Carl R. Osthaus' 'Freedman, Philanthropy and Fraud; A History of the Freedman's Savings Bank.

by

Sampson Iroabuchi Onwuka

The primary attention of this article is Carl R. Osthaus' 'Freedman, Philanthropy and Fraud; A History of the Freedman's Savings Bank. The normal process involved in any recitation like this, is to treat argument to a large possible extent and add the sources of the information at the end, all of which may be expected to improve the readers percipience of the overall book from short discourses. There is nothing wrong in doing a review on a book with due attention to what the author wanted us to accept, to the probably reason that a book reviewed is not exactly the same as a book researched,  and that it a new research on an old book only fall short of the authors major-dome.

This book by Carl Osthaus is old, and the point he raised in the book is better rehearsed elsewhere, however, the topic is central to the growing demands of African American capital past, as a way to form the direct measure of the combative forces of the present and in prospects, serve a s a comparative yardstick between that past and present. The Bank had its headquarters in New York and eventually Washington D.C and then other branches such as those in Louisville, Richmond, Nashville, Wilmington, N.C., Huntsville, Memphis, and the proceeded to other places such as Mobile and Vicksburg. It is common history that the end of the 1866 and the 14 branches had opened and had a repository of $199, 283.43. And then by 1871, the Bank has opened 34 branches. The initial deposits from New York rolled a total of $700.00 initially and carrying from other banks $7, 956.37 and by 1874 it accounted for $57 million. These numbers are also discovered elsewhere.

Once more we need to mention that this book is not new and the book is not old, it does not stand out as the better books on the subjects on Freedman banking, but the content is vital or at least one central point proved to be a litmus paper in discharging the allegations of the Bank’s failure. At the center of this litmus paper is a certain Frederick Douglass, once accused to be the hand that doomed the bank, at least the last of the Presidents to grace the top of the Freedman savings and Trust Bank, but in comparative literature as from Osthaus', we are treated to a detailed portrait of the last days of the Bank which suffered from internal bleeding from earlier on, to die on as if the managers were not aware of it.



The Bank was however accused of being directly involved in the “mammoth” buildings in Washington D.C which was to have caved in the Bank financially in spite of the warnings from the Federal Government. But then the young company had seen the 'Credits Acts' 'era of Government subsidy brought to an in 1868. The notions of failures couldn't been any stranger to the economy that repaired paper with gold, and the windfall in profit came from all corners. But just as we witnessed a tidal wave of the rushing 1869, the new forces of financial assassination gathered for a feast. When the only source of provisioning a profit line for a bank and its credit is deposit, there is a tendency towards borrowing which no wise person may overlook. But this was not to be the case of Freedman's bank or a new bank, where as other Banks for profit may be backed for consumption by Government, this one wasn't, couldn't have, since it was designed with intentions of operating a bank model.  

It’s been said that mismanagement at the Bank and its apparent lack of initiative was central to the early sickness and eventually death but here and from the author, we begin to see that both Federal Government and the redeeming class of Freed Soldiers were already with problems of payment, and it is clear that either government did not have all the money to pay at the beginning or one point that seems to suggest this connection to the lack of full capacity by the Federal Government is that the black soldiers who served in the Civil War were already complaining of lack or delayed payment by the paymasters. It was not impossible to suggest who was exactly in charge of the payment for these black freed soldiers – literally meaning soldiers who are both free from institutional slavery and those discharged from army.

The argument about who was paid and exactly when and how was an issue that dragged the Army to the public and one of the means this was to be settled was through a centralized payment system in form of a Savings and Trust.  Historically, it is been said that it was A. M. Sperry who was Army general’s paymaster that suggested that a Bank can be opened ‘Freedman Trust and Saving that would help to solve this problem of payment through Federal Government takeover but in this book however, we learn that it was part of ongoing efforts towards helping the small business owners among the newly liberated slaves, who were primarily laborers, cooks, washers, town builders and construction, waiters, butlers, potters, and rail road workers. As theory goes, it was  

These men who that it borrowed too much from Northern Alliances of Andrew Carnegie, Jay Cooke, Louis Astor and Cornelius Vanderbilt who represented the first half of the Gilded Age were the principal architects of New York’s transformation as a preferred immigrant destination to the financial and banking capital of the world.  It was a good number of these unspecified group of mostly Whites and some Jewish, that truly had a formal knowledge of the demise of the Bank. At least in this book and on several official accounts, we learn that the first 50 board of directors who authorize investment and underwrite checks were all composed of non-blacks. In other words, the board had no single Negro on board.

As we are likely to discover, the Freedman Bank had at 420 thousand repositories, all of whom lost some portion of their money. While it seems clear that a good number of these first Bank Managers which does not mean that it covers all the necessary section. For that we are left with the purpose of making certain citation with view of archiving the broad strokes of Black American business and nothing more.

Freedman savings and trust company  had close to fifty (50 board of trustees, none of them Negroes, March 16th 1865, John W. Alvord, began the first tentative arguments, (1) According to Alvord, that the Freedman savings and Trust Bank was established  as a response to the need for Blacks, to save their money. (2) The only source of dividend was Interest rate  but over time, it was seemingly clear that the "the road to wealth passed through the Freedman's Bank" and for a brief decade it may have stayed that way.

 

Alvord letter to the Bureau, April 1867 “They changed the By Laws, and bring the principal office here (to Washington) placing the Banks, for the first time being under the special auspices of the Bureau. This, I think accords by Gen’ I Howard as will relieve us very soon of the very embarrassment. The bounty moneys…will be passed over to the claimants to a great extent; and thus we hope, by right influence, to obtain a larger amount of deposits” opens and closely the ambiance that the Bank was deeply involved with deposit line only, there was a any report on the daily outcomes of the Bank that affected those outside the management of assets.

It has been suggested that operational dynamics of Banks/Company was different from the Bureau, which was headed A.W Alvord. In a statement released by A.W Alvord, he is believed as saying that “The Bureau will favor Bank in this business all it can – but how much this will be cannot be told, until we have some practical experience”, we may tend to witness a form of connection to the possibility of a ranking bureau in charge of the day to day operation of Bank, where as we may seen have read elsewhere, A.W Alvord was part of business and management model. The Bank Ownership  “Here at Head Qrs. , we look very much like one concern – a number of Bureau officers occupying the back room of our Bank, though, as before said, we are really only in fraternity as institutions.” 

 The books cited the words of Frederick Douglass that “There was something missionary in its composition, and it dealt largely in exhortations as well as promises. The men connected with its management were generally church members, and reputedly eminent for their piety. Some of its agents had been preachers of the ‘word’. Their aim was now to instill into the minds of the untutored Africans lessons of sobriety, wisdom, and economy, and to show them how to rise in the world.” This appears on Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, and It also appeared in the ‘Complete Biographies of Frederick Douglass.’



And in similar quotation from Robert Yancy ‘Federal Government Policies and Black Business Enterprises; we read of the citation that “One ‘Daddy’ Wilson, who later became cashier at Washington was used and misused by whites as a figurehead. He served as a fine ‘buffer’ for the whites to loot the bank. One Mr. Vanderbrung, for instance, borrowed $30, 00 (from him) on the verbal endorsement of the District of Columbia ‘boss’. Jay Cook and Company, financiers, borrowed $500, 000 at five percent interest, while depositors in this same institution were paid six percent interest on savings.”

 We are not sure who this Daddy Wilson is and whether the full quote can be attributed to Douglass, there is parochialism from the text that suggest that Douglass was probably the author of the statement. There is also something of the charge in the statement about Jay Cooke, that a statement or some account exist under the name Jane Cooke as Wife of certain William Cooke may have sent the message into all kinds of direction.



Was Cooke of Jane Cooke the same as the wife of the Jay Cook and it may mean that the Jay Cooke himself is not without explicating on how he managed to pull $500 000 at the time when it was obvious the Jay Cook and Company was going under following the Panic of the 1873. In another incident, there is a note fiefdom that was equally derived from that view of the bank as a form of a Charity and when this view is factored into the running of any business, you are left with that process of sympathy and not profit, and the business dies gradually. 

W.E.B Dubois in Souls of Black folks Chapter 2, that “Not even ten additional years of slavery could have done so much to throttle the thrift of the freedmen as the mismanagement and bankruptcy of the series of savings banks chartered by the Nation for their special aid.” And there were others such as Booker T. Washington that “This bank had agents all over the south, and colored people were induced to deposit their earnings with it in the belief that the institution was under the care of the United States Government.”

