CEO, Parisian Family Office. Began Wall Street in '82. Founded investment firm, Native American Advisors, '95. White Earth Chippewa. Raised on reservations. Conservative. NYSE/FINRA arbitrator. Drexel Burnham alum. Pureblood, clot-shot free. In a world elevated on a tech-driven dopamine binge, he trades from GHOST RANCH on the Yellowstone River in MT, TN farm, PAMELOT or CASA TULE', the family winter camp in Los Cabos, Mexico. Always been, will always be, an optimist.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Gimme, gimme in Native America

Native American Advisors, Inc. has been a success since inception.   In many ways.

Over the years on the desk I have taken some very weird phone calls.  Very weird.   Usually it is someone thinking we deal in Native American jewelry.   Or somehow we have a conduit to the money spiggots of some Native American casino (that is profitable).  Hardly.   That really strikes me as funny as I type this.

Many times it is a poor lost soul looking for a hand-out, never a hand-up.  And yes, we have helped on occasion. 

The conversation generally goes like this.   The phone rings, I answer.   I can tell by the voice inflection it is a "minority" immediately.    I am then told they have a grandmother, or aunt or grandfather or some shirt-tail relative who was Cherokee.  They never can tell me if they might be Eastern Band or Western Band.   They just want to know how they can get that "free money" that they hear about if someone might be a member of a "real" tribe.   (Unlike a nonreal tribe?)

To hear the wind come out of their inquiry is rather amusing.   The something-for-nothing crowd is alive and well in America.    Maybe, just maybe, things can turn in the next couple of weeks.   And I am not talking hope or change.

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