Gentrify or Grow: Taxes, Tariffs & the Middle Class Reality Check

0:00 It's the way that we've made cities. It's the infrastructure that we have currently. And the question becomes, well, I mean, how do you fix it? How do you take a city and create it in such a way that everything you need is within walking distance? And it's called walking distance: one mile. Okay, so your kids have to go to school within one mile. You gotta be able to go to the grocery store, the gym, the movie theater, everything within one mile. It'd be convenient. It'd be real. It would be, right? And then you kind of wrap these houses around them. But then how do you... I mean, how many of these do you have to have to support, like, how many people live in that?

1:05 at these cities. You take Chicago, how do you turn Chicago into a city? Yeah, I was thinking of San Antonio, two and a half million. Yeah, you know, two and a half million in San Antonio, and they all have to be able to get to school and everywhere else within a one-mile radius. Bro, you got North Side ISD, West Side ISD, South Side. Bro, you got all these independent schools. Facts. That's what it would turn into. And schools already barely have enough money to function as is, bro. Yeah. And so I think that it's not super realistic to make that happen, especially in the U.S. right now, without essentially migrating people to the middle of nowhere and building fresh. Right, right. So you got to take a state like Oklahoma, somebody got to go buy a thousand acres, you know, and just start popping houses, and you got to get people to move there. You have to have different incentives. And so, like, just the amount of effort it would take to do that. Talk about cookie-cutter houses. Facts. Yeah. But then would that help resolve some of the issues that you have in inner cities, where you give people a fresh start to move,

2:09 can we start to pull people out of poverty by placing them in these areas? You know, is that state run? Is that individual run, like private? So private people trying to make money. I mean, Dan Gilbert, who's the owner of the Cavs, he was buying up a lot of the land in Detroit, a lot of the houses, trying to redo the houses and kind of flip that city around. I feel like he's one of the few who didn't inflate the prices so much for greed. Yeah, you know, like he really allowed people to make, have a chance. I feel that.

3:12 afford it, right? And you're gonna have to bring in people that can. And that's the whole point of, I feel like, a subdivision. Help me out with the word. You got a team that runs the community there. Yeah. Um, what they call that? HOA. HOA, yeah. So, you know, I think that's kind of the point of the HOA, is, you know, trying to raise up the prices a little bit more so you have people of a more middle class, right? And unfortunately, I feel like that just, that's also creates a, uh, a division in between people, because you're like, well, what's wrong with me? Yeah, you know, why can't I afford to live there? You gentrify the area, right? And a good example of that is Philly. You know, coming up in Detroit, you have the city itself, right, and you have some spots of the city that look a little bit better than others. But then you have the suburb. Suburb is outside of the city, and that's where the money is, that's where people with money is. And they might drive downtown, right, and work downtown, then they drive back to the suburbs and they live out there, right? Philly was the first city that I had seen personally or lived in

4:18 rather, like, wasn't just visiting. So I actually got to see what it was like, where you can be on one block and have needles all over the place, people sleeping on the sidewalk, tents, all of that, under the underpass. Go two blocks over and a cup of coffee is eight dollars. Oh my God, right? And then go two more blocks over and you might get shot, you know? Yeah. But for anybody that hasn't lived in the city, it's hard for them to know that, because you and I know we could live on this block here and it's a nice, it's a nice block. Yeah. But you go to the street behind us, it's a whole different story. It really is. And that's crazy how it can be like that in the city. You won't find that on one road, but you drive one street down, yeah, it's a whole different world. It really is. Um, but yeah, same. And so with the amount of diversity that they had, different types of people, you got hippies over here for a couple blocks, you know, like I went to brunch one time and had to park my car, and where I parked my car

