Author Archives: Elisha Kramer

Top 12 Financial Films and Documentaries

So, you’ve decided to undertake the exhausting task of understanding the global financial system.

Bravo. Your will is praise-worthy. The only question is: where do you start?

There are so many pieces that make up the economic machine, and the educational resources available online are endless, making it very difficult to pace one self.

In this listicle, we provide you with the 12 best financial films to help you begin your financial education on the right foot.

 

Lean-Back VS. Lean-Forward

Every individual has his or her own method of digesting information. You may want to watch one video per week. Or, you may want to binge-watch these films. We recommend you take it nice and slow. The videos will not go away.

Before we dive into our top 12 list, it’s also important to note that scientists have categorized methods of learning into 2 major categories: “Lean-Back Learning,” and “Lean-Forward Learning.”

Lean-Back Learning includes watching films. While watching a film you can lean back and digest information passively. Film-makers have moving images, and dramatic music, they can blend into their narrative, thereby assisting viewers to stay tuned over longer periods of time.

Lean-Forward Learning, on the other hand, includes learning via reading. In this method of learning, one usually has to exert one-self more, and stamina is therefore also extinguished faster.

 

Our Golden List

1) Mike Maloney’s Seven Stages Of Empire

Mike Maloney is a big fan of Gold, and in this series he explains his position. Maloney provides viewers with enlightening graphics, and takes us back to ancient civilization, when Gold was used as currency.

This is a well-told story, and serves as a wonderful stepping stone to understanding how money works.

 

2) Money for Nothing - Inside the Federal Reserve

Central banks play a crucial role in the maintenance of modern economies all across the globe.

Because central banks are so powerful, people commonly have a habit of demonizing them. If you search “central banks” on YouTube, you will find an over-whelming amount of conspiracy-theory videos.

The refreshing element of this documentary, “Money for Nothing,” is that it helps one understand how financial traders interpret the Federal Reserve’s actions and statements.

 

3) Maxed Out (2006) - Documentary

Why are credit card companies so eager to constantly lend out more money? In this incredibly-revealing documentary, viewers are shown how credit card companies make the majority of their money off of the poorest people. It’s a sad reality.

This film is also very important for those that wish to understand the role credit plays within an economy. Please note: this film is not for the faint-hearted.

You can watch the full documentary here.

 

4) Downloaded (2013) - The Story of Napster

Napster was founded in 1999, giving people the revolutionary ability to share their musical libraries, almost magically, via the world wide web. This was an amazing time in human history.

It is interesting to note that Napster was the first case of people sharing emotion to strangers on the internet, setting the precedent for the social media revolution. Napster users began the culture of “sharing” music with other users, thereby connecting with people all over the world.

Watch the full video here.

 

5) Deep Web (2015) - Documentary

Deep Web explores the story of Silk Road, and the underground internet which enabled it. The documentary is produced by the same guy who made the above film about Napster (Alex Winter).

Silk Road was an illegal marketplace which used Bitcoin as its currency. Watch the film to learn more about the part of the web you’ve probably never heard of.

 

6) Collapse - The End Of The Age Of Oil

This is a film you will not forget easily. Michael C. Ruppert is a very sensitive soul who talks about the corruption he sees happening all around him.

This film is a one man show. It essentially centers around Ruppert sitting in a dark room for 1 hour and 20 minutes, smoking cigarette after cigarette, and fretting about how the world is running out of oil, and other important issues.

Ruppert beautifully blends intellect and emotion to provide the viewer with a wonderful theatrical experience. Watch it in one sitting if you wish to get the full experience.

 

7) I.O.U.S.A. (2008) - Documentary

This is a great film for understanding how governments spend money. The documentary also explores the current financial warfare occurring between China and the United States.

The film believes that China has already overtaken the U.S. as the world’s super-power, and that it is money, and the transfer of wealth, which will ultimately determine the future of civilization.

 

8) The Pursuit of Happyness

This is a dynamite film starring Will Smith. The film portrays a man who decides to turn his life around and become a financial trader.

The story is based on a real person. Have a look at an interview with the REAL Chris Gardener below:

 

9) Wall Street Warriors – TV Series

Here is a sneak peak of Season 1, Episode 2.

Introducing Tim Sykes.

 

10) The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin - Documentary

Great Bitcoin documentary. ‘Nuff said.

