Cash rules everything around us. In this clip from Industry Focus: Financials, Gaby Lapera, Mark Reeth, and Jason Moser talk about how much happiness money can buy, the dangers of keeping all of your money in cash, and more financial lessons courtesy of the Wu-Tang Clan's "C.R.E.A.M."
A full transcript follows the video.
This podcast was recorded on Aug. 1, 2016.
Gaby Lapera: Our last song, I would love to hear in Reeth's resonant tones, if you could read it out for us.
Mark Reeth: I'd be happy to. The song C.R.E.A.M, the artist Wu-Tang Clan. "Cash rules everything around me. C.R.E.A.M, get the money. Dollar, dollar bill y'all."
Lapera: Yeah, an unabashed ode to capitalism.
Reeth: Absolutely, and Wu-Tang Clan, they got it right. Cash does rule everything around me. I will say this, Wu-Tang Clan, they always got to diversify your bonds but you also need to just stay out ... So a lot of people whom I know just rely on their savings accounts and their checking account. As you said before, there's some horrible statistics about folks who just aren't planning for retirement at all and aren't taking advantage of the returns you can get out from your other options. Savings accounts, checking accounts, the best you're going to get there interest rate-wise is 0.5%, something like that. The average return of the stock market is around 8% a year or so, annualized. Keep that in mind. Maybe cash does rule everything around you, but you don't have to keep your money in cash. You don't have to keep a box of cash under your bed or in a closet.
Lapera: Yeah, no.
Jason Moser: A box of cash sounds kind of nice though. I mean ... "What's that? -- That's my box of cash."
Lapera: You could Scrooge McDuck it.
Moser: I just like looking at it every once and a while.
Reeth: Scrooge McDuck, we all know that it wasn't real. You can't dive into a vat of pennies like that.
Lapera: Dude, did you see that guy that free fell -- I don't know how many thousands of feet -- without a parachute over the weekend?
Moser: I was hearing. I was listening to that this morning.
Reeth: Yeah, set a world record.
Lapera: Imagine how much more of a baller that would've been if he'd dove into a pile of cash.
Moser: Somehow or another it worked out.
Reeth: That would've ended poorly, I think.
Lapera: It would've ended very poorly.
Reeth: For those people including that guy.
Lapera: But no, the Wu-Tang Clan, yes. Physical cash, something that you should maybe consider not having a ton of on your person like, "What happens if there's a house fire," stuff like that, but I think that it gets to the point, which is that you can't just rely on other people to take care of you all the time. Money ultimately can buy you some degree of happiness. There is a study showing that. I'm not saying that just to be mean.
Moser: Well, it can certainly buy you your independence and give you your ability to make your own decisions and pursue your own interests in life. There is going to be a level of happiness associated with that, right?
Lapera: Yeah, absolutely.
Reeth: Cash rules everything around me.
Moser: There's always money in the banana stand.
Lapera: And on that note, thank you, everyone, for joining us! Thank you, Jason Moser and Mark Reeth for your critical insights into pop-culture and financial literacy.
Reeth: Ballin'!