5:22 looked like it was gonna get broken into, but where I went into the lunch spot, dope place, like expensive brunch spot, I'm like, man, how is it... Yeah, just, yeah, a couple blocks over, where I'm used to. All right, like in the suburbs, the entirety of the suburbs, you're good. You're going to the city, for the most part, wherever you at, you got some more peaceful blocks, but for the most part, you know. Yeah, it's not so great. And yeah, I agree with you that it's difficult to... there were spots that they were trying to make better in Philly, and that same problem happened where I price it right, where I can get the type of people that I want to live here, and if you're not making this much money, yeah, you're not gonna get approved. Yep. And it keeps people from having a fair shot. But like you said, that return on investment, now I think there are people who would make some money, but less money, all right, still go through this process and do it. I think the bigger problem is once you get somebody who's used to living

6:25 in a certain type of environment and you bring them into a nicer environment, I think they bring that nicer environment down. Yeah, yeah. And so now I was like, man, like, I gave you a chance, I gave you a shot, I brought you over here, and now you can jacked up this place, and I'm renting to you, you know. Uh, you either smoke the place out, now I can't even put somebody else in here. Yeah, you know, your dogs tore it up. Oh man, so now I can't allow pets in here. This is like, there's so many different things, you know. You had your 10 kids that you wasn't actually watching, and they didn't draw all over the walls, you know, and they done beat each other up, put a hole in the wall, broke the door. I actually can't talk crap about that. My sister and I put a hole in the, in the, uh, door and got in so much trouble for that. But that happens as kids when we fight. It does a little bit. That's different than when you ain't paying attention. So yeah, I think that, I mean, on both sides, for now, I mean, like, I'm not gonna make

7:26 money off of it, not a ton, and you tearing my place up. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just not inclined at that point to be helpful to you. And so it's like, do we need certain services? Like, what's the first step, I guess, is the real question. Like, do I get you mental health help? Do I get you addiction and recovery services first? Do I get you in therapy first? And then who's paying for that? Yeah. And then once we get you through that, all right, now can we put you somewhere where you might actually take care of, yeah, what I give you, and try to get you into a better job. And, but one person can't do all that. So, like, I might be building the houses, but who's getting you into the therapy? Yeah. So it takes so many of us to even be able to pull something like that off, like such a huge team in order to even make that possible. And where are we getting this money from? I think that that's what causes so many people to be pessimistic and unrealistic and stop chasing those dreams,

8:30 like, I think people have that inside of them. They just either don't know where to start or don't have other people who's rocking with them to unify it, to set that vision and to set the course and make it happen. Overall, yeah. And, you know, I think the whole talk on tariffs, you know, that kind of helps alleviate some of that federal funding that has to come down to help people. Yeah, you know, so to have these tariffs coming in, as much as everybody in the country right now is talking about it or some people even may be upset about it, that money will go to eventually alleviate money for us or people that need it in our society down the pipeline, because it's coming in, which is then releasing some money that's been kept under, under a strap. Yeah, you know. And so it's, I also feel it's kind of good that we do have, does right now, they have been going through a whole string of things to kind of

9:34 start to fix, where is our money going? Yeah, because as us, we're, you know, we're middle class, you know, we're not... we're blessed, but we're not, you know, the richest people in the world. But I feel like the middle class, I hear it a lot, always says, like, how come we're bearing the majority? How, why does it feel like we're bearing the majority of the financial cost in America? Yeah, you know, we go to work every day, on top of trying to be entrepreneurs, thanks, and we still have to pay everything everybody else pays. Yeah. And I think what a lot of people don't understand within that, right, when they talk about these companies or corporations that aren't paying taxes, and what a lot of them miss, and a lot of people get salty at me saying this, right, and I understand, because Big Sean says a line like this, right, it's one of my favorite lines, um, he says, "You're not a boss