 

11) Niall Ferguson’s Series

In this 5-part series, Niall Ferguson brilliantly blends historical and financial history. In part 2 of the series, available below, Ferguson discusses the invention of this first bank (in the 13th Century), and the rise of the Medici family.

 

12) “Silly Money” with Bremner, Bird and Fortune

If you’re overwhelmed by all the academic films, and prefer to learn through humor, then this might be the film for you.

 

 

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Here’s How Shaq Built a Powerful Brand and Business Empire

Shaqille O’Neal is not your average giant. Nor is he your average former athlete. While many basketball legends have squandered their fortunes and declared bankruptcy, Shaq is proving that, as an athlete, it’s possible to make money, and maintain that profitability well after you step off the court for the last time.

Shaq’s upbringing was anything but easy. He had to fight and claw for every inch of success he earned over the course of his life. But, succeed he did.

According to a recent estimate by Forbes Magazine, Shaq is worth $350 million, making him one of the world’s top 20 richest former athletes. Let’s have a look at how Shaq did it, and is continuing to do it.

Childhood: Rotten Fathers

Shaq’s real father was named Joseph Toney. When Shaq was only 6 months old, Toney was sent to jail for drug addiction. The family was then stationed in Newark, New Jersey.

Shaq’s mom remarried to a man named Phillip A. Harrison. In his rap song, entitled “Biological Didn’t Bother,” Shaq reminisces about how Harrison replaced Toney as a father figure. That being said, Harrison wasn’t a saint, either. In his autobiography, “Shaq Uncut: My Story,” O’Neal admits that his father used to beat him with a belt, and mentally abused at him at every turn.

 

Education, Men’s Suits, and Other Investments

Not a lot of people know this, but Shaq actually earned a Ph.D in education. The All-star was asked by a reporter once:

Reporter: You could kick your feet up, and lounge around for the rest of your life. Why this passion for education?

Shaq: Well, three reason. Number one, I promised my parents I would. Number two, I wanted to continue my education. Number three, I wanted to challenge myself.

And challenge himself, he has. Have a look at how Shaq naturally markets his Men’s Wear Line at Macy’s.

Aside from also investing in Google before its IPO, Shaq is well diversified. He owns 40 fitness centers, 17 Auntie Annie’s Pretzels restaurants, 55 Five Guys Burgers restaurants, a handful of Las Vegas nightclubs, 150 car washes, and a shopping center.

Handling Success

It’s often said that people are afraid of failure. What’s less known is that most people are also terrified of success. Often, lottery winners and rising athletes spend their paychecks frivolously because they simply don’t know how to handle a large bank account.

Shaq was no exception to this powerful desire within man to spend without caution. Within 30 minutes of joining the NBA, he spent the first million dollars he earned. Obviously, he changed his ways, but it was anything but easy.

By educating himself, and remaining upbeat, Shaq has served as an inspiration to millions on how to become a millionaire, and re-invest profits with style, charm, and wisdom.

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How Worried Should You Be About China’s Stock Market Crash?

 

Financial analysts are saying that China’s stock market decline could be the Chinese version of America’s 2008 financial crash.

American analyst, Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money says: “So we are China, whether we like it or not. Let’s stop kidding ourselves.” Cramer believes that just like the American crash of 2008 caused global upheaval, the China crash is equally frightening.

Chinese regulators have already taken several emergency measures to stop the tumbling of prices, to no avail. The regulators have bought up $250 billion of equities and have been granted credit to buy up another $450 billion if need be.

“They have got themselves into a very difficult situation,” says Mark Williams, chief Asia strategist at Capital Economics. “They have put a lot of credibility on the line to shore up prices and this credibility has been badly damaged.”

“Large parts of the market are closed,” said another economist, “and those stocks that are still trading are selling off regardless of support measures. Clearly something very serious is happening.”

 

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Google’s Dirty Little Secrets

We are living in a time when people all around the world are becoming increasingly reliant on Google. We turn to Google for all of our questions! From medical issues to problems with the toilet, there’s practically NOTHING Google doesn’t know.

There’s no question that Google has become a close friend to us all.

But, have we ever stopped to question what does Google really think of us?

Google, after all, is not an independent machine. The company employs over 57,000 people, and raked in $66 billion in revenue last year. Here are three things about Google, the company doesn’t want you to know:

  1. Google makes the majority of its money on advertising.

Just about any business relies on Google for exposure.

The golden rule of advertising has always been: “place your company’s message in a place people will be able to notice it.” In the days of radio, companies spent fortunes advertising on the radio. In the height of television, companies spent fortunes advertising on TV.