The argument is not that lending excesses of the Bank or vice associated with employee’s inexperience at the earliest stages presaged its failure, or that mismanagement as the Bureau and congressional hearing attempted to show, forced the early demise of the bank. While this view has proven central to the meaning and thesis of the failures associated with the Freedman Trust and Savings, it may seem only appropriate to the more dispassionate observer that such view is derived from the citizenry unsure about the power that was devoted to the newly redeemed.

Yet it is not without the roughing the vulture of the area presume to know now the bank, i.e, true structure is likely to survive with deposit as it ultimate profits ends and it drove the hired hands in fixing the thin sheet of the deposits as if the Bank was backed by the Federal Government.

"Tis little by little the bee fills her cell;
And little by little a man sinks a well
Tis little by little a bird builds her nest;
By little's a forest in verdure is driest'

 The statement is believed to hang in front of Freedman's Bank

'No good, Solid wealth comes in a day', ‘A tree grows very slowly. You cannot see it grow still it does grow. So with your deposits” 

Measured with failures of Banks at previous eras, the failure of Savings and Trust Company hold no special meaning, there will be banks that will fail and there were other banks that failed in the same period. But measured from the promises that the bank held for newly redeemed children of ex-slaves and ex-slaves, the damage to their credit proved impossible to prefigure. It was indeed a first Bank of a company type of its kind, and it was loosely held together by measly sum of the working majority of blacks – of course they were others – but in reality it was a young bank whose capacity would be redeemed only in a time and not in the 8-10 years. 

 The end judgment is that the Bank was forced to do much too quickly, it was easily cornered by those who understood the inside workout of the Banking Sector and it was not never to be survived the first few decades. Its history is overstated, its rescue mission misdirected, and its lessons are better observed from the positions of United True Reformers of Richmond Virginia and probably nothing else. If one is willing to compare the true judgments of people, especially some with background in banking and industries , it will be conscientious title ‘True Reformers’  from Virginia Black Folks who gifted the Bank its highest repository and no doubt bear the lasting epitaph reflecting a episode involving Blacks and Business, the summary of the time.

                                                               II

Reginald Washington research on his ‘Federal Records and African History’ (Summer 1997. Vol.29, n0.2), “The act had a clear objective and purpose; a single savings institution created primarily for former slaves and their descendants. The deposits received by the bank...with the exception of a final set aside for operating costs and other emergencies...were to be invested in “Stocks, Bonds, Treasury notes, or other Securities of the United States.” The Charter suggested that “no loans would be made” and that “all the assets of the Bank were owned by depositors in proportion to the deposits of each.”’ These point appear in Carl R. Osthaus ‘Freedman, Philanthropy and Fraud’ and Osthaus placed emphasis on the point of the Bonds and Securities, suggesting that it was given the right to invest  the depositors money but not to loan it may mean that the ‘Freedman savings and Trust’ was not a Bank but a company.  And the maintained that ”Contrary to what many investors where led to believe, the Bank’s Assets were not protected by the Federal Government” but they had branches in Vicksburg, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, and Houston. 

That they used advertisement bearing Abraham Lincoln and Senator Oliver Otis Howard, leading the depositors to believe that their money deposits in the Company – which they took for a Bank were backed the Federal Government. This we can understand was not true at all, for sure, the experts including the founders and bureau that managed it by names J.W Alvords and Company would have known that Banks in the United were backed at some level by Federal Government, especially when these Banks also issued Insurance. Historically, this continued till the 1930’s of the FDRs and the slitting of Insurance from Bank operation associated with Glass-Steagall Act. 

But we are looking at the turn of the 1900 century when majority of the Banks that made a difference, made a difference along the lines of Investment Banking, where it was not easily called a company in those years, it was called a company, for instance Jay Cooke and Company, which was the largest investment bank of the time, or what we call investment Banks now, was then not a Bank and not backed by anybody saving their own Insurance and their own notes baited against the Federal Debt. Yet it seems that the success of Jay Cooke coincided with the rise of Salmon P. Chase and eventually the Morgan men at the Treasury. It will be interesting to have shown how mismanagement from the side of those who were not even in the 50 man Board will become the reason why the Bank failed. Even as accurate as it may been from the long Q and A at White House, it would have made more sense for Washington to look at the Bank sheet and exit strategy of funds from their financial main event.  

As such we can now clearly understand the role of J.W Alvord in the whole evolution of the Company, that he like many people today still believe that  That they promoted the face of the Bank along the face of the President Abraham Lincoln suggest that Alvords either in kind or with the proper wish of transforming the company into a Bank, intended from the beginning to mislead the repository and as such many people – even today include Reginald Washington and Carl Osthaus, still think it was bank where as Goldman Sachs not unlike Lehman and Bear Stearn of today was only and very lately transformed into an ordinary Bank by Act of Congress and through emergent effort of the current U.S Treasury , Timothy Geithner and Former Treasury Secretary Hank Aaron. To be clear, Lehman at that last minute asked for the same vitae for daily Bank but it was turned and used for Goldman instead.

Apparently, the structure of the Company was set up in New York in such a way as to mirror the Investing Banks such as Jay Cooke and Company, who was the U.S number of ...agter and whose greatness along with those Andrew Carnegie was tied to the Rail-Roads. As we shall discover that the many areas of the business with Rail-Roads particularly tracking the routes of champion soldiers were tied to the investment position and Branches of the Freedman Company, for instance Vicksburg, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, and Houston, became as it time went on, a trouble malice because of the quarrels in between the generals, one of which was proven instrument in the Panic of 1873, the opposition of Alexander St. Claire to Joseph E. Brown in the consummate struggle over the Western and Atlantic Rail line and the ending of Vicksburg Rail Road line. 

This point whose details are to be understood as birth of the Panic of the eventual1873 does not appear in Osthaus Book or in Washington’s comparative analyses, either would anyone find it the congressional hearing and oversight committee on the demise of the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company. While the questions about the lending of Jay Cooke and Company $500,000

Carl  Osthaus we must indicate clearly mentioned that the structure of the ‘Bank’ began with the Federal  Government taking over the Military Savings Bank at Beaufort, South Carolina, which was known eventually as ‘South Carolina Freedmen’s Savings Bank’ a pacesetter if not the pacesetter to the Freedman Saving and Trust Bank. This was where the con began, from a name or page acquired from its inability to pay the Blacks on time and retained as a gratuity to the efforts of A.W Alvords as stated from his acclaimed position of his Fraternity concerning the unity franchise of Military accounts of Blacks, some of which was escrow some of which rendered to the receiver in pennies all of which resulted from unclear and unusual practices of the designated paymasters.  There was also the problems of Regiments and the squad leaders, some of whom did not feel obligated to release the compensation of their squadrons to other people from clearly different and nearly opposing party. 

Besides, the South after unification, did not feel obligated to any Northerner let along Blacks or Freedmen, and had no qualms in confiscating their pay.

One of these soldiers who went on to help their fellow soldiers so to speak was General Benjamin Butler, who established in Norfolk Virginia a similar Freedmen Savings and Bank, and in Louisiana, there was the popular incident of General Nathaniel Banks ‘Free Labor Bank”, received from its inception deposits from African American as well as White Plantation owners. The result was the rift which led to many issues of payment and the eventual actions of the Government including the takeover of the property and Abraham Lincoln singing into law on March 3^rd, 1865 “An Act to Incorporate the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company.” There, and from the beginning and in very Blue Prints, it never said a Bank, it never said an insurance, it said a Company.

There is also a persuasion from these lines, that the incident described thus concerning the inefficacy of Banks to deliver on their payment on time to the Soldiers, may have been touted as a fault line towards the financial engineering on a new form of business or payment option, that (1) allowed the business to be owned and managed by the depositors and (2) to enforce transparency  the tuners of the new financial “were to open for inspection and examination to such persons as congress would appoint.” It may now also seem that the picture which the movers of the New Ideas, A.W Alvord and company showed to the public primarily had to do with new determination and policy from the adverse conditions of the fore-bearers, and was eventually used to plow the public of a new Bank instead of Company which would have the face and standing of the President. It may also seem that the President Lincoln would have inveighed against the indirect abuse of his names, had he survived the Ford Theater assassination. This important factor proves to be the weapon in the hands of New Yorkers.

