A World We Dare to Imagine - Pt 3

Organization - Investing for Your Future

Our mission is to educate people on the importance of investing and to teach them how to safely invest in stocks. We aim to help communities in the United States where long-term financial planning is an afterthought. We believe our organization will open up opportunities by helping people get out of poverty or just by helping people save more effectively.

The most important part of this organization is the educational aspect. Nowadays, most people don’t really understand investing at all. The goal of Investing for Your Future is to show people how much of a difference investing makes towards their total savings. For example, look at these 3 facts that most people don’t know:

1.     Over the last 100 years, if you invested in the index and held for over 8 years, you would have never lost money (this includes the Great Depression, the dot-com bubble, and 08 crash). In the short-term stocks are risky, but as you can see, in the long-term stocks are not risky at all.

2.     Over last 100 years, average real return (takes inflation into account) for Bonds = 1.1% for Stocks = 8.3%. So, if you invested 100k into bonds and waited 20 years you would make around $29,000; if you invested 100k into stocks and waited 20 years you would make around $415,000. This illustrates the difference in returns from stocks and bonds.

3.     ONLY invest in bonds if you want the opportunity to pull out your money in the short term. If you are fine with not being able to pull out your money in the short term than ALWAYS invest in stocks.

I am excited about the work my organization will do because I have a passion for trading and a passion for helping people, so this is definitely something I would never get tired of. I would use my finance education from Marshall and my own personal investing skills to teach people the benefits of investing in stocks for the long term. I started trading back when I was 14, and by the age of 18, I was making complex hedges with options, futures, and forwards. Also, I took a financial derivative class at USC where I learned how to safely hedge even if the market crashes.

Nowadays, in the United States, almost everyone has access to an online brokerage. I would like to host weekly trading camps in areas where long-term financial planning is an afterthought, like the inner-city of Chicago and Los Angeles. At these camps, there will be live speakers to educate, computers to trade on, and free food/drinks. The main goal of my trading camps is not to show individuals how to actively make trades, the goal is to inform them about long-term PASSIVE Investing. Passive Investing is where the investor makes a trade, sits back and does nothing, and then sells years later for much more than they purchased for. Traders don’t have to actively watch the stock price or do any hedges to minimize their risk. Passive Traders just have to follow one rule: Be Patient – YOU ONLY LOSE MONEY IF YOU SELL.

My camp will educate people about the safety of long term investments in the stock market. I believe that if people know the benefits listed above, they will be more inclined to invest in stocks rather than in bonds or even worse just letting their money sit in a bank account/underneath their bed. Hopefully, people at a young age will realize that it’s not about how much money they make each year, it’s about how effectively they save their money. For example, an inner-city young adult can keep $5,000 in his house where it loses value every day due to inflation, or he can invest that $5,000 in the index where it will be worth over $11,000 in 10 years. I believe my organization will open up opportunities in peoples futures that they would have never had without knowing how to effectively invest their money for the long term.

Soliloquy by Leigh Salgado - LaunchLA

Last Saturday night my friend (Thomas - also known as T-Swoto) and I went to Leigh Salgado's solo show in La Brea. We had a few drinks before so we ubered there. To our surprise, right as we open the door, there is a bar pouring free drinks. T-Swoto and I immediately approached the bar and got  Little Sumpin Lagunitas. Right as I walked up the stairs into the gallery, I saw Professor Hansen (looking very handsome) and his beautiful wife, we had a nice chat and then entered the gallery.

The gallery had three little rooms that were packed with people. One person really stood out to me. He was wearing a bright red suit, had a hat with a feather, and had wild shoes on. He looked like he was the God of Art. T-Swoto and I walked around viewing the different pieces of work. It is amazing how precise and detailed her art is, she must spend hours - no actually days - working on each piece. Her process involves using an Exacto knife with a feminist touch.

After the show, T-Swoto and I went to Roscoes Chicken and Waffles (it was like 5 mins away!). Roscoes is one of my favorite places, when I was in high school I would drive over an hour once a month just to eat it. I always get the #1 - 2 waffles and 2 pieces of chicken (dark meat of course) and a side of mac n cheese!

Please enjoy the photos below :)

A World We Dare To Imagine Pt #1

During our 10-minute free write session on Wednesday, I was able to come up with three ideas of what I would do with 10 million dollars to help make the world a better place.

Idea #1 - Starting a camp/school that teaches underprivileged people how to invest in stocks safely. Nowadays, almost anyone has access to an online brokerage. I would love to go to a foreign country that doesn't have much education on investing, and use my 10 million to create my own investing camp.  I would use my finance education from Marshall and my own personal investing skills to teach people how to invest in stocks safely for the long term. I started trading stocks back when I was 14, and by the age of 18, I was making complex hedges with options, futures, and forwards. Also, I took a financial derivative class at USC where I learned how to safely hedge even if the market crashes. I think if people from underprivileged countries learned how to do this, it could really change their lives and create new opportunities for them and their families. Also, I have a passion for trading and a passion for helping people so this is definitely something I would never get tired of.