Since the new millennium, as more people are getting connected to the internet, there are fortunes to be made off of this new trend.

Indeed, Google has built an extensive online advertising network. Let’s have a look at Google’s profits (in the billions) in the past 15 years:

  1. Google is seeking world domination.

The second thing you need to know is that Google is seeking world domination. The internet, after all, is a global trend. In just about every corner of the “connected” world, Google is building a reputation for itself. The search engine connects web-surfers with the information they need, the moment they need it.

As Proximo tells Russel Crowe in the movie Gladiator: “Maximus, I wasn’t the best because I kill quickly. I was the best because the crowd loved me. Win the crowd, and you shall win your freedom.” Google has surely taken this advice to heart, gaining millions of new fans per year.

The one place in the world Google is still struggling to dominate is within China. Many analysts believe that several years ago, the Chinese government hacked into Google’s networks to pass on search-engine secrets to Chinese competitor, Baidu. Today, Google is banned in China. Digital Research firm, eMarketer, reports: “Baidu is reaping the benefits of Google’s ban in China—and of course, a massive and growing internet user population.”

  1. Google is collecting information on everything you type into it.

Here is where this article starts sounding like a conspiracy theory.

Google believes in personalizing search results to individual users. To achieve this, they gather information on searches made by specific computers, and users (if you have a Gmail account, they can track that too).

Aside from collecting your search phrases, Google has long been known to be intimately photographing the entire globe. This is known as “Google Earth,” or “Google Streetview.”

To make things even creepier, Google has made its company slogan: “don’t be evil.”

 

Summary

This article does not end on a happy note. Our world is rapidly changing, and Google seems to be adapting to these changes at lightning speed.

We have become addicted to searching EVERYTHING on Google. Sure, the company has made our life easier, but the future remains largely unknown as we venture forth into the era of the internet.

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Here’s Why Gold just hit a 5-Year Low

 

With the crisis in Greece dying down, and rumors that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates, Gold fell by 4% on Monday. At its lowest, the commodity hit $1,088 (£699) an ounce, before bouncing back to $1,106 during Tuesday trading.

In times of financial uncertainty, Gold is largely seen as a safe-haven for investors. Traders often view Gold as negatively correlated to the USD, and with optimism in the dollar continuing to rise, traders are shying away from Gold.

Laith Khalaf, a senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, noted: “Given the direction central bank policy in the US appears to be going, expectations of a rate rise could also be weighing down on gold.”

Analysts are also attributing the fall of Gold to the recent wave of unusually positive news in world politics. The eurozone’s ability to handle the Greece crisis has restored confidence in the Euro currency. Meanwhile, the recent deal with Iran, analysts believe, reduces the chances of war in the Middle East, including Syria.

Gold’s last hope, of China buying up gold reserves, also seems to be an illusion now. Many traders believed in the past that China’s appetite for Gold would boost demand, thereby boosting the price of Gold.

“China has raised its gold reserves a bit,” writes The Economist, “but its bullion hoard is still puny, and as a share of total reserves, China’s gold holdings are falling.”

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Awesome Earnings Send Google Stock To All-Time High

 

Google share value jumped by 16.3% on Friday after the company released an earnings report which put investors’ minds at ease.

Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google’s head of Ads and Commerce reports that the company is learning how to drive more revenue through mobile advertising. “Mobile is driving ecommerce conversions as well as consumer actions like calls and stores visits,” said Sridhar. “We are working with our advertisers and partners to show the full value of mobile and have great momentum here.”

Google’s market cap (number of shares times value per share) is currently the second-largest in the world, at $468 billion. Apple still holds the record for largest market cap, at $750 billion.

US stocks, in general, have been recording record gains. The Nasdaq Composite, a popular US index tracking many information technology stocks, had a record close last week.

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Netflix Soars Again (11% jump in 24 hours)

After reporting their second quarter earnings on Wednesday night, Netflix stock jumped in after-hours trading. The company reported a revenue of $1.64 billion, matching analyst expectations.

Earnings per share did not wow traders, either. Nonetheless, subscriber growth was positive, giving investors the necessary confidence to rush to the stock, bringing the price up 11%.

In the second quarter, Netflix added 900,000 new users in the US alone. In addition, 2.4 million new international users joined the service.

