Pass The Quilt

The video posted is an accoustic version of Billionaire By Travie McCoy and Bruno Mars, who happens to be half Puerto Rican, half Filipino from Hawaii.  I like the sound, but the lyrics strike a chord with me in not so much an ambitious way, but a cautious one.  I thought getting from here to there financially was once a pragmatic one rooted in education and becoming a professional, embedded in my mind through culture and environment.  It’s rooted in gaining a sense of financial security and achievement.  Now it feels like “buy everything I never had” is coming first, and access allows you to sink yourself, or at least take risks being blind to repercussions. 

This song reminds me of a guy I met on the street in Claremont, who I became friends with.  It was a Friday, an off day from work and I was walking by this Park from the Post Office to where else?  a bar.  I spot this older Filipino guy staring at me as I passed by.  He saw me look back and asked me the standard, “are you Filipino?”  Of course I said yes, and he proceeded to explain how unusual it was to see another Filipino in Claremont.  He was a little more surprised to learn the Mayor at the time was in fact, Filipino-American. 

We took the conversation into one of my local bar.  I began telling him about me, this community, and this website.  He was real cool and shared stories about himself.  The financial story was quite interesting.  He’s quite the gambler.  Before I start into the financial gambles, it was interesting to note that he had put his daughters through college and they came out with professional careers, so it sounded like an ideal familiar. 

This man believes in making money off money.  He talked about immigrating here, then getting a job in a pretty trendy industry, IT.  So he was making decent money.  Then he learned about stocks, and about real estate.  Got into both pretty hard.  Banks were easy money and he got leveraged.  But cash flow was good.  And he followed the conventional wisdom that real estate is your hedge against the risks of stocks.  If you lose one, you still have the other.  Until the market collapsed because of the real estate market in 2007.  This is where it gets interesting.  His assets died in a hurry and capital was not accessible.  So what is there to do but go bankrupt?  Well, he figured if he was on that path, he quickly decided to stop paying on the mortgages of the homes he owned.  But, and although this is rather unethical, he continued to collect rent from them, knowing there’s still a lag between that time and the banks begin foreclosure.  But what’s money in the bank if you file for bankruptcy and they take your liquid assets, anyway?  So, holding the cash he waited for what he thought was the bottom, and then unloaded all of it on some select stocks. 

And what happens next is rather lucky.  During the time the DOW goes up 7,000 to 10,000 in volume his stocks are blowing up 10 fold and more.  He sells them, collects and pays all the back charges he owed on mortgages and he’s back to scratch, and legit.  THAT is ballsy.

Unfortunately, most of the Filipinos I know in San Diego who were trying to get to “All the Things they never had”, taking equity from their homes to get into property or stuff, were left with short sales and foreclosures, AND a huge tax bill (that was luckily forgiven). 

Sometimes it’s a tough road to the top, and making money off money is cool…I don’t mind it myself, BUT with caution for risk.  You still have to leverage your talent, more so much than your assets to the banks.  There is no such thing as free money.  You can hope and wish, and dream as much as you want, but it may be more worthwhile to just invest in yourself to do things you love and build enough security to continue building upon that.  If what you love is name brands and being better than someone else in material, well then, get to hustlin’ and keep praying…then repeat on a 24 hour cycle.