10:35 until you cut a paycheck." Man, I love that line. Not a boss till you cut a paycheck, somebody else's, not just your own, you know. Yeah, man. And so when I cut my first paycheck to somebody that was not myself, man, I felt like a G. Yeah, I played that song in the car, you know what I mean? Yes, sir. I'm feeling myself, and that was a big milestone for me, right? Here's what people don't realize: when you pay somebody else's paycheck, right, you have taxes coming out of your paycheck. Yep. Every single pay period. You only pay half of your taxes. Yeah. You pay half of your taxes, the company pays the other half. So whatever I'm paying you, you pay taxes on, and then I still have to account for the extra that I'm paying in taxes. And man, once I had two, three, four people that I was cutting checks for, and I realized just how much I had to keep in reserve for the taxes I had to pay on

11:38 those, yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm finding every tax break possible on my profit, because that money's not profit. So you're like, oh well, there's profits not being taxed. Yeah, man, I'm paying half of your taxes for each and every one of you. So if I'm one person, I have 10 employees, I'm paying 10 sets of half of taxes. Should we get started in, uh, workman's comp? Man, yeah, and PA don't play about making sure you got to work, that's comping. Ohio doesn't send you as many reminders. Ohio, you gotta remember on your own. PA, they send you something quarterly, felt like monthly, about the time you got it again. Yeah, let's make sure you got this money in, you know. Yeah, they want your 10 racks. Facts. Uh, the sales tax that we're paying, like making sure you're actually accounting for that and getting that paid, yeah, on time. And just, when you see that number, and it's like, well, so depending on what it was, I would add that into whatever the price was. So sometimes I would charge sales tax, but, like, when it came to, you know, uh, if I want to run a deal and I want the price to be what the price is, I just work it in.

12:42 Yeah, uh, but once I started seeing how much was actually being paid in sales tax that I wasn't passing on, like, man, that's actually, it's a lot of money. A fair bit. Yeah, it's like one tenth of a cent, right, at the gas pump, that you pay on tax, and it doesn't, it's not a lot, you know. One tenth of a cent, okay. But how many people get fuel every single day? Yeah. Throughout all America, thanks, that one tenth of a cent builds up pretty quick. It does. You know, and I think we're at a point in society in America where so many people want to see change, and I'm gonna take that tenth of a cent as an example, right? We want to see change. Yeah. We don't know what to do or how to do it, if to get your point across we were actually able to unify, which I know sounds crazy, because we can't even get two people in the comments on Instagram to agree on something or not fight each other. Yeah. But if you

13:46 had enough people who would just not go to the gas station for one day, or just, all right, look, you, you won't need... you got to get home from work, just put that two or three dollars in, get home from work. Yeah, you know what I mean? Don't fill your tank like normally. If we did that for one day, bro, the blow that the economy would see would be so insane. Yeah, it would. That whoever is in charge will listen to what we had to say, I guarantee it. You wouldn't have a choice. Right. So you take that tenth of a cent, but you take that and magnify it over the course of an actual cost of one gallon, over the cost of an entire tank. You know, it takes me twelve and a half gallons to fill my tank in my, uh, little car. Yeah. So if I'm not doing that, you're not doing that, you know, even just a thousand people not doing that. Yeah, bro, that's a big hit. Yeah. And then you take that and you say, okay, now we got a million people not doing that, man, you know, a million people not spending a twenty dollars. Yeah, yeah. That's gonna hurt somewhere. That's gonna hurt someone for sure. And then, man, so we got, you know,

14:48 10 million to do it. But I mean, I just, back to my pessimism at society at large, how are we getting 10 million people to do anything? Yeah, like without fighting, without breaking off, without splintering, with actually following through, with discipline, like, right, actually showing up. It's, I think it's so insane that we can't rally behind anything right now. No. And that's, man, we've heard it for the longest time, you know, divided will fall. Yeah, that's the scary part. Facts. And that's what I think we really see happening. Um, because this is the most I've seen people advocate for a third party, advocate for a third candidate, to advocate for something different, right? And we've had other people try. Yeah. Yet somehow, some way, for some reason, it doesn't work. Now, I get there are powers working against that, but again, if you have enough people who get behind it, then it's going to gain traction

