armed protection, they needed guidance away from white violence. But all the black churches ever provided from circa 1865 to modernity, 2025, going from undoubted leaders to castaway organizations, is no guidance away from violence or no protection and black people, like any people with some sense, saw the nonviolent plea ended up with the black churches leaving each of its members alone, as black individuals against white communal violence and why go to church for that. I will never forget Sean Bell's father, he said he wanted the men who killed his son dead. Al sharpton, the pastor, and others made sure he wasn't heard much after in the media sphere, and that encapsulates the problem with non violence from the black church. It is a spit in the eye. The same Black Churches that shut up Sean Bell's father who said nothing wrong in my mind, will then turn to people with similar feeling to sean bell's father, all earned by white violence, and tell them about investing in some business, voting for some official, all of things that will not satisfy their warranted anger. Cause the black churches don't care. it is a philosophical desire that leaves black people alone in the affairs that matter most while demanding some unwarranted communal action by the same individuals. And this goes to my point about Black leadership concerning the Black 1% in the usa, said 1% was brewed in Black Churches in the usa. The Black Churches developed an individualist culture that didn't even allow them to help fellow black churches, and made them private clubs whose members ingratiate themselves and have a heirarchy of wealth, dismissive of anybody outside. So when I suggest the black 1% put up their money, I don't do that hopefully. It is merely strategic assessment within a fiscal capitalistic environment where all major actions come through the fiscal aristocracy , no matter how they got their wealth, and uplifting the black populace in the usa is a major action. PRofd you suggest in a climate of individualism that garnering the trust needed is a continent bridging act of organization. I concur. Possibility is not probability. Possibility ask can a thing happen or not. Probability ask what is the gamble, as a numerical value, a thing can happen. It is possible, all things are possible actually. But the probability is very low in this case. https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71630 (FROM TROY IN AMENDMENT- this came in after I had set up this post so I just placed it in ) 21 hours ago, richardmurray said: I will love to know who has bought two packs of cigarettes in a month in nyc ? There are plenty of people. I was asked to buy a carton of cigarettes here in Florida for someone up in New York City who smokes two packs a day. My mother easily smokes a pack a day and has been doing that for the better part of 3/4 of a century. certainly, we as a people can do a much better job and investing in our own businesses. We do have experience with this already. There are mega churches all over the country that are supported by relatively small contributions by large numbers of people. Some of those churches have schools and provide a wide variety of services for the community in addition to ensuring contributors get into heaven. But churches have all types of tax advantages that regular businesses don’t. The real issue, I think, is creating wealth for the investors rather than lighting the pockets of some charismatic preacher. It is not just a matter of organizing the investors it’s coming up with the viable business. Alternatively, people can be content in simply contributing to a business without expecting to be rewarded financially. People contribute to my business simply because they want to support what I’m doing, which is beautiful because it actually does help. MY REPLY @Troy Buy a carton in florida, not in NYC and Profd's point was about NYC, not buying in another state because of the cost in nyc... whose we? The black populace in the usa, not the world, not another country, the usa has no we. Yes, small tribes do this or that. But overall no we exist in the black populace of the usa. So I argue, the black populace in the usa is doing as it has been guided from internally as well as externally. And that is fine. Individualism has served black people in the usa well for those that want to integrate, to merge, to miscegenate, to become one with the non black in the usa. yeah, I mentioned black churches in my reply to Profd, yeah ok. but black churches are about themselves, again, they don't help each other, so... the time has passed on that. The culture of ingratiating the preacher is fully embedded, the time to unravel that was in the 1900s not 2025 and after your right. I never said there are not black people with money who give with no desire for financial returns. But the black fiscal poor can't lead a website to the kind of growth to become a "electronic freedom's journal".. not in my opinion. Can they be part of the journey yes, but not lead. That is asking the most from the poorest. https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11462-is-black-twitter-still-a-thing/#findComment-71635 Prior Economic Corner https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11447-economiccorner011/

@Chevdove it takes a village the mutlraicial' s is hard to embrace

@ProfD it's funny, i haven't heard of a person buying a pack of cigarettes in a very long time in nyc. I see people buying singles at stores or asking for singles from their fellows or strangers. A pack? no one has money for a pack Profd. that fact that you suggested that ... you haven't been in a place like nyc in a long time have you? I don't get snap but many are complaining about snap benefits ending. ...I repeat, because it is important, black pennies will not do it. Do you know across the demographic board of NYC, if the school food program goes under, half of the children in nyc's schools, not just black, the non black as well whom you like to suggest so financially astute, will go hungry, across the board 50% , fifty percent of the children in public school. I will love to know who has bought two packs of cigarettes in a month in nyc ? only people with money in the first place are doing that. but you get to the nitty gritty. Who is going to be in control fo that hundred million dollars? Profd? It will not be me. who? obama? sharpton? mrs obama? clarence thomas? who? historical black colleges? I can't name one black individual or group in the usa who has the desire+ imagination+trust to do anything with 100 million. if it was gathered. This goes back to our million man march dialog. Assuming someone had the trust or could gain the trust, trust must be earned, of five hundred thousand black men who attended the march , with your $25 dollar assumption, that twelve million and five hundred dollars? but who canthose 5000,00 trust? you? me ? iargue none class.

@ProfDnot an excuse, being happy isn't an excuse to anything. if any human being does something that makes them happy, they want to do that more right. At least for me, i will rather be happy than sad and i think any other human will rather be happy than sad. So fi your happiness is an expense , you still need it and some investment into something that will not lead to you being happy will not be maintained for long. yes example of consistent small donors to certain financial endeavors exist, but to be even, cause the dialog is swaying away from the theme of the topic... my original quotes were in concert with Troy's concerning black twitter, more specifically websites, online websites, it wasn't a generalization. and in an endeavor like a website big donors are mandatory , needed. Not one heavily followed website had small donors. throughout its history. That isn't laziness or an accident or something small donors can undo, it is the reality, big donors are needed for any website to grow a certain size. And to the current environment , many websites even after massive financial investment are failures. Look at china really. The blunt truth is that western european countries/japan/india/russia all have websites to their local markets but none were like china, willing to invest enough to get websites that are global brands. And it took money for that, not small donors of the chinese people. Rich chinese so I repeat my point to troy: too often black folk seem to think investment in things just needs pennies from the black poor. and I amend, that is not true. Black pennies from the black poor is good for local, local defined as city region or town level investments. A house/ a community center/a retail shop/small scale operations. that are bounded to the region of a city or a town. But if you want industry leading firms across the usa, with over three hundred and fifty million people or moreover humanity, the black rich not the black pennies from the black poor have to be the primary investors.