Gary Acosta is an entrepreneur, public policy advocate, investor, and thought leader passionate about advancing prosperity for Latinos and other underserved communities. As an industry leader, he protects and improves the business environment required to close the wealth gap, particularly via homeownership. Amongst other endeavors, he is Co-Founder & CEO of NAHREP, the country’s leading Hispanic business organization, and Co-Founder of L’ATTITUDE, the preeminent platform for Latino economic empowerment. Acosta is also a general partner of L’ATTITUDE Ventures, the nation’s largest venture capital fund exclusively focused on Latino-led start-ups. Join Gary as he dives into today’s issues through many creative formats.
Elon Musk dropped by the Real Time with Bill Maher show recently for an interview with the host. Maher, who considers himself a liberal is an obvious fan of the CEO of Tesla and Space X. The centerpiece of their conversation was their discussion regarding what Musk called the “woke mind virus” or what I prefer to call “cancel culture”.
Ye, the entertainer and fashion designer formally known as Kanye West had a disastrous week. Always outrageous, his recent antisemitic comments were apparently the last straw; prompting practically everyone to sever ties with him, from his bank, JP Morgan Chase, to his billion-dollar shoe partnership with Adidas.
Regardless of where you live you have probably heard about Nury Martinez and the circumstances that led to her resignation from Los Angeles City Council. The short story is Martinez, who was the first Latina to hold the position of president of the Los Angeles City Council was secretly recorded in a private conversation with other council members where she was heard making disparaging remarks about her colleagues and the two-year old…
When the economy is growing rapidly, companies and consumers have more money to spend. The stronger demand for goods and services can cause prices to rise and inflation to spike. Inflation is not good. The federal government has two levers it can use to slow or stimulate economic activity: taxes and interest rates.
Interest rates are soaring and the stock market is in a free fall. If you’ve been around, you know that recessions are a normal part of our economic cycles. It’s articulated clearly in the NAHREP 10. The former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan coined the phrase “irrational exuberance” prior to the dot-com bust of 2000.
The speculation around Elon Musk’s plans for Twitter remained hot topic news this past week. Some of it is predictable: right-wingers who believe Musk will return Donald Trump to his rightful place as loudest voice on the social media platform, and lefties who think all billionaires are evil.
How would you like it if the person sitting next to your child on an airplane is openly watching pornography on their iPad? What if a co-worker posted on a company group chat that you once molested a kid? What if banks, targeting the elderly, promised 1000% returns on an investment. In a completely free society, these things would be permissible, yet I doubt most people want America to be THAT free.
The conversation all week has been about the Will Smith meltdown at the Academy Awards. Everyone has an opinion on whose fault it was. Some believe Chris Rock was at fault and admire Smith’s valor in defending his wife. Others like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar say that Smith not only debased himself, he validated some of the worst stereotypes that some people have of Black Americans.
There is a mindset theory that states when things are going well, people tend to think they will always go well. When we are in that state of mind, we tend to ignore bad news… even deny bad news. The reverse is also true. When things are not going well, we tend to think they will always go badly, and we ignore and deny good news.
As I write this blog, the Russian army is invading the bordering country of Ukraine. War is hell, and my heart goes out to the people of Ukraine. Americans who were born in the United States have no idea what it feels like to have their country invaded militarily by another nation. Ukraine was a…
I have been a fan of Dave Chappelle for years. His stand-up comedy is among the smartest and most provocative in a generation. Last year, I blogged about the brilliance of 8:46, the show he created during the pandemic about the George Floyd murder. One of the memorable parts of that routine was when he told…
Social media didn’t create cancel culture, but it did make it stronger and faster. In case you don’t know, “cancel culture” is a form of boycotting; it’s the practice of withholding support or publicly deeming someone as no longer being socially acceptable. For people whose public image is how they make their living, like celebrities…
The pandemic has been devastating for all of us – especially those that lost loved ones, and even though it seems odd saying this, there were also some positives. With the vaccines, there is light at the end of the tunnel, but we can never forget some of the things we learned during the pandemic.…
Racial economic inequality is a serious issue. The implications go far and wide and I don’t think it hyperbole to say it poses an existential threat to the nation’s economic well-being. If we don’t do much better, our overall economy will suffer. The recent awakening by corporate America to the problem has prompted dozens of…
California has trailed much of the country in COVID-19 vaccine distribution, but last week, thanks to my friend Jason Madiedo, my wife, son and I all received our first dose of the Pfizer vaccine in Las Vegas. We were driving from Colorado Springs to San Diego and stopped in Las Vegas to get vaccinated. It…
There is light at the end of the tunnel. A study of 1 million people conducted in Israel that was published by the New England Journal of Medicine confirms the Pfizer BioNTech’s vaccine is 94-95% effective in preventing COVID-19 with symptoms. The study is the largest to date and was greats news for all of…
COVID-19 got into our household during the holidays. We had a small gathering on Christmas of only immediate family, and within a few days we all had the virus. We still don’t know how we got infected. While most of us were lucky enough to have only mild symptoms, it was still very scary. Six…
In the coming weeks, Americans will start receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. We were able to get to this point in about ten months – a remarkable achievement. In tests, the efficacy of the three vaccines that will hit the market have ranged between 90-95 percent – equally as amazing. Even more encouraging, the Moderna vaccine…
This week we got some good news from Pfizer on a vaccine, and a whole lot of bad news about COVID infections exploding nationwide. A recent trial indicated that Pfizer’s novel vaccine was more than 90% effective. This would make it about twice as effective as the normal flu vaccine. Medical experts believe that up…
On a sad note, I had four friends lose parents last week alone. Three died of COVID-19. It’s unbelievable. I recently made the decision to allow the NAHREP staff to work from home for the remainder of the year. We are lucky because not everyone has a job that can be done from home and…