                                                           
                                                                III

There is no doubt that Bank of England established in 1694 followed the Dutch model of Bank Funded through Debt.  That America founded its Colony in Virginia moved the country away from the school of Banking, but eventually as many Historians of Finance has mentioned that three Americans, (1) Robert Morris (‘born in Britain) (2) Alexander Hamilton (born in the Caribbean - ‘Nevis’), and (3) William Duer (English born from Antigua) will argue for the Anglo-Dutch system of Banking that is built from Debt or Credit. To be clear, we have to mention that while there is nobody who doubts Hamilton as the Chief Architect of the American Federation and Governance, it was William Duer who was his influence on the formation of American Banks and operational dynamics. Whereas Duer failed as a copy bond manager and speculator, it was Hamilton that finalized his views of the country setting America towards that part of Bank Institution that Funded Debt. This theory of Funding from the time of American Civil War and the consequence victory that handed the North a sweeping hands in redemption and the reform of the years to come.

Already in France, following the end of Napoleonic Wars, particularly his defeat at Waterloo, two Jewish French spectaculars Nathan and James Rothschild became richer than ever by accurately predicting the defeat of the French and consummated this defeat in money times through an information delivery process as with a Pigeon. But the story takes interesting turn when French soldiers had to return from defeat and turned their attention to the paymaster by name Gabriel Julien Ouvrad. His role in delivering the money through a Bank system which installed it made him popular and served as an incentive for American Soldiers half a century later.    

In a book by Kevin Philips ‘Wealth and Democracy’ 2002, he cited this peculiar American frontiers on Funding through Debt and realigned with the rise of Rail Roads in the decade following the U.S Civil war and went on to demonstrate that the country with the government expansion and the permanence of Anglo-Dutch Banking Model, came also the necessity of the Federal Government to call for money, that is the Banks had to purchase “new Federal Bonds” available to issue “Federal Banknotes”. After the victory of the Northern Unionist of the Southern Confederates, the country discovered itself indebted to several privateers; Robert Morris, William Bingham, Stephen Girard and John Jacob Astor. 

The only name lacking from the list was Cornelius Vanderbilt. These men who were mostly from New York home to both William Duer and Alexander Hamilton, and eventually home to Robert Morris as representing his British clients, simply became the first batch of American millionaires on account of profits from war and the rail roads and eventually part of the Gilded Class.But cannot fail perform the obvious that the disappearing of the money tree may or may not have gone under with these barons like Vanderbilt or is appears elsewhere as Vanderbrung, some of which confused both the questioning committee and the very outsiders as these porters of the new redeemed ex-slaves as other Americans outside the banking circle. the struggle of the 19th century per-mulled the seeming baser others into the bliss of ignorance as bonds rose and fail without their least reckoning of it. 

But then, some names are hard to miss and if only small sources express as they appeared in Robert Yancy's book are widened from the gilt of how they managed in the first place to appear on record perhaps so deep a hand should have gloves that be others. Fredrick Douglass after his denouement with Bank's ultimate end, he bemused his fate as being 'married to a corpse'. Yet the surreptitiously cruelty of the Company bad fate on the greater black managed in the end to choke Douglass into the riddle that Freedman's Saving and Trust Company was 'black people cow, white people milk'. But in his more dislocating dismemberment of the whole cruel dealings, the one banner held the light was already among the elite in Valhallas. The myth that accompanies a life 3/4 fulfilled offered a different echo that Lincoln had lived, perhaps.... The end was not an end, it was to the "Virginian Country" folks, a beginning, since they had always opposed the Anglo-Dutch model of Banking, of forcing the hands of profit through debt, or funded debt.         

The author also mentioned that “The principal financier of the North’s triumphant road to Appomattox the great bond-seller Jay Cooke went bankrupt in 1873, pulled down by overextended railroad underwriting as well as by the scheming of the House of Morgan to gain the preeminent role in its government finance. J.P Morgan and a second financier also much involved in under-writing and supporting government bonds, George F. Baker of New York’s First National Bank,….” These men at the end of Civil War took it upon themselves to oppose the controlling influence of Jay Cooke, who historically almost single handily re-wrote the selling of Bonds in U.S, and whose company was based in New York.

In that 1873, “Railroad prices peaked in March. By late summer the Wall Street bears were clawing in the biggest arena of U.S finance; railroad stocks and bonds had a combined value of between $3 and $4 billion in a year when the federal budget came to only $290 million.”

“Drexel, Morgan and Company was hammering at the Northern Pacific financed by the House of Cooke, the biggest investment Bank in the United States and Drexel Morgan’s great rival” In all reality, the author demonstrated in his book what led to the decline of these earlier Northern frontier men, especially Jay Cooke and Company, which brought the crash of 1873, and in the empty casket of the company was never investigated leading to the money they borrowed from an a young Company. That the coming of Drexel, Morgan or the Morgan Men opposing Investment Company, forced Jay Cooke and Company into obscurity and that what followed was a tidal wave of collapse and drowning of an already over-priced rail road bond, was entirely secondary to the process set in motion by officers who had the wherewithal. 

There, within the whole structure, lies the ‘Freedman Savings and Trust Company, never Bank.    

Black Enterprise; Guide to Investing By James A. Anderson. 2001

eview

by

Sampson Iroabuchi Onwuka

@ John Wiley and Sons

Reason why investing in Black/Africa may be lucrative.

A book of this nature is not generally a book of all seasons. For a man who prides himself as the leading expert in Blacks in Business, Wall Street and Investing, the book is half the apple. I shall indicate that writing any reason of the Blacks in economic community of these United States or in the general business of the world, usually takes time. Here in this case with Anderson’s ‘Black Enterprises’; Guide to Investing, there is a lot of information that may prove important to new people in investing in the U.S, and in the categories that may be called International, the book throws good light on general possibilities associated with Black business investing.

For instance, we may not have mastered the difference between a closed end investing category of the international and open end investing category. But from this man’s book, we learn that one "Closed end hold a portfolio of investments and rise and fall according to market conditions. They have a limited number of shares, and trade like stocks n the New York Stock Exchange"
 

This statement may seem unusually ambiguous to the enabled degree that some of the changes in the stock market since the Archipelago and the world market Vanguards, has given the Stock market a whole new make and has increased the investment alternatives that does not necessarily subtend with closed and open ends stock registrar.

 But the point is not missed that when investing involves elements of International or Cross Border financial engineering, it is promoted along the danger lines involved in placing private bets on this companies or playing a good card off the preferred stock if the means calls for it. In some sense, there is close end because of the Safety Net, where as many American Companies will register with Nasdaq or S&P 500 tailored different for American Companies operating in the Americans only, there are other versions of these companies that involved elsewhere and these registry are different and require some kind of Safety nets along the lines bonds which is a kind of investing.

In treating the subject on closed end funds, the James Anderson mentions that “Often enough, closed-ends funds trade at a premium or discount to their Portfolio's value, measured by the fund's NAV or net asset value" This is to set the pace that Internationals may be looking to sustain the role of investors by given a near guaranteed discount which enabled an investor earn at least his or her money back, and may even guarantee a form of profit if only there is a company that may have enough to place on a foreign basket or essentially on a lay. In common reality, there are only a few countries in the world where returns on Investment may challenge or top sale the Americans, and there are also few countries that may be a preferred destination for American Companies on a long term basis than the U.S.

This does not mean that all companies in U.S and marking better profit than Internationals, rather it goes to show that some Banks such as Bank of American and their Business outfits may be Safe in (uncertain markets) - insubordinate to investor sentiment, so holders have degrees of safety Nets, that may not by affeted by overnight dumping due to change in the market -international/world market


Here, Anderson does not only show how these companies and investors operate, he  throws light on some of the markets which should be doing better for instance, African Markets such as those in Zimbabwe, which does not. In this case, only a few companies may be successful in finding its meaning in African Countries and sometimes the attention and few may be over-stay, especially in African Countries riddled with military uncertainties that sometimes it tends to affect market condition. Closed ends would mean that such sector of the market such as oil or crude oil, industrial mining of Gold and precious materials, may be a sector only available to certain resources and long term investor interest.

