On the Show: Charles Payne Tackles Poverty

Charles Payne of Wall Street Strategies (and of Fox News and Fox Business) was recently on the Houston Business Show discussing the problem of poverty facing many minorities today. Charles brings a unique perspective on the subject since he has faced both poverty as a young boy raised by a single parent and wealth because of his entrepreneurial success as an adult. As a result of his up bringing, Charles takes a some what contrarian view of poverty.

Conventional wisdom is that poor people should be given hand outs and that the poor should be treated as victims rather than as people merely seeking opportunity. Conventional wisdom fails to understand that the more you subsidize something, the more you get of it. Subsidizing poverty generates more of it.

Payne says that a big part of the poverty problem as that the focus is on the wrong thing. We don't need a "Poverty Czar" as advocated by many liberal leaders, but a "Wealth Czar" who points people away from poverty. We need to tackle the real causes of poverty in this country -- excessive taxation on wealth creation that prevents many businesses and opportunities to be created, excessive regulation that deters business growth, and licensure laws that inhibit people from entering the market place.

I love Charles' insights and he is one of my favorite contributors to the Houston Business Show. Listen to this informative two part interview here and here to understand America's poverty problems from someone who has experienced them.

For a copy of the free report, "Why Your Marketing Isn't Working," email Info@HoustonBusinessShow.com and put "marketing" in the subject line.

Kevin Price is Host of the Houston Business Show (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Hear the show live and online at HoustonBusinessShow.com. Visit the archive of past shows here.

The Matrix Economy, The Media, and Agent Smith

On today's show I interviewed Charles Payne of Wall Street Strategies and I am coming to the conclusion that we have a Matrix Economy. This economy is largely a lie and is one designed to make us have a negative perspective. The greater our pessimism, the more likely we will consume the poison being fed to us by the media.

I wrote a while back about Agent Smith of the Matrix and his conversation with Neo. In it I wrote "I love the scene where Agent Smith tells Neo the truth about the world he has always known. He tells the hero that in earlier attempts the machines attempted to make a perfect virtual world so that humans would be happy while they waited to be batteries for the machines. Smith goes on to say that it made the humans miserable and they had to give us the current world plagued with challenges and problems in order to make us content. We lived for bad things, he argued, and the Matrix accomodates such." The antics of the last few weeks only further validates that argument. We continue to give the negative media higher ratings and they reciprocate with more of the information we actually need to not hear.

We need to get real about the economy. Our future depends upon it. The media is Agent Smith. Listen with caution.

When you click the above photo you will hear a recent interview with Charles Payne -- the most optimistic man on Wall Street -- about the economy.

Kevin Price is Host of the Houston Business Show (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Hear the show live and online at HoustonBusinessShow.com. Visit the archive of past shows here.