Wisdoma by Brian Kindsvater

Interesting character, Jordan Belfort, made infamous in the Wolf of Wall Street movie. What cannot be denied is the incredible amount of money quickly made due to his stock brokerage Stratton Oakmont. After prison Belfort began selling his Straight Line sales system which he used to train the over 1000 brokers at Stratton Oakmont. Most recently, Belfort has mostly stopped his YouTube sales strategy videos and is now promoting crypto – including companies he has a financial interest in. Basically, seems like he has come full circle from being the behind the scenes owner of questionable companies whose stock was being pumped to make him a fortune, to being the investor in questionable companies whose crypto product is now being pumped to make him money. Some things never change, although there is seemingly more disclosure about his financial interest, albeit very minimal disclosure. Pieced together from Wikipedia and other websites is an interesting timeline:

1987 – Stock broker career started.
1989 – Stratton Oakmont founded.
1994 – Belfort banned from Stratton Oakmont and the stock industry to resolve charges of illegal misconduct.
1996 – Stratton Oakmont banned by NASD and put out of business due to continued illegal misconduct.
1999 – Belfort indicted for criminal stock manipulation and fraud.
2004-2006 – Prison sentence and owing $110 million in restitution.
2007 – Wolf of Wall Street book written. Initial book advance paid of $500,000.
2007 – Pays $382,910 in restitution – 50% of his income on parole.
2008 – Pays $148,799 in restitution – 50% of his income.
2009 – Pays $170,000 in restitution – 50% of his income. Parole ends.
2010-2020 – Renting and living on beach in Hermosa Beach, California. Companies JB Holdings / Global Motivation may pay what is mentioned on Zillow as a $20,000 per month rental.
2013 – Wolf of Wall Street movie released.
2022 – Now in Miami Beach and married to 4th wife. Apparently lost $300,000 when a crypto account was broken into.

It is amazing how much money was made in just 5 years at Stratton Oakmont. I have yet to see a discussion about what Belfort was doing between 1994 when he was banned from the stock industry and 2004 when his prison term began. It is known he was wired and obtaining information against others in the industry in order to obtain a lighter prison sentence. Still, there is a 5-year gap between leaving the industry and being indicted, and another odd 5-year gap before being sentenced. It seems reasonable for the first years until 1999 he was living off his prior Stratton money, and possibly ongoing “loyalty” kickbacks from other brokerages which he mentions in his book. But after the indictment I would assume his assets were frozen and after being indicted who would be dumb enough to talk to him and incriminating themselves? Maybe the indictment was sealed.

Still, the craziness occurred within just 5 years.
There is then a decade of what was he doing before entering prison.
Then afterwards there is the book and movie money, some sales and speaking presentations, and now a new reinvention as a crypto guru. Personally, the redemption story was better until the recent move into crypto. IMHO the lure of getting rich quick, the similarity to some of the illegal stock activities, and yet another wife – is uncomfortably similar to what has been seen before. The Wolf has not necessarily changed his spots.

Interestingly, in one of his interviews or sales videos, I don’t remember which, Jordan Belfort says the best stock investing strategy is to avoid individual stocks and just buy the SPY ETF – or entire S&P 500.

In early 2022 Order Desk instituted a massive price increase. The extra income seems to have been pocketed as profit instead of improving the mediocre interface and often poor instructions – but that’s a different story. For what it does the service works and if you need to use it the question is what service plan makes sense given the new pricing.

Old plans prices:
Starter – $12 per month and .25 per order
Pro – $40 per month and .05 per order
Plus – $100 per month and .03 per order

New 2002 pricing:
Starter – $20 per month and .25 per order
Pro – $60 per month and .10 per order
Plus – $125 per month and .05 per year

As I said, those are massive price increases. We’re not talking inflation and it’s not like there are rare supplies that became more expensive. Rather, the main explanation on the Order Desk is to grow the support team, which should not be necessary if, again, the bare bones interface and minimal help pages were re-done.

For breakeven points, it makes financial sense to move from the Starter to Pro plan when you have 270 orders per month or 9 per day.

There may be other reasons to upgrade the plan, such as needing more integrations. But if you are starting out consider 270 orders per month the breakeven point between the Starter and Pro plans.

To move between the Pro and Plus plans the breakeven point is 1300 orders per month or about 43 orders per day.

The rules for day trading or making short sales in a stock account can be hard to decipher, so I have created this handy reference guide.

Note that Robinhood does not allow short sales regardless of your account type or value.

These are United States government rules controlling the activity of US investors. They are not set by the brokerage. The stated purpose behind these rules are to protect small investors from risk and losing their money.

The real reason, in my view, is to protect large corporate investors from competition by keeping small investors small.

Many industries have government imposed barriers, such as licensing (read large money payments to the government) or other barriers enacted into law after lobbying (read bribes to politicians) from entrenched entities seeking to prevent competition. This is done under the guise of some benevolent purpose – such as preventing the small guy from losing their money in the stock market – but which serve to limit competition.

The result is if you want to engage in day trading, and to make money from prices going both up and down, you will need a margin account with at least $25,000 in the account. Otherwise, this money-making privilege is reserved to the already rich and powerful.

My Toyota Highlander is no longer new – we’ve been through 9 years and 160,000 miles. That’s a long time and a lot of miles in one seat.

In some respects the “Truckster” as I call it is showing it’s age. Aren’t we all? But it’s also looking surprisingly good for all the wear and tear. Here are some ideas for keeping your ride happy.

– Keep it clean. Yes, this can be a challenge. Especially when hay and other horse supplies are being transported by those with muddy boots. Instead of letting the dirt build up take just a couple minutes with a vacuum and a cleaner. I’ve found windex works fine on the inside dash and not just for windows.