That “close-end' is like the name closed, is not open to others, (diversified) involves real time magnet....”, yet anyone comfortable with long term investment should be looking to get some advisement on Closed End categories. And the author also warned that these so called these so called that carry Safety Net, usually don’t have much yield, a theme no less similar to long term investing in U.S, but for Internationals sake, we use closed end, that is people are looking profit from a low end, as such ROI; Return of Investment is relatively low.

Examples of Closed ends in Africa, at least operating as at 2000 include,
(1) Stanley Dean Witter African Fund (Up only 3 percent between 1997 and the end of 1999)
(2) Southern Africa Funds (which managed to rise 31.4 percent in the period between 1997 and the end of 1999).

Some of these companies since the coming of Euro and the subsidies offered by European companies are no longer operating, some of these companies have been acquired by others, for instance in South Africa where the mining industries under the De Beers Dutch family has maintained monopoly for almost a century in mining, make it a point of business interest to appropriate State Companies for their own investing ends. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this effort but it needs be understood that Banks such as Chase or Bank of America may not have strategic interest in Africa without the direct aficionados of a business enterprise such as De Beers in either South Africa or any country where there is a large percentage of precious metals and in such instances these, some of the registered African Companies operating as closed end businesses like the ones above, may become part of a publicly traded company with different Insurance backing and Safety Nets.

                                                             II

Anderson however mentioned that "Your other choice (open end), which is far less diversified and therefore far more risky, is picking up shares of a company, traded as ADRs in the United States. Most ADRs are sponsored, meaning that they provide U.S investors reports and information much as domestic companies’ world" Here as opposed to closed ends, the author indicated that events can determine the life of a stock market in open end categories. The name look exotic, but it deals with happens to a market when companies are officially trading and when it reacts to the pressing economic conditions. This sort of change take place “2- 3 days a week, a few hours, volume can mean price escalations”, it reflects on the stock of the investors.

Investors seeking to take a position on the open ends may be advised to stay local since the connection to execute a trade by the broker is better managed by the investor acting in any economy, for instance, an American in America. But here also, the author emphasizes that the world markets are stabilizing, not only in Europe but also in Asia, and African and Central Americans are not far behind. As such people can lose money in African Markets as well European markets and that these require the right crop of investors and interest. 

One of the ‘open ends’- The Calvert New Africa Funds - Shed a lot in 1990 and there is reason to believe that the company may have been de-registered from the US. Here once more, it is not common to find companies registering in the U.S in one year and then they go down the next year. This fact is better understood from the position of an International Companies seeking to make it to the Americans would have gotten some exposure before leading its investors to U.S open markets. In such, it is better to have funds from U.S or Europe participating in an International market like most African, or in BRICS market such as Brazil or China, which are challenging U.S interest in nearly every capacity

.

In countries such as South Africa which is both a BRICS and a International, alignment of foreign Funds from A listed country such U.S may be placed within the precious metal industries of South Africa, largely for the fact that the controlling factors in this country are U.S and Europe sensitive industrial factors. Such companies as De Beers may not exactly serve as the right on choice given their of influence of Africa’s biggest banks, including Stanbic (probably the most powerful or they say, most stable Bank in Africa), yet there are foreign companies operating in Africa that are more than a bleep in the World Investing Cloud.

And going by Anderson’s argument, some of these companies with mainly Black community drive-in operate already made financial instrument, tailored from the needs of people unsure of their investing leniency to those seeking to understand African International Markets such as South Africa. But these individuals and companies are not small matter and run open market enterprises subject to International regulations and those of the United States. But like most "Money managers will tell you that the logical next step in their business is the "retail" or mutual fund market, the part of the industry that caters to individual investors"

In reality, there are threshold in business that must be met and sometimes there are losses but every loss in the market there is also an opportunity for profit. In common reaction to the days of Apartheid in South Africa, it should be maintained that these business experts are only so named, largely for their endurance and ability to help investors in open ends markets and in closed ends, and also helping individual investors, which in Anderson words as at 2000 may sound like a well – laid plan but it does not mean that some of these measures at still useful, for sure, many African Americans are trading everyday and without help, but the emphasis on the Black Community a form of self-generating market may be outside the framework of these sales managers. 

Anderson’s book, we learn that some of these individuals as we said before includes, John Rogers, Ariel Growth (1) Lou Holland (2) Eddie Brown (3) Maceo Sloan, and as a point raised by James A. Anderson, nearly all of the above survived all kinds of businesses setbacks including the 70’s and 80’s when it was not very easy for Blacks in general to break into Wall Street, with lines such as "draw up business" "stumping" "Airport Layover" "glad handing" "sales pitches", which are applied to business investor and particularly these individual no financial backgrounds.

Sources of information includes 'Morningstar's Principia database has 164 Fidelity Funds, for Thunder Clap short duration Agency Bond will key in on U.S Agency with an average of 2 years or so and from his description, "Ariel Capital's Ariel and Ariel Appreciation Funds specialize in mid-cap stocks, the kind Wall Street doesn't keep the closest tabs on. Lou Holland's Holland Growth Fun focuses on Growth Stocks, but only if they’re reasonably priced. The Edgar Lomax Eley, sticks to large cap stocks that sell at a discount to the broad market."

Black industries Investment

(1) Barbara Bowles of the Kenwood Growth and Income Fund, 

(2) John Rogers and Eddie Brown pension Funds, money for corporations and Local Government"

Randall Eley>Edgar Lomax Value Fund dubbed by Louis Rukeyer "perhaps the best money manager you've never heard of."

We continue   

Clifford Mpare one of the advisers of African markets was one of the few individuals mentioned in the book, it is with the view of helping businesses interested in not only trading African Waters, but African companies doing business in U.S. Of course any business venture between outsiders and Americans and new comers in business unaccustomed to the relationship between Blacks in America and the Caribbean from the 50’s and 60’s, and how these people in the effort to create a required and a lot of the information need to be updated.

It is clear that book emphasis the business of the American Blacks such as Luo Holland and Ariel Brown, it sowed the seeds of interpreting black businesses as ventures that can take a long of energy and a lot accounting and training to crack. There is nothing in this book that deals on continuity and institution, which I feel would have placed the reader at the background on the source or revenue base and allow them to exercise the reserves as Blacks in Wall Street out of which they can easily indicate that 

(

1) Political upheavals for instance in Zaire, Rwanda, and Nigeria. 

(2) Zimbabwe (?) (3) Botswana , may or break any investment, but when there is a proven 34 billion barrels of oil in Nigeria and that Gabon and Ghana has Crude Oil, African American should not play a deaf ear to their interest in United States here and Africa.

Johannesburg with close 400 (500 in 2013)  billion dollar capitalization, is possibly the 7, 10, or 11, biggest market in the world should also interest would individuals ready to make money this business. The Rand devalued due to political themes associated (1) (Local/social...local markets. there is slow the issue of credit0 in both Thomas Mbeki and Azuma's presidency, especially the plans to empower the blacks with an 18 billion Re-Investment Act, which is supposed to enable their do well in business.

Potentiality is Nigerian is the biggest African country and market but South Africa and Egypt is shown by stress to be better placed. Real Estate in Africa is probably associated with Egypt, crude oil is associated with Nigeria , so also the removal crude oil subsidy. There is a concern for closed end, population driven markets in Africa because of the military tension arising from Terror groups and those in Agrarian coast line, but it terms of banks durability, investors usually Morocco ahead of Nigeria but these may be though the requirement than stability from experience for at least we know that South Africa is still a leader in Bank and Bank NOTES. Egypt, is a reference to real estate, where as Kenya is a booming market but quite expensive for would be investor, and there is also the issue Zimbabwe which is one of the best markets in the world, still teaming with new found crude oil reserves and new mines for precious materials.

Critic

While business of investing is the business of the investor, we are treated to some classic relativity of Anderson and investors with African American leniency. We are at once impressed with the collection of experts and their trials, but it will not be the first time that Black Stock Brokers has reached out to the general public and the general investing crowd. If the author had shown the good side as well as the bad the side, it will make a more interesting book. There are stories about these Black Business men and women, some of whom from Africa who got involved in community development and when the attention was given to them, they absconded after receiving the deals and other enhances.

