Jesse Jackson, Personal Finance Guru
According to John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great
Crash , financial speculation during the 1920s grew so feverish that
"even the cathedral voice of William Jennings Bryan, which once had thundered
against the cross of gold," was "enlisted in the sorry task of selling
swampland" in Florida. (Click here to read the Great Commoner's famous speech to the
1896 Democratic convention.) Seekers of morbid parallels between 1929 and 1999
will be interested to learn that Jesse Jackson is following in Bryan's
footsteps. Jackson and his son, the Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., are
authors of a forthcoming book titled It's About the Money! , due
in January. According to the promotional copy, Jacksons pere et fils have decided that accumulating wealth is "the fourth
step in the movement to freedom," Steps 1, 2, and 3 being, respectively,
"emancipation from slavery," "ending legal segregation," and "securing the
right to vote."
Though the packaging of the book is clearly meant to
communicate, "buy this and get rich!" (let's be grateful the publisher didn't
make the Carville allusion more explicit and call the book It's About the Money, Stupid! ), the Rev. Jackson would probably say
he's preaching not the gospel of wealth but the gospel of financial
responsibility and independence. Topics covered include laudable middle-class
goals such as "getting out of debt," "preparing a budget," "preparing for
retirement," and "avoiding financial scams." Jackson last year wrote the
forward to a book called Money Talks: Black
Finance Experts Talk to You About Money , and he has long spoken
compellingly of the need to increase African-Americans' access to capital. But
Money Talks was written by an actual expert (a black
financial journalist named Juliette Fairley). And while the soundness of expert
opinion from journalists such as Fairley or Jane Bryant Quinn or Andrew
Tobias is easy to overestimate, surely some
training or experience is necessary before you start telling people what to do
with their money. What financial expertise does Jesse Jackson have? According
to the publisher's catalogue (this part, unfortunately, isn't online), the
authors of It's About the Money! have "unparalleled
recognition and credibility." Yes, but not about the management of money.
Jackson pere is quite famous for starting
organizations such as Chicago's Operation PUSH and not keeping them especially
solvent. "A tree shaker, not a jelly maker," is how Jackson famously once
described his own management talents. This is not how Jane Bryant Quinn would
describe herself, even if you caught her in an unusually giddy mood.