Idea #2 - Invest 10 million (honestly I probably need more than this) in subsidies for organic food in America. My goal is to lower the price of all organic food so that it is the same or even less expensive than non-organic food. I know how important it is for humans to eat healthy, and I don't want money to be the reason why some people can eat healthy and some people can't. To be honest I almost feel like our government does this on purpose. Like they don't want every person living their lives as long as possible, they want some people to develop diseases and die at a younger age to control overpopulation and our food/water shortage. The problem I have with this is that usually, only "wealthier" people can afford the higher price foods which means the "poorer" people are stuck with the unhealthier foods that gives them a higher chance of dying sooner. And I just don't think that is fair and want to use my extra money to make the playing ground even.

Idea #3 - Use 10 million to go to a 3rd world country and start my own farm - Schmeddy's Farm. I would have hundreds of free-range cows, chickens, pigs, lambs, etc and all fresh veggies and fruit. And twice a week I would throw a huge BBQ where everyone from the local community can come and eat for free. At the end of the BBQ each person there will receive a large basket that is full of food that will last them until the next BBQ party! Also, these events will be fun. They will be full of alcohol and dancing!

Random Blog Post #2

Sup lil readers,

If you like the show the Bachelor/Bachelorette, then your mind will be blown when you watch Temptation Island.

Temptation Island has the same concept as the Bachelor, but instead of one guy, there are four unmarried couples. Yes, you heard correctly, four unmarried couples (some have been together for 8 years +) travel to an island to be tempted by 15 men and 15 women. The couples are on separate parts of the island the whole time and never get to interact with each other. However, they do get weekly video clips of what their boyfriend/girlfriend have been up to. These clips are only 15 seconds long but boy do they cause drama. I am on episode 10 out of 12 of season 1, and so far only 1 couple has been faithful!

At first, I was hesitant about this show. But my girlfriend persuaded me to give it a shot and I am so happy I did. I still can't comprehend it, if you are in a relationship and it is having some problems, why on earth would you go to Temptation Island? Obviously, it just going to go downhill from there.

I also want to mention that whoever did the soundtrack for the season is garbage. Every time a scene changes you hear the loudest music that doesn't relate to what is going on in the scene at all.

Update/Spoiler - we finished the last two episodes of season one. 2 out of the 4 couples get proposed to... It was loco!

Debby Dougherty - Predatory Behavior in the Workplace

Last Thursday night I went to a talk by Debby Dougherty on Predatory Behavior in the Workplace at 6 pm in JFF LL 125. Professor Dougherty attained her Ph.D. in communication at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with an emphasis in organizational communication. She now teaches as a professor of Communication at the University of Missouri and she is the Editor in Cheif for the Journal of Applied Communication research.  The goals of Professor Dougherty's talk were to try and explain 2 questions - 1) How is predatory sexual behavior possible in the contemporary workplace? 2) How can organizational leaders prevent this destructive behavior?  

One thing professor Dougherty talked about that stood out to me was her "web of power" metaphor. She explained that it is never just the offender and the victim because power is never singular. Power is multiple and complex, with strands woven together into a web through which escape becomes impossible. This metaphor explains that this destructive behavior is actually encouraged through the subconscious culture of the organization/business or even society as a whole.
 

Another point that professor Dougherty made that stood out to me was that the most destructive thing a person can do is be a bystander to predatory behavior. Because when bystanders look the other way and don't do anything to prevent, the predators don't think they are doing anything out of the ordinary, and then the predatory behavior becomes normalized. Professor Dougherty explains that this notion of normalized behavior is the reason why the Catholic Church, USC, Penn State, JD.com, and several other businesses/schools/organizations have been able to commit atrocious acts for years. 

Another interesting point that professor Dougherty made was that money doesn't fix the permanent effects of this destructive behavior. This stood out to me because a lot of times I feel like our society immediately thinks that everything is back to normal after repercussions are paid to the victim. Professor Dougherty explained that it doesn't matter if the victim gets paid 100 million dollars for what happened to her, it's not going to make everything the way it was before. She explained that many victims suffer from PTSD (what veterans suffer from because of the horrible things they saw/experienced) and that the psychological damages cause victims to have overall lower life satisfaction for the rest of their lives.

Finally, professor Dougherty explained how we can start to prevent this destructive behavior from being so common in the workplace. She explained that we need to take a step back and realize that sexual harassment is what it is today because it is so deeply woven into our society that it becomes normalized. So instead of us focusing on how we can prevent an "individual" from doing such a terrible thing, she wants us to focus on how we can start to change the way our society and culture sees this problem because this is what allows the individual to commit the destructive behavior. So basically we need to tackle this problem from the outside-in, rather than from the inside-out.