There are cares of African Americans in Business, not just in business in U.S but elsewhere such as the Caribbean and as soon as the business went awry these people packed and left. There is a well known history of the fracas between Marcus Garvey and W.E.B DuBios concerning the investment of African American churches and some people with money and a result of the competition between Garvey and Dubios, the rubber plantation investment in Liberia became a total disaster. It is now known or at least suggested that Dubois may have  had a hand in Garvey’s disastrous business enterprises although there were others working for the then FBI under Edgar Hoover, some of whom engineered the downing of Marcus Garvey and some of whom did not respond to his captivity in Switzerland or thereabout and in the end, Black Investors lost a large portion of their business.

The author did not mention that African American businesses do not have a form of rating system to fully access the performance of these would be investors and why we can trust their job operative. The author did not mention that the Banks play a large role in determining the business environment that can and do sport bad business. They author did not write about the role of television and its positive value on black consumers, result is that the only daughter of Madam C.J Walker did not hold on to her mothers progress and earn a reputation like others such J.C Penny and Sam Walmart. Her daughter may have helped revival of business in Harlem and why there was renaissance in Harlem, along with George Schuleyer ‘The Sage of Sugar Hill’, but it was both the lack of foresight from her or her colleagues and other black investors that also contributed to the downfall of Harlem.

The author also failed to promote African business History which will help investors gauge the nature of business in West Africa and find how to proceed.

For instance the South Africa which is his real attentions, Investors would have been happy with the names of the companies operating the tough waters of South Africa, yet investors and would be investors of particular black descent would be better helped with learning that South Africa is the world’s largest repository of manganese – up to 80% of it, South African is also the world’s largest reserves in Platinum and in Chromium, where they have at 68% of all proven Chromium and Platinum anywhere in the world. And South Africa has 53.7 billion of the world coal reserves.

According to J.Tyler Dickovick ‘The World Today Series; Africa’, investors would have pleased to learn that South Africa world gold product since 1977 has dropped 14%  and it is down 80% since 1930’s and has shed a half a million jobs. Apparently gold on the global macro is not looking that terrific. The book maintained that there are other problems still associated in South Africa that 95% of all the precious metal industry, especially Diamond, is run by Whites, 65% of the Platinum run by Whites and 51% or thereabout run Whites, and to the author, it was not surprising that South African Government has initiated the BEE; Black Economic Empowerment, in 2004 alone, one South African Company called De Beers combined to mint 13.7 million carats of Gold  

    

Conclusion.

There are reasons why studying the economic condition of African Americans is important.  By studying the evolution of business in black America and the challenges facing them from within and outside, an investor or a broker may score some profit on any number of interest in Black Community.  Black community as a market entity is difficult to analyze with the help of people James A. Anderson and without the corporation of financial publishers such as John Wiley and sons or Bloomberg Associates. In the time past, Salmon Brothers were able to effectively compute the chances for investors interested in Black Communities, some of which were largely driven through and around government programs and incentives for minority.

At the moment there are several schools of choice that are working around the year calender towards upgrading the appropriate information from sources within the Black Community, and these schools include, University of Wisconsin Madison, University of California, Los Angeles Center for Afro-American Studies, and others who are presidential on matters of Black Business Investment and are working from the more general U.S Institute for Research on Poverty – which was at some point part of Policy Analysis series conducted by Timothy Bates and William Bradford. These important groups focused on Black Business and Investing and made recommendation on how ‘to give Blacks greater economic self-determination’, especially the Federal Reserve Reports on these items and Hunts Commission Report on the general condition of Minority Businesses, particularly blacks.

In all probability, the Black Community and the consequent African Diaspora industrial and financial collective such as Black Business Networked or paper organizations such as Black Business Reserve Groups, would have at least a quarter of century to re-organize the studies on African American businesses and investing priorities since in this day and time, Black Communities are counted as general American business community.  But this is not how the world is currently operating, and the whole idea of being Black for instance in the U.S, may not be appreciated by precisely white-washed young generation, some of whom are completely nowhere in the overall business community of the Americans and having real time problems  understanding or accepting it.

While there are investing opportunities in American, it is the view of an expert that Black Communities investing in Black Communities and without the notion of Charity or on behalf of some uncle Tom or Uncle Sam, will help restore the ruined privileges of been a Black Male or Female, or being an African in Diaspora, to the point that the leaking areas of American Business may have some injection from these patronizing of Black businesses – at any length – and help to reduce the dependency ratio of the African Americans on goods and businesses that literally transform the others. In this book by Anderson, there is renewed expertise knowledge and informational ‘share’ regarding the operational dynamics of notable African Americans investors.

Here it must be said that these group listed at the end, are the not the only groups operating with due respect to African American Communities or are their services any good or better than the wider American. But it’s a point to be made by the investor community and how they fare with Night of Madison Street. What Anderson also tried to show is that the success of these people did not arrive from doing nothing, that nobody offered these gentle men and some of them women a given chance to succeed and their story serves as a kind of encouragement if nothing at all.

The case of Ariel Brown is that is trial and triumph begins and ends with effort to get South African business men and women into his portfolio. He was not the only one, there was also Lou Holland, who even spent nights in his car waiting for a client arriving from somewhere in the country. These hunters – no different from hedge hunters today – lived in the time it was not easy for Blacks to be trusted with other people’s money unless they are well proven. Perhaps due to the times in which they lived, these would be revivalist of Black Wolves in Wall Street literally forced their way into the game.

Of course, we can discuss that these are primarily T. Rowe Price and his influence in Baltimore and IRA funds, but it is the effort and the understanding that a business is a community or community is a business that now lead non-blacks to give their money to these men.

   

Notable African American Mutual Funds

(1)    Ariel Application Fund (CAAPX) – Arielfunds.com

(2)    Ariel (ARGFX)  –  Arielfunds.com

(3)    Brown Capital Management Balanced (BCBIX) – www.browncapital.com

(4)    Brown Capital Management Equity (BCEIX)

(5)    Brown Capital Management Small Company (BCSIX)

(6)    Edgar Lomax Value Fund

(7)    Kenwood Growth and Income (KNWDX)

(8)    Lou Holland Growth (LHGFX)

(9)    MDL Broad Fixed Income (MLGEX)

(10)Profit Value (PVALX) – profitfunds.com

(11)Unity Fund

(12)Victory Lakefront

(13)Sub-Advised Funds; Calvert New Africa (CNAFX) calvertgroup.com

(14)Dreyfus Premier Third Century Growth Investors (TWCGX) dreyfus.com

(15)American Century Growth Investors (TWCGX) americancentury.com

(16)Globalt Growth (GROWX)

(17)Seligma Common Stock (SCSFX)

Investment Group

(1)    Coalition of Black Investors (COBI) cobinvest.com

(2)    Association of Individual Investors (AAII) aaii.com

(3)    National Association of Investors Corp (NAIC) better-investing.org

A Reaction to Harry S. Dent and his 'Next Great Bubble Boom'; 2004 - 2009

By

Sampson Iroabuchi Onwuka 

I was comparing notes on; A book by Harry S. Dent, Jr. ‘The Next Great Bubble Boom’ 2004 -2009 and there was the interesting notes on what the stages in the economy occurs and why it seem to show up also in the decades. I for one had problems accepting that the numbers in every decade always brought its life into the economy. The attempt at a response to a book that is now predated may not be that relevant and is not is not a final assessment of theory of Harry Dent's and his group of Demographers, or does it attempt to dent a proven system of stock monitoring. However wonderful the reputation from predicting the next boom in 2008 may seem to suggest, it must be mentioned that the essence of predictions such as Harry Dent’s and at large Economics so to speak, is to warn investors of what is possible coming and give them heads up on how to position themselves for such changes.

It does not mean that economic predictions are always right, but money management is also a science that goes with the right frame of mind and discipline, all of which may or may not help to avoid losses, all of which is expected to help us avoid port holes en route to better management of Other People’s Money. For instance, the world popular ‘rich dad…what’s his name? Robert Kiyosaki’s whose predictions  on the Dow for 2010 had no bearing to Dow in 2010, does not in business actually diminish the pedigree of the said expert ‘Kiyosaki’ and as such he, Kiyosaki, and others like him such as Mad Money Jim Cramer or Harry Dent will always remain the front lines of world business and from experience know their trade for generating money. In essence, one of the things you are likely to learn about world markets or trade is that ‘past record is not guarantee of future success’. One of the things I for one like about Bloomberg is that he doesn’t assume. He knows better than most people but still want to know. Lets be clear about my position, that I also believe him to be a lousy politician.