– Get some touch up paint. You never know when you’ll need it.

– Use the best vinyl cleaner possible on the seats. This is one area where I definitely should have used a higher quality product more often. When the seats get dirty they can be hard to get looking like new again.

– Get in the nooks and crannies. The Highlander is reasonably good at not having too many small places where dirt can accumulate that is difficult to reach. You may need to get into the backseat to reach some of the areas around the front seating area.

– A little squirt of ‘new car smell’ spray every once in a while can also help your senses feel like they are back in a brand new car.

A review of business checking options in the Sacramento area:

Free

Banner Bank – $100 to open, no minimum balance, no monthly service charge, debit card, first 125 transactions free per month then .30 each, online bill pay $4 month plus .45 per transaction after first 10 free, deposits of more than $10,000 per month are .15 per $100. Sole proprietors can apply online. Locations in Sacramento, Rancho Cordova, Folsom, Rocklin and Elk Grove – but only Folsom and Elk Grove have ATMs.

First Bank – No monthly fee, no minimum balance, first 150 transactions fee, free online banking, bill pay and debit card. Locations and ATMs in Rancho Cordova and Roseville. Also some locations in San Francisco and outer Bay Area. Need to apply in branch.

WestAmerica Bank (for sole proprietors and when have at least five card transactions per month, otherwise $4). $200 to open, no minimum balance, no monthly fee, first 10 deposits free per month then $1.50 each, 25 free checks paid per month then .40 each. Locations in Sacramento and Rancho Cordova. Need to apply in branch.

Good Shot at Being Free

BOFA – $16 /month (highest of any bank for minimal business checking) but fee waived if spend $250 per month with a debit card. If necessary, have a fake product for $250 using your PayPal account you buy with your BOFA card. Then download the money from PayPal to your BOFA account. Easy free checking.

Fee Banks and Ridiculously High Minimums to Avoid Charges

Chase – $10 / month
Wells Fargo – $14 / month
Union Bank – $5 / month
River City Bank – $15 / month
Umpqua Bank – $7 / month
American River Bank – $10 / month
Five Star Bank – $15 / month
Bank of the West – $10 / month
El Dorado Savings Bank – $8 / month

Fees and offers continually change, but overall you can definitely save money by researching smaller banks. No sense paying a bank to hold your money and make even more money off that.

Just saw a video where the CEO of Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen chicken, Cheryl Bachelder, was talking about the ramifications of a $15 minimum wage. She said there are three parties involved in the issue:

– Employees deserving a fair wage
– Customers deserving a fair price
– Local owners deserving a fair profit

Interestingly, she left out the franchise owner – her employer – and how much profit corporate takes.

She then said if wages increase there are “only two levers” left, either:

– Higher prices or,
– Lower hours for employees.

Huh?

Notice how the profit of local owners and the franchise corporation is untouchable.

There it is, in a nutshell. Not to pick on Popeye’s chicken, but this is a common theme. Workers are angry about wage disparity and not making it with the current minimum wage.

So the employer, when faced with increasing wage costs does everything EXCEPT take a lower profit to decrease the wage disparity.

Nothing touches profit. The disparity is not going to be fixed.

If you were wondering, Cheryl Bachelder’s 2014 compensation was $3,200,000 (3.2 million) according to Salary.com.

Cheryl Bachelder went on to say top store revenue was up from $1,000,000 (one million) to $1,400,000 (1.4 million). Obviously, all of the profit is going to the local owners and corporate. None is going to increase the minimum wage of employees unless there is a forced increase.

Bachelder also said a store hires 30 employees. $400,000 increased profit the last few years over 30 employee is $13,333 per employee.

Over a 2000 hour work year, $13,333 is $6.67 extra profit per employee per hour.

I don’t know about you, but I see room for paying employees more than a minimum wage. A lot of room.

But now you also see the local owner and corporate being upset about minimum wage increases. Popeye’s is a national chain. If the minimum wage in California goes up from $10 an hour to $15 an hour, that $5 an hour increase (over 7 years) takes up most of the $6.67 bonus profit the company has made the past few years. In Louisiana, where Popeye’s Chicken is headquartered, there is no state minimum wage. Instead, the federal $7.25 minimum wage applies. (Again, why isn’t Popeye’s paying its employees more than $7.25 an hour given all the extra profit from its stores?) If $7.25 doubled to $15, and assuming prices to customers cannot increase to cover it all, then yep, local owners and corporate have to make less.

To address this Cheryl Bachelder then mentioned how in response to the minimum wage increase there would be more automation facing customers, and on the backend, to make stores “more efficient”. That is, few employee work hours.

So, the end of the day result:

– Corporate and local owners keep their profits. Maybe even make more profit!!!!!
– Customers pay more
– Fewer employees working fewer hours will make more money

Looking further at Cheryl Bachelder’s $3.2 million compensation, and if we assume a 2000 hour full-time employee making the minimum wage in Louisiana of $7.25, Popeye’s begrudgingly pays (would probably be less without a federal minimum wage), $14,500 per year to a full-time employee.

Ouch.

Work full-time at Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen and you are officially impoverished and probably getting federal tax subsidies.

This also means Cheryl Bachelder earns as much as 220 employees each year, or 7 stores. How about that! Every employee working a full year at seven Popeye’s stores makes enough to pay Ms. Bachelder her salary so she can go on television complaining about how much they make and how the company will not do anything to dampen the corporate profits paying her salary.

(Let me know if any of these numbers are wrong. Took me forever to get this post done, rewriting, fixing errors, doing math over and over. Thank goodness for calculators.)

No wonder so many workers are pissed.