15:55 and, that's not saying where I stand on it, so don't start taking things different than what I'm saying. I'm just saying you get enough people behind any cause, you can make something happen. Yeah, you know, if you get enough people to only buy vanilla ice cream, they're gonna stop selling chocolate. Yeah, exactly. It's just the nature of it, right? So at some point we have to figure out, okay, we want to make housing cheaper, we got to get enough people behind it. We want to make the cost of living cheaper, we want to make health care cheaper, we got to get enough people behind it. Um, and at some point it's going to escalate. Now, it still takes the right people in charge, the right planning, the right strategies, so that you're not aggravating things and escalating things in a negative way. But it doesn't even matter if you have that person with that brain, because nobody's following that person. Yeah, everybody wants to be in charge, everybody wants to say their peace, everybody wants to have their slice of the pie, and what they're bringing back, that it just causes, you know, division on that side, division on

16:56 values, divisional representation, you know that. Yeah, I think we've heard that since we was a kid: there's too many, uh, chiefs, not enough Indians, sometimes. Yeah, you know, that doesn't just, um, affect us at home, that affects us throughout work, school, the country. You know, you need volunteers, any of that stuff, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, it'll knock it down real quick. Facts. People to show up and do what we gotta do, play a role. But what people don't realize is when you have something to that scale, you're going to be in charge in some capacity, and the problem is once you have that, now you still have people with their pride, their greed, their ego, power tripping, not trained well enough for that. So one of the largest organizations in the country is Walmart. So also in college I wanted to work at Walmart. My first degree was pastoral leadership, right? And pastoral leadership, a lot of people look at it at the church side, but the church is an organization, right? The church doesn't bring in any

18:00 money, the church closes. Yeah. Okay, the church has to pay bills in order to function, so you gotta keep the lights on, you gotta have running water, uh, you gotta pay rent for the property, you know, uh, you got musicians that want to be paid, all of these different aspects. It takes money to run a church, and then if I want to help anybody, that takes even more money. Yeah. So we do a Christmas thing every year. I love our Christmas thing. A couple years ago, you know, we put out there in a few different, like, groups, and man, so many people showed up. Doors didn't open until three in the afternoon, right? What's crazy is at 10 a.m. the line was wrapped all the way around the building. Wow. To get in and get stuff for Christmas. Okay, we had some of everything in there. What I can say about my dad, who's the pastor, is he doesn't like to give out, and I feel the same way, stuff that we wouldn't have wanted as kids. So when we were kids, right, if I wouldn't want to get this, yeah, I'm not gonna give it out either. Bro, thanks. Uh, so that

19:04 being said, we had coats, but we had name-brand coats, Nerf guns, name-brand games. You had real Monopoly, you know, uh, themed Monopoly. You guys had, if I remember right, you guys had bikes out there. Yeah, we did. I remember you guys had quite a bit of stuff that was really sick, man. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, jerseys, you know, you had the LeBron jerseys, you had some NFL jerseys, man, like, I had some stuff and I'm like, I ain't got nothing like this in a while. I myself need something like this. But man, that took so much giving from people here. We had companies, organizations, people giving all year long. And I mean, you see some of the stuff, the amount of stuff that we have in there right now, it's like, man, we don't even have anywhere to put this stuff. I think we pulled a bunch of totes out the other day, man. Yeah, just sitting there. I had to go up there and get, man, it was like what, 20 or so totes. Yeah, full of clothes, full of good clothes, Carhartts, all of that, man, you know. I didn't know any churches in Detroit giving out car hurt when I was coming up. No. So that type stuff, man, we're passing them down, but we can't pull