The Great American Economist Paul Samuelson on winning the Nobel Prize for Economics chided his Canadian counterpart, Kenneth Galbraith, as been a good Economist for non-Economist. That economic theory relies almost entirely on the application of proven systems to all routine laws of economist. This does not mean that numbers repeat all the time or that prices has history, but it tend to imply that there are fluctuation in any market that obeys the laws of numbers and demographic and in the ‘Next Great Bubble Boom’ Harry Dent used some numbers from previous decades to make an argument about the repeat process in the formative years of the 2000’s reaching eventually to the year of 2008, one year short of the prediction which was actually 2009. The 2008 is well remembered as a year it went bad, but it seems to Dent that 2008 was not an accident that in 1998 there was such similar incident, in 1988 there was something akin to this sort set back and 1978 as well. It may seem that he was hinting that with every 8 is a period of correction which usually begins at the 7^th of year of decade. How true is it that going by the facts that these were also great years for some companies? How true this is can be reduced important cyclical events in the life of a decade and Harry Dent makes quite a case for each year.

It is also true that the best investors in business Benjamin Graham, David L. Dodds ‘Security Analysis’ John Burr Williams ‘Theory of Investment Value, J.V Upensky ‘Introduction to Mathematical Probability’, William Strauss and Neil Howe ‘Generations’ ‘Fourth Turning’ ‘Millennial Rising’ and in recent and popular time, Warren Buffet, - who from some of his books placed a high note of emphasis on turns in the market and what cause them. And these people seem to have comfortably adapted to the seasons in the market and Buffet’s case ‘Tap Dance to Work’, but none of these Investors and the ones we may not speak of, including Michael Bloomberg and Boone Pickens, Peter Lynch or David Dreman, Ralph Wanger, or the Big Boss Trump in all their books effectively demonstrated why changes take place in the economy and more than why, how; as far as the rate. They, like Dent just know that it does happen and do have their means and strategies on taking advantage of it including their Blacks, Thomas Rowe Price Jr, Ariel Brown*, Lou Holland, Randall Eley*’, etc.
  
These people, like Harry Dent, all have means of exacting their profit from the market but make predictions wonderful is it arms with a view for the future and gives people chance to demonstrates what they have learn over the years. But it does give us everything. The closest we have come in truly understanding the risk involved in investing is through the modern school of finance and this school place enormous emphasis on Risk since numbers exist that help anyone foster better actions on the prevailing market, as such, it is not just the risk in the particular sense of probable loss, but why certain risk with or without the numbers would tend to determine the leniency of the investing crowd and hence a fluctuation and a graph. But here, Harry Dent used all kinds of graphs to buttress on his point, especially Robert Prechter ‘Conquer the Crash’ and from the graph provides the reader with timely exercises of the past records with future probabilities.

Dent also drew inspiration from Jeremy Siegel ‘Stocks for the Long Run’ where according to him and according to the fore mentioned experts on money, stock prices have a life and not only the stocks, bonds have a life so does the U.S economy or any economy. From the position of many experts who has taken this subject seriously, there is a form of accounting that deals mainly with demographics of a country, and from the past of economic exercises of the mentioned demographics,we can be able to state for sure what is any sector of the economy and not just the sector, the life of real estate and the individuals that compromise the economy.


Today, U.S cannot for any moment function if not for its breakthroughs in technology and some of which may throw an outsider off and in keeping to the tenets of U.S manufacturing, some decades are better than others and some days better than the rest. For instance, Dent tried to explain that it seems that the beginning of every decade is riddled with the prospect of economic recovery. That every decade which begins with 1’s or 2’s numbers, like 2001 and 2002, is also a period of high economic uncertainty. This uncertainty sometimes affect International Market and the consequence will likely transverse its shake-up period, some of which are more than the consequence of American war efforts and a global pestilence resulting a presence of U.S Army or their NATO allies within a 700 mile radius of any country.

It will seem to appear that this period of great uncertainty like 1991 Iraqi wars also called the Desert Storm began and ended in a decade with as much later as the 1, for instance the 1991, then we notice that in 2001 and 2002, where the years in the decade of the 2000s that is well remembered for attacks on 9/11/2001 and the consequent reaction to these "perpetrators". The stock market at the beginning of that decade took a whole new meaning and then onwards to the 2004 incident of the Archipelago. The economic consequence of those inter weening early years of the decade was the zigzag movement of the Dow and from the troubled movement, the panic over the future of the wars and how long they will last eventually kicked in.
                                                     
                                                  Matters Arising   II

What the author, Harry S.Dent, was trying to suggest is that these changes do not just occur, that in keeping to the tensions associated with the U.S presidential elections and change of office which falls on even numbers, majority of the American Industries are also affected by the stretch of the spending and the cuts that accompany them sometime later. That after the Desert Storms and the Peace in the Middle East of the 2001s and 2002’s there is shakeup of the economy and then there is a new increase in spending which in his words leads to an initial recovery period, 2003 – 2004;2012-2014. Then from this era we will witness the acceleration phase which took place in 2005 and 2006. This pattern in his view predicts nothing serious over the years saving for the fact that with each decade, comes new measure on Industry, for instance new products like the ones in the 80’s which led the way in the Technology Industries.

The prove of Harry Dent's projections will make proper sense for the first time buyer entering market or those who are looking for the first time will be looking to buy at the shake off period of the ending with 1s and 2s, and that this so called investor should also be looking to sell at a time at the ‘9’s or at the 8s since these are the years that are mostly associated with a kind of bust, for instance the burst of Long Term Management in Russia took place in 1998, and there was the crisis 1988 in U.S Market and in recent years there was the crisis of 2008. If a person desires to enter the market, there should wait until this presumed economic storm is over and then a shake off period will lead someone to invest when there is blood on the street or a degree of uncertainty.

Let it be said that the Bubbles of 1915-1919 and 1926-1929, Auto Bubbles of 1915 – 1919 and 1925 – 1929 and crashes following the 1919 – 1922 and 1930-1932 presents a theme that is worthy of all consideration in the business structure of the Americans and with due respect, our new Car companies. One of the problems Associated with auto/manufacturing indexing is that they are usually associated with one industry, the Auto Industries is not just about one car or car production, there are resources and device driven exercises which these car companies are equally engaged it.

And then as well as now, the Auto industries are serious litmus towards achieving a good deal of profit in any forward markets. 

Harry Dent in this auto/manufacturing sector delivered a remarkable statement in comparing the centuries of the past with human to be reduced to the number 3, for instance when he mentioned that in 1953, 1973, 1993, there were the consequent beginning of the Birth Wave of Country, 1973 is associated with the Innovation Wave, and with the spending wave of 1993, he projected a Power wave in 2013. The 2013 power wave is no doubt on, not that Dent was the only messenger from the 1990s and 2000s who are proclaiming a power and energy wave of the 2013, but his prediction was absolutely spots on with Obama exercises on Energy.

The consequence of being accurate with such numerical plausibility is that everyone will be tempted to sound alarm during those years, and like numbers when right, some of these would be expert would proceed with a false notion that wind of pushing the economic curve of the country to a whole new direction. Above all, a serial order of facts after a series of number may be used to promote anything and make arguments that may seem project a fact where as the facts are on their own and have nothing to do with the year or years concerned. We are left with little choice in bringing to terms such decades are seen or in the time past, in the light new realities which usually creep into a market or any economy during its Innovation period, and from oversight of a small cap company poised to do well in a year of low expectation or high expectation, we notice that these Small Caps or Big Caps are unaffected.


Yes, it is true that small caps do well in the Innovation periods, for instance (1968-1978) as Dent mentioned, that large caps do well during ‘growth period’ (1988-2008) as Dent also mentioned, and as inflation kicks in, Bonds do well during ‘shakeout’ periods (2008 – 2018) as we have seen, and by consequence and last of all, and corporation with long term staying interest in bonds market in its 'single categories' do well as well, and this group will fall in between 2018-2048. But these economic reflexes are likely to change over time and they also are likely to have only a minimum effects on the market, by that we mean that if stocks are to be considered alone and in of itself, they can reflect only so much of a given sector to the degree that individual companies overall numbers may not be that affected. In other words, the five version of the stock market vary in the fluctuation.