David Einhorn, a popular hedge fund manager, writes: “Why did the stock react that way? Cynically: if it soared on bad news, imagine what it would do with good news. Practically: NFLX changed its story and pushed its promises into the distant future, with grand hopes for the decade starting in 2020. It transitioned from being a company judged by how much it earns into a company judged by how much it spends.”

Looking into the future, Netflix chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, says he’s excited about new Spanish-speaking users.

”We’ve licensed a lot of programming from Latin America into the U.S.,” said Sarandos, “and are getting incredible viewing on shows that were successful for us in Mexico that are now drawing huge numbers in the U.S.”

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Ross Ulbricht: Convicted Drug Lord, and Eternal Optimist

 

The story of Bitcoin is inextricably linked to the story of Silk Road, the Amazon of illegal drugs. In a previous blog post, we covered the complex story of how federal agents tracked down the site’s alleged administrator, and sent him straight to jail. The site used Bitcoin as its currency, making the site’s administrator very popular to devoted digital currency advocates.

Ross Albricht has been sentenced to life in Prison, but that hasn’t stopped him from writing a letter to his biggest fans, Bitcoin enthusiasts attending this year’s Porcupine Fest.

“Unfortunately the worst case scenario has played out for me,” writes Ulbricht, “and I’ve been sentenced to spend the rest of my life in prison. I am an eternal optimist though and will never give up hope for my release.”

Ross Ulbricht’s mother has set up a non-profit organization for those who believe in his case. According to Mrs. Ulbricht, Silk Road had more than one administrator. The administrator username itself suggests that Mrs. Ulbricht is correct. The username was “Dread Pirate Roberts,” a fictional pirate whose title gets passed down from generation to generation.

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InMobi Claims To Have Mastered Company Culture

InMobi is a mobile advertising company with headquarters in Bangalore, India. The company currently employs over 800 people (with 17 offices worldwide), and claims to have mastered the art of office culture.

“We really want everyone in InMobi to reimagine, to stretch themselves,” says Abhay Singhal, the company’s chief revenue officer. “We want employees to think of a new world which is very, very different from what they’ve inherited. But never be out of harmony, whether it is harmony with their own colleagues, harmony with the environment, harmony with how our customers and partners perceive us.”

The company’s CEO Naveen Tewari says the company is second only to Google in the global ad market. The service allows companies to target potential new clients by analyzing the apps in over 1 billion devices, thereby allowing clients to target on a whole new level.

As for his decision to cut out employee bonuses, Tewari notes: “We took away all of the possible conversations that could have led to people getting their performance judged based on short-term incentives.”

Despite InMobi’s attempt to portray itself as a groundbreakingly peaceful office, one former employee of the San Francisco branch seems to be of the opinion that there is a lack of leadership in the office he previously worked at. The following excerpt was taken from Glassdoor, a site which allows employees and former employees to rate companies.

In today’s corporate world, there appears to be two prominent management philosophies. Some managers believe the best way to create an efficient workplace is by giving employees the freedom to work at their own pace. Other managers, on the other hand, believe that all tasks should be monitored to make sure the work gets done.

While some employees prefer to have laid-back managers, other employees feel that true efficiency can only be achieved through “strong” leadership, in the traditional sense.

And this is precisely what makes the case of InMobi so interesting. Despite limited supervision, the company is innovating faster than practically every advertising company out there (except for Google, of course).

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Will Donald Trump be the next President of the United States?

Even after losing millions of dollars worth of contracts with NBC, Univision, and Macy’s, Donald Trump is sticking to what he said during his presidential campaign announcement (on June 16th) about Mexicans.

Believe it or not, Trump is currently hugely popular with the American people. He is the 2nd most popular Republican candidate so far, trailing the leader by only 7 points.

In a candid interview with Media Buzz, Donald Trump, explained what he ‘really meant to say’. “I employ thousands of Mexicans,” said Donald. “I love the Mexican people. They’re fantastic, and everybody knows that.”

Erik Schatzker of Bloomberg News put it nicely, saying: “People can accuse Donald Trump of acting like a buffoon, but he is no fool… Donald Trump is trading his commercial success for political success.”

Responding to those that criticized him, and said he doesn’t belong on stage with the other candidates, Trump said they are simply trying to sabotage him. “Bottom line: I’ve built a massive company. I’ve had number one best-sellers. I wrote ‘The Art of The Deal,’ which is just about the biggest business book of all time… I went to the Wharton School of Finance, and I was a really good student, even though it’s one of the hardest schools in the world to get into, and they [my critics] are still saying: ‘why is he here?’”

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