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Transcript of Starting a Solari Circle Investment Club with Paul Ferguson Transcript (PDF)
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Audio Chapters
1. Introduction
2. Theme “Let’s Do a Deal”
3. Money & Markets In Money & Markets, Catherine turns her attention to the big story of the week: what is going on in Cyprus.
Map of the Cyprus, Europe, Russia power struggle
Map of Natural Gas Deposits near Cyprus
French police search Lagarde’s apartment
4. Hero Our hero this week is Solari’s own marketing consultant, Ben Lizardi.
5. Ask Catherine Catherine Paul answer subscribers’ questions about investing.
6. Interview Catherine and Paul Ferguson discuss their personal experiences with the first ever Solari Circle and give tips and advice for those interested in starting their own Circles.
7. Let’s Go to the Movies! Catherine reviews Something Ventured, a great documentary that tells the story of the venture capitalists who financed the creation and early years of Intel, Apple, Cisco, Atari, Genetech, PowerPoint and Tandem
8. Closing
March 28 Jon Rappoport and Catherine discuss Exit From the Matrix
April 4 1st Quarter Wrap Up
April 11 Coming Clean: Precious Metals with Franklin Sanders and Larry Pratt
April 18 Equity Overview with Chuck Gibson
“Let’s do a deal.” ~Albert Sullivan
By Catherine Austin Fitts
Want to team up to learn how the economy works? Want to go past the headlines to see how the money really works? There is no better way than to join with friends and family to start to research and invest together.
“BUT”, you say, “I can’t be an investor because I have no money!” Investing begins with attitude and knowledge. You can start with a simulation. Learning about the economy and the investment process with others in a simulation will help you develop skills to attract and make money.
If you have a small amount of assets to invest and are willing to combine it with a savings program, that works as well.
If you have significant assets, teaming up with others can help build your skills and your intelligence. Given the growing risks in the environment, having teammates helping you protect your wealth can lower your fret levels a lot!
There are numerous ways to start and operate a Solari Circle that focuses on investment. You can meet in person or by phone. You can organize your membership within a family or within a network of personal friends. You can combine your meetings with a pot luck dinner or meet at a restaurant. Think of this as a conspiracy designed to help you successfully manage your finances. We are more powerful together than alone.
In 2005, Paul Ferguson helped me start a Solari Circle with members from ten states who met by phone every Monday evening for the last seven years. Paul is a private investor and entrepreneur who has twice chaired one of the oldest, largest investment clubs in the country. This Thursday, Paul will join me to talk about what we learned creating and running a Solari Circle focused on liquid securities and other liquid investment.
I will post an updated version of the partnership documents developed for our Circle at the subscriber area of this blog post.
I will start with a discussion of events in Cyprus and what it means to the markets and you in Money and Markets and answer your questions in Ask Catherine. Please post your questions on the blog.
In Let’s Go to the Movies, I will review Something Ventured, a documentary that tells the story of the venture capitalists who financed the creation and early years of Intel, Apple, Cisco, Atari, Genetech, PowerPoint and Tandem
This will be an important Solari Report – I hope you will join us!
Talk to you Thursday!
Related Reading:
Solari Circle for Liquid Investment3.22.13
myICLUB.com
Investment Club
Greetings Catherine and Solari Family from Kenya. I thoroughly enjoyed this week’s podcast and especially the topic. Here in Kenya there is an activity called “Harambee” which can be described in the following way (Wikipedia):
Harambee is a Kenyan tradition of community self-help events, e.g. fundraising or development activities. Harambee literally means “all pull together” in Swahili, and is also the official motto of Kenya and appears on its coat of arms. Harambee events may range from informal affairs lasting a few hours, in which invitations are spread by word of mouth, to formal, multi-day events advertised in newspapers. These events have long been important in parts of East Africa, as ways to build and maintain communities.
Last month, a Kenya work colleague of mine and I formed our own women’s Harambee as a self-help outreach to help several women who work as domestics at my apartment. These women have approached me for loans on several occasions to help pay their children’s school fees (about $95.00 US every 6 months). These women are both widows with children and make about $3.85 per day. They are also in debt to the apartment manager and most of their monthly check goes to the manager to pay of loans. Our aim in this Harambee is to assist these women to get out of debt, and, to enable them to have access to cash when their time comes to pay school fees, to expose them to savings whilst working at the same time with professional women as peers. This last situation is rare in Kenya because of sharp class hierarchy that exists, and, to throw into the mix, a ‘Mizungu’ (white person) is a part of the group. Another sharp social class division. I was voted to serve as treasurer to hold the money (we voted NOT to open a bank account because interest eat away the savings) and keep the books. We agreed to start with 3,000 ksh (USD 35) each which I will hold and people can take out small loans against. People are given 1 month grace period and each day after, a 100 ksh per day interest is charged. Next meeting (we meet monthly) we finalize our constitution. We run by consensus.
My colleague, an admirable woman, currently belongs to 3 harambees with different groups, is an activist for poor, disenfranchised, and widowed women in Kenya. One Harambee, she tells me, she used to purchase 20 acres of what is now prime real estate – her retirement she tells me! She organizes such harambees through her church and wherever she can have impact and also uses them to establish trusting relationships and networks outside her family. HIV/AIDS has heavily impacted the poor here and there are many widows where I live who are disenfranchised from their families and often disinherited. She has testified to me the remarkable transformations in the lives of women who have started small businesses, bought land, got their children through school, or improved their households.
Keep up the good work Catherine! Warm regards, Allison in Kenya