In terms of statistics, it is equally common sense to indicate that Harry Dent's use of statistics can be wrong if not misleading, that some basic barometer for instance the co-incidence that Dow Rose in the 2000’s and had a correction of more than 30% and S&P 500 was corrected by 49% due to its higher returns. According to some of the authors, AOL led the way with P/E Ratios of 400 %, the Automobile/Mass manufacturing Bubble advanced from 10% to 90%, but of course you will likely need 10% of the market to break even and to create the necessary event horizon, that is assuming that Dent is correct.

In 2001, for instance, the U.S market did so largely because of official and unofficial capacity of the companies and the  problem with such venture capital funds in the private tied themselves close to sources such as Q-Tel and from this informal relationship which involves investment bankers, some companies where slated to simply do better others, others did fail and never quite recovered. Although the practices did raise eyebrows, especially deals concerning the 'no risk' business incentive in a Capital market industry where 'Talent' for risk is resourceful, Government stepping into the business arena, can also change the dynamics for prices and for business. In this circumstance, the left and right of companies and fluctuation on price no longer matters.

But then there are companies that have done their own bit in signing up with the government on such matters as bid-on information technology, while at same time they are relying on these bits of information be part of a past or an era probably gone. Microsoft since launching its company in the 80's has not shed a single day or shed below a running average, so also WalMart as we indicated elsewhere, which does not mean that all companies perform the same function but as Texas Instrument and Bell South, there were high yielding dividend companies as with Forbes, till the end of the initial two. They had good managers and the years doesn't matter.

Tom Shorrock in a recent book 'Spy for Hire' highlighted the compromising structure of the wholesale intelligence society of USA in from about 2001, he made especial emphasis on data mining, which he vaguely but did not fully demonstrate could predicate on who wins in many business circles and who rules the war of financial market place. That data miners were selling information based on fear seem relatively common knowledge, but much less known is the area were outsourcing was a big deal such as the ones that follow SIGINT debacle in 2000, the relationship between buying information gadgets and making one, moved from 17-20% to 80/83% within a matter of years. From these interesting number of citations,

Shorrock mentioned that a time it was conscionable compromise on military Intel which had to be tolerated, but deeper still, the whole deal has become a tool for private ends since public access and private investors from outside the sector was essentially blocked in pursuit of government contracts. These groups as under-listed; BAE systems, L-3/Titan, EDS, General Dynamics, Man Tech, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Nortel,      Northrop Grumman/Essex, Raytheon, and NCI, will wholly enter the pure play of U.S economic life and interactive Venture between them and the U.S government and the effort in the sector will widen the financial participation of one sector of the economy and it eventually pays. 

The outcome is such that private ownership and preferred stocks from around 2001 will tend to operate against public market capitalization and the tendency sparked upwards till sometime in 2004. In the book, Spy for Hire', we learn of this trend from the figure " that capitalization figure, derived from a company's stock price per share and once more, the author included the issue at hand using tracking group that might also include A.G Edwards defense banking group "that Capitalization figure, derived from a company stock price per share multiplied by the total number of shares outstanding, is generally a good indication of investor interest in a specific industry. Collectively, the value of the intelligence pure plays exploded in the first five years of the war on terror, from $980.5 million in 2001 to $8.3 Billion in 2006. You are looking at 900% - increase"

From the statistics and as we proceed, there is a statement the …In some reaction to the rise of Nasdaq in the 2000s, it was driven by companies and not necessarily by the industries, that is in spite of fact that stock market and bond yielded good returns, the sectors varied by the parts played by individual companies where as a game changer like the once from 2001 and the Government, can carry a whole sector in spite of it all. Same with currencies, commodities and ETF, many of which have their hours in the day and days in week, week in the month, etc, and off which in respect to foreign Nationals trading at the same time will vary in the outcomes 
                                          
                                                            Overview III

At the beginning of his writing, the author seems to be in his forte with demographics, how people chance over time but how their numbers also change with them. He mentioned that in the past, that linguist and language experts tried to link human being with the language and the language with their dispersion. In the process, that it was kind of hard to properly connect human with their dispersions route but with DNA and genetic mapping it is now possible. Here, I shall begin to suggest that the Liberace of his opening is a fact that is not quite correct, that DNA samples of some ancestors prove them different from their presumed up-spring, that there are cases of Biological factors that break the expected life cycle of a society or people to the degree that natural disasters can alter of any society.

While the fore mentioned changes are true, they do not conform to the pattern that for every known product or for any the staple for any industry, there are always market or a chance to grow.

Strictly speaking of the United States, it is not impossible to suggest that what is currently defining the country and the century is not just new companies of some wonderful structure but also new companies with their new attitudes to the Global Macro, some of whom should no longer be considered as 'yuppies of technology' who as they suggested, transfer the habit of using new technology from one generation to another. And from all standards, it is Nasdaq and in moderate statement, Google and Face book, that has pushed the limits of the Tech Sectors, although there are strong performers like, Samsung and Toshiba.The outcomes in Japan for instance in the last months, did not necessary affect U.S Market or the world, and in reality no economy that suffered in 2008 should facing the Japanese current reset. China is also re-engineering itself from 9% a year expansion to less 6% expected expansion, all of which is outside the generative examples in Dent's Book.

Yet, none of these companies in Asia and their affiliates associated with Nasdaq fared badly in the decade 2000 - 2010, and with the arrival of Sharing Agencies and Information Carriers such as Google, a boom was created that was not commensurate to any sector or the Nasdaq for instance, and companies like Google has remained on top even since their first launch in spite of the landslide for the past decades. For that, it is common sense to argue that the investment nowadays has not been the same since 1920's, some of the Fundamentals have changed but the great advances in stock businesses can be a symptom of the Technical. As such business in spite of 2008 of recent anon, is problems associated with Stock Prices and movement only to the degree that numbers does not always parallel the economy in terms of the companies with serious background. 

These companies includes Google, Amazon, Cisco, Microsoft, Star Bucks, Face book, Guchi  (despite being a European Brand), Wal-Mart, whose break off period is about every 1^st of July and then sustains itself through the year, Dell, eBay, etc, lead the business community nowadays but may be doing things that has not being done before, for instance, making money at the Shakeout period (Stealth Phase for Chartists)  which is usually associated niche markets doing but now companies from with interesting portfolio are meeting obligation. Walmart is no small American success and anyone heard taken the rise of Walmart as a company seriously., they would have realized with the arrival of Chinese and a certain Xiaoping in Texas the rise of a company that cam manufacture nearly thing.

                                                    Managerial function IV

With all dues respect to the advice of the experts associated with Harry Dent and the Next boom years, we have to suggest that it is equally easy to attack import spate of good years to these years as well the bad years. Although these managers and owners of these companies are not pronounced as their former compeers such as Walter Disney, Jack Warner, Peter Druckner, Taichi Ohno, W. Edwards Deming and Jack Welch, the fore mentioned companies are doing much better in little else than their technical ability to convert useful information technology and pure play for everyday use. Little else need to be said that companies can not in of itself determine its successes without the positive managers who make the requisite difference. If the early companies did well in the last returning decade, their forebears so to speak also did well, to the point that the cycle that is today celebrated may only be in terms of the presidential cycles and the financial instrument. 

Dent spoke of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ may have been characterized by the discoveries in electricity, telephone, triumph drugs companies over measles, small pox etc, and by automobiles industries. In terms of electricity there is the Thomas Edison, Alexander Bell in Telephone, Alexander Jennings though English made his mark with the invention of Penicillin in the United States, and automobiles champions included Henry ford, Wagon, Mustang, and as far as G.M which was a new company in the 1920’s, it was the work of Alfred Sloan and his view of Macro-production that galvanized American industries especially in the occasional direction of Peter Druckner. But the management styles have changes, so also the economy
to equally argue that the Communication moguls such as Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner, are also leading the economy their own way.

From a regular Chartists and a regular player at the stock market, the numbers work fine and are in fact stables that Buffet use, but the stock market - especially the production numbers are a product of the managerial class.Of course the age of the William Durant who was one of the few giants that refused to add his name to a car line but helped to introduce Louis Chevrolet and Marquise Buick are not exactly over, even if has, Detroit may not agree, yet there are episodes in the evolution of American history that has helped to launch U.S car industries into the new areas from the struggling Innovation Period and struggle with Credit and of S-Curve and beyond. 

