Until I was 22-years-old, even my closest friends said the following things to me: “You think you are better than everyone else,” “You think you are the smartest person alive,” and “You are arrogant.” I did not believe those things, but I did do things that made people think I was arrogant. In my heart, I have never believed that I am better than anyone else. My closest friends, however, agreed with everyone who met me that I was arrogant.
To put it mildly, those words affected me. To this day, I am terrified of saying, writing, or doing things that may be perceived as arrogant. The title of this post is how I honestly feel, and I believe I can present a rational, objective argument to support the title, but I am so scared of appearing arrogant that writing the headline caused me to start shaking. When I was 22, three of my closest friends, who are all still among my closest friends, told me that I was no longer arrogant. They told me I had changed so dramatically that if they had not known me before the change, they would not believe I was the same person.
It has been almost exactly 17 years to the day since we had that conversation at a coffee shop in Houston. Nevertheless, my fear of appearing arrogant still has a major impact on my decisions.
A coping mechanism I have been using is watching movies, TED talks, and documentaries. I just finished watching Inside Job, a documentary about the financial crisis that started in 2008. The documentary and my personal history prove that every rational person who is not currently part of the world’s powerful elite should invest in me. I simply cannot understand what is happening–or more precisely–what is not happening. Part of the problem must be that I am so afraid of appearing arrogant that I am not accurately representing my skills, talents, knowledge, and ambitions.
Honestly, while I am good at presenting court cases, I am lost: I do not know an effective process for explaining the following. Please forgive me for the poor presentation of the following.
I understood the financial crisis, even before it happened
One of things the documentary does surprisingly well is to explain the technical aspects of the financial crisis. Very few people understand what was happening or why it happened, but nearly everyone can understand how it is presented in the documentary. Of course, the documentary had a huge budget (Matt Damon narrated it), input from hundreds of people, and it was written about 18 months after the crisis came to a head in September 2008. If the documentary cannot explain the crisis with those advantages, then the film makers should not make the film.
I also made a video explaining the financial crisis. In contrast to the documentary, however, I worked alone, I was unemployed and job searching at the time, and I made it while the crises was happening. I posted the video on YouTube on 30 September 2008. Furthermore, I offered a real solution, one which Obama eventually implemented.
One of the reasons I was able to quickly make a video, even though I had never made a YouTube video before, was because I understood the crisis well before it became a crisis. On Thursday 17 April 2008, four months before the crisis came to a head, Dan Sullivan, the directory of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, gave a talk at my school, Chicago-Kent College of Law. One of my professors organized the talk, and I sat in the front row of the packed room.
Sitting two seats away from me was Lew Collens, former president of the university and former dean of the law school. A brilliant and educated lawyer. During the question and answer portion, I asked Mr. Sullivan a question based on public choice theory and how it might affect future regulation of the wealth loss that he had just described. Mr. Sullivan said that he was just an economist and could not answer my question. Mr. Collens asked the next question, but before he asked his question, he stopped to pay me a nice compliment. In front of most of the faculty of the law school and hundreds of students, he said that my question was an excellent question and one that lawmakers and regulators should be asking themselves. I understood the economics of the situation, and I understood the legal issues involved: and this was before I had graduated from law school.
I was able to understand the impending crisis four months before it happened for many reasons, but a significant reason is that before law school, I worked for my brother as a stock speculator. Before working for him, I understood the broad strokes of economics, but he taught me an incredible amount about the nuts and bolts of securities trading. Nearly all of his friends are traders, and since my brother’s office was near my school, we tried to have lunch or breakfast together when we could. During 2005 and 2006, when I spent time around him and his friends, the conversation inevitably turned to mortgage-backed securities, the housing bubble, and the impending crisis. These guys were traders, so they were most interested in how to make money from the impending crisis.
Three years before the financial meltdown of September 2008, I understood what was happening. My understanding was not unique or particularly special, but it is important. First, most people still do not understand what happened, but I was one of the people who was able to see it coming. I have an eclectic collection of knowledge, and it has enabled me to understand issues in many fields of study.
A second important issue is what I did with my knowledge. I used my knowledge of the situation to deepen my knowledge of law, economics, and politics. I shared my knowledge by making the videos. What I did not do, is perhaps more important. I could have quit law school and become a trader. Seeing a major move in the market is the best way to become rich. If you know the market will go up, then how to get rich is obvious. Knowing the market will collapse, however, is also an excellent way to get rich, though it takes more skill and effort. I was not interested in using my knowledge to become rich. I was committed to making the world a better place, and I continued my studies.
What type of person do you want to invest in?
It is nearly certain that everyone reading this post was hurt by the financial meltdown. The world has not improved since the meltdown: the same people are in power, the laws have not changed, and the financial markets are more concentrated and less stable. Who do you know that has the skills to recommend changes and the desire to make changes that benefit all of us (instead of using those skills to become rich)? Do you not want change? How do you think change will happen unless many people are working towards it? Do you really believe enough people are currently working on this problem?
I have clearly demonstrated that I have accumulated the knowledge and skills necessary to help make the world a better place, and I have clearly demonstrated, multiple times, that I am willing to sacrifice my opportunities to be rich so that I can work towards improve life for all of us.
Why would you not want to invest in me? Investing in me is guaranteed to make the world a better place. I understand why some politicians in Illinois do not want me to recover: they are worried that if I am healthy then electors will care about the illegal actions of those politicians. Besides those few politicians, no powerful people know who I am or care who I am. If they did, they would not want to invest in me because I will challenge the status quo–and help make the world a more fair place.
I do not understand, however, why you do not invest in me. You know that I can and will help to improve your life and the lives of the people you love. The cost to you is minimal: drink one less Starbucks coffee each week. Why would you not trade an unnecessary luxury item for a better future?