20:09 that off without people actually giving, right? You can't pull that off without people actually having hearts. Yeah, exactly. That's the truth about it. You gotta have somebody. Yeah, because we can't, I mean, to that amount of stuff that we had that year, where that line was wrapped around the building, was legit over a hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods. Wow. And I would have to say 85 to 90 percent of it was donated. Wow, that's awesome. But if it wasn't either... That's a great community. It is. Yeah, community, and we had people from all over, people from different states. Um, we had to go take vans and U-Haul trucks. Usually we had to go get two U-Haul trucks down in Columbus, and we had to get another U-Haul truck in Michigan, about an hour and a half outside of Detroit. Wow, that's awesome. And bring those three U-Haul trucks, we had some stuff coming in from, uh, we had money and funds coming in from

21:09 St. Louis, Africa, uh, different, like, West Coast. And so we were able to pull it off. But man, if people weren't donating a hundred thousand dollars' worth of stuff, either the people didn't have good Christmas gifts or the church would have had to come up with a hundred thousand dollars, which we didn't have. But think about 100K worth of stuff, man, that's before you even get to, like I said, all the bills we have to pay, because we don't have a building to give out that stuff in. Yeah, without those bills. And, you know, I feel like that's a big thing that people in America don't realize, that even if it's a church, right, let's take it even back more than that, the country itself of America is a business. Yeah. And that right there is what most Americans do not understand. So if our country is a business, what do you think everything else

22:10 has to be in the country, thanks? Has to be a business, man, because, you know, even if it's a tax-free, everything still has to be accounted for. Oh yeah, because that money is coming from somewhere. Exactly. People want to see where's the money coming, you know, where's my money going. Exactly. Same with people paying taxes for the states. Yeah, you know, if you're paying the state so much tax, where's my money going? You want to see it going to the roads, you want to see it and help people. Yeah, exactly. You know exactly what we're paying for, man. That's so true. And people think that, and I've seen some posts even about, and there are some pastors out there and some churches and organizations in general who don't always do the right thing. Yeah, so I understand that, and they're abusing funds, and they're, whether it's physically, verbally, sexually abusing their people within the church, I've seen that in their staff so often, and that is absolutely terrible, and we absolutely do not condone that. Yeah. And that's one thing that we really, I feel, I really think

23:17 more people in churches nowadays, excuse me, need to be... I need to have more accountability. Yeah, because when we don't have accountability, that's what allows people to say and talk, yeah, negative about Christians. Facts. Uh, and that's, it's not something that we want, of course, you know. People are going to ridicule and do what they want. Yeah. But if that accountability is missing, man, yeah, that's what gives us the bad name. Yeah. And so, but every church is not like that. The problem is a lot of times the larger churches that do that. Yeah, so since more people are seeing it, hearing it, being affected by it, that causes the mistrust. But I feel like everybody in our church knows that they cannot get away with certain types of behavior. Yeah, they know that, because they know that I'm gonna come knock on the front door and have a conversation. They know if it's one of our own staff that they're being removed from the junk of the process, like it's not gonna be, oh man, this was going on for a

24:21 year, unless you chose not to say something to somebody. Right, right. We don't have that type of environment where those types of behaviors are okay, on a personal side, emotional side, or on a financial side. Right, right, right. So I'm in the place right now, this is my first time since, like, 16 years old where I'm working for a church and not taking a paycheck from the church itself. Yeah. I've been in paid ministry since 16 years old. Right when I hit my birthday this year, I'll finally have crossed over from a decade of paid ministry, you know. Uh, but I just felt like in this season with this church, where we're trying to go and what we're trying to do, that I would be putting too much of a burden on the church to be paid for what I feel like I bring to the table. And that, you know, I think that's on a personal level for me. I think that's actually, um, very honorable. No, I do appreciate that. Yeah, my wallet doesn't appreciate it, I'm sure. Not, but, you know what, you know where you're going to get paid back at is on the morale side, when you see the effort that

25:27 you've been putting in. Yeah. And it returning to the church. Yeah. In ways as you touch in someone's life. Facts. Or inspiring others. Yeah. To do the same. Yeah.