From this maturation of the Automotive Sector, other international such as Suzuki, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, etc, benefited by creating their own Auto economy which is in turn? As such the auto industries which the French Emile Peugeot, GM and Ford essentially defined, has now exceeded the statistics of many Americans. In very bad eras, these companies such as the GM and Toyota cooperated with each other and following the founding of UNNIM; United Motors in California, the industry has more than sustained itself by exchanging expertise and sometimes laid off employees.
                                                       
                                                                III
  
Peter Druckner; some of his thesis are board room mathematics, but his realities are accorded modern management even if he inviolate Charisma of Stalin, Hitler, Moa, etc, as misrule whereas Churchill, Roosevelt, Monty, as people of process.
  
Charles A. O’ Reilly III and Jeffery Pfeiffer; 2000, reviewing companies from the 80’s and 90’s that drove the two decades completely tried sometime new or at least invented a new way of delivering information, technology or goods for the customers. In all reality, it was the companies that created the decades and not the decade that created the companies. What is however more important is the fact these companies were started by ordinary people with extra-ordinary commitment to make the necessary difference in their industry. It was the function of the managers that determined the outcomes of the companies and it was the companies that eventually generated the incomes.

Herb Keller and Colleen Barrett at South West Airlines under their leadership, South West was best able to overcome nearly all competition, including Delta and USAir’s Metro jet. This group in the 1980’s did much better than their fellow competitors even as the stock of real market did very badly in the 80’s airline stock. The main point is that when other airplane companies such as Vanguard, America West, Reno, Kiwi Air, etc, tried to imitate them in the same business, these companies largely failed.

 In the 80's as well, these men, women and their companies; John Chambers and John Morgridge at Cisco Systems, George Zimmer and Charlie Bresler at Men’s Wear house, Jim Goodnight and David Russo at SAS Institute and Pat Kelly and John Sasen at PSS World Medical, Dennis Bakke and Roger Saint at AES, Gary Convis and Jamie Hresko at NUMMI, T.J Rodgers at Cypress Silicon, Diane Burton, and Guido Spichty at Novartis all brought in record numbers in spite of the year, in spite of the decade, in spite of the condition.
  
Great investors such as Warren Buffet usually acquire some companies not doing very well, and he does so when there is crisis or ‘blood on the street’. In the placing unnecessary bet on the outcomes of these Stock Numbers, he and his colleagues usually spend extra time digging out the good companies with enough to grow or companies that need the necessary liquidity.

The end result is that in the same years and decades that businesses do badly and stock market goes down, these businesses actually acquire momentum. Following Stock Market is not so advisable as following a well managed companies or companies with enough customer base enthusiasm.

Decoupling
With as much decline of Bear Stearn and Lehman Brothers in U.S, there was also the rise of Goldman Sachs of the same year a tumbling at the Wall Street. Event Horizon for Cisco of the 90’s was Microsoft of the 80’s, where as Bill Gates, Andy Grove, Larry Ellison, or Lew Platt of Hewlett-Packard. Sometimes merging two companies was the right recipe for making a decade work.

In one decade it is said that Cisco acquired 44 companies and after acquiring these companies, the CEO then was interviewed, and mentioned that Cisco was trying to ‘shape the future’ of the entire network industry, that is to do for the industry “...what Microsoft did with PCs and IBM did with Mainframes” 
 In the same year, Abbot Laboratories, Johnson and Johnson, PSS Medical which acquired Taylor Medical and Diagnostic Imaging, did better than average. The same year that AES and Men’s Wear House were all power houses in businesses.

The total amount of Americans with Credit in 2008 constituted only 10% of the population and of only 5% of that number had credit default and the rest of the numbers including non-Mortgage related wealth from other Americans were supposedly not affected the down years in the Stock but apparently it did. Why, Majority of the problems of Stock market is not associated with private companies or better than average placement, it is mainly a product of the current financial environment and not necessarily the big companies.
Many of the companies that fared badly were not good companies and many of them did not have sound business practice and the credit yet, the 2008 was a proven catastrophe.

Apparently the incident of the Stock Market bubble and bust has in the last booming age of the communication experts reduced to the economy or vice versa. But this correlation even for the most advanced of the country is nearly as accurate.


For sure there are plenty of US companies that were affected by the so-called burst of the 2008, but none of the affected companies were main events with direct effects on the country saving for obvious cases of Lehman and Bear Stearns and the poor returns on their high rated mortgages.   In 2008, some companies did very well and some companies did very badly and in many ways than one, majority of the companies that fared badly were companies that were dangerously conducting business in their own terms.

In nearly every decade or in every century that was mentioned by Harry Dent, there are problems of big companies failing to meet expectation and their collapse eventually affected others. Given the nature of the registrar these companies usually affect the bottom line of a Sector. It must also be said that but just because one company is affected in stock market does not mean that others are affected, proof of this is that in the same years or decades that stock prices took nose dives, other companies did much better.


In the years of the “5” or the “9” where we buy and sell, there are companies that actually did much better and if investing in the Stock and in the Bond market is all about companies, the Demographers like Harry Dent may do better in advising customers or investors to look at the companies and whole operational portfolio than the indexes which can impacted negatively and positively  

The argument is not that Stock market is not influenced by bad management or that draw backs of the U.S stock market does reflect on the economy, or that numbers in stock market does not matter, the point is that all of the above does matter including the demographics, but who exactly ‘does the bell toll’? If an every American is looking to invest in the U.S stock market or any stock market in the world, he should use the book as a break pad into the American Economic life of a country rather, he or she should look at companies on interest and do an overall assessment of any stock market before engaging the company.
  
Michael Hammer is probably better known for his book ‘Re-engineering the Corporation’ which they claimed defined the 90’s business but in order of Peter Druckner, made a candid and much dissimilar, Michael’s Hammer book that speak on this issue much clearly is called the ‘Agenda’ in 2003 listed what every Company needs to do to ‘dominate the decade.’ From his arguments and the lay out the cases which were not exactly specific,

Scott Eyman in a Biography of Louis B. Mayer; Lion of Hollywood’ detail out the learning curve of the studios that was managed by Mayer called MGM, and attempted to buttress on the man’s reputation as despot. Eyman however mentioned that what was not known about Louis Mayer at MGM is that while other studios ebbed and flowed in finances with due respect to the down years of Hollywood films and down decade like the 50’s, MGM under the management and leadership of Louis Mayer had good returns on their investment, made a lot of interesting Movies in good and bad times and had a lot of spare capacity to build studios of their own interest and buy any Motion Picture Star.

Consequently, when the Hollywood Industries picked up in the 60’s and in the 70’s and Louis Mayer no longer MGM’s CEO and manager, the company lost money both in good and especially in bad times. MGM after the return of Mayer had a few brief moments before his death.


 Let us for instance discourse one major event in the whole episode, for instance Starbucks which started its business in 1980 and began to acquire stores by the month. By the end of 80’s, Starbucks had over 200 coffee shops. In fact in 1987 when companies suffered financial reversals in Tokyo Stock Market and in U.S, Starbucks made money than most companies. Here’s the catch, in 1992 when the owner of the company decided to go public, the Starbucks offered $17.00 a share but went up to $22 a share for the first opening day. The Owner was so overwhelmed that he offered buy back option for customers.

In a recent book, by Joseph A. Michelli ‘The Starbuck Experience’; 07, he asked a question “What is the true scale of Starbucks success? If you had invested $10 000 in the Starbucks IPO on the Nasdaq in 1992, your investment would be worth approximately $650, 000 today. Starbucks has grown substantially faster than the average S&P stock.” He continued by citing an example, that “To get a sense of its profitability, one need only appreciate that since 1992, the value of the S&P rose 200 percent, the Dow 230 percent, the Nasdaq 280 percent, but Starbucks? – 5000 percent!”

Through those up and downs in the stock market and throughout those bad decades and presidential cycles, and new era or good or not so good wars and pestilence, Stable products such as Coffee with well managed companies like Starbucks or even McDonald, has sustained its brand and quality with or without the booms elsewhere. From this view we can state the examples that Dent and his fellow Demographers provide are not essentially wrong but not ultimately the better business practice.