Interesting article:

"I'm reminded of a joke comedian Chris Rock told in his last HBO special. "Here's the difference between being wealthy and being rich. Shaq is rich. The guy who signs Shaq's check is wealthy. Oprah is rich. Bill Gates is wealthy. If Bill Gates woke up with Oprah Winfrey's money, he'd slit his throat."

OK. So he's wrong about Oprah. Oprah's wealthy, too. But you get his drift. Wealth is about more than having a lot of money.

With wealth, you have the wherewithal to make other people rich. With wealth, you have riches to pass on to your children, or whoever you like.

Riches, as Rock so aptly notes, can be frittered away in a year by rap stars and other entertainers who spend extravagantly on parties, cars and jewelry. Wealth is not necessarily about having great gobs of money but about having net worth that makes you financially comfortable over the long-term and provides a base on which to build more wealth.

Yes, it's good to be rich, but it's great to have wealth.

Which brings me to the National Urban League's annual "State of Black America" report released on Wednesday. The report, which the group has been doing since 1976, acknowledges the progress blacks have made over the last several decades. Income and education gaps have narrowed. Home ownership is up. Blacks are more civicly involved.

But significant problems remain, and some are worsening rapidly. Joblessness is stagnant for blacks at 10.8 percent, while unemployment dropped for whites to 4.7 percent. Health and life expectancy for blacks have improved. But blacks live only an average of 72 years to whites' 76 years. And obesity rates for blacks are growing rapidly. Blacks are three times more likely to become prisoners when they are arrested than are whites. The average jail sentence for blacks is six months more than whites get for the same crimes. The education level of blacks is 77 percent of whites. Blacks in public schools are twice as likely as whites to be taught by inexperienced teachers.

Resolving some issues requires fair enforcement of laws and government help. The Urban League makes several good recommendations: Raise the minimum wage to a standard that's a living wage, not poverty wage. Strengthen job training programs. Strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act to make loans for home ownership more available and affordable.

But black Americans must be more aggressive in helping themselves, the report notes. One big area is in building wealth.

Urban League president Marc Morial is on the mark. "The growing wealth gap in this country is not just leaving behind Black America, it's leaving behind the middle class, urban America, rural America and Hispanic America too," he said.

But the wealth gap is stark between blacks and whites. The wage gap has narrowed between blacks and whites -- fueled by better education and anti-discrimination laws. But the net worth of black households compared to white households has remained stagnant. The net worth of blacks is just one-tenth that of whites.

Part of the gap is due to assets whites acquired and built on during slavery and segregation. But the Urban League notes rightly that "African Americans must energize their focus on savings, investing and estate planning."

Many must become more knowledgeable. Some need to just have common sense. That's evident in results of a survey done by Minority Wealth Magazine.

According to this poll, many minorities -- 45 percent -- said their best opportunity to build wealth was by playing the lottery rather than by contributing to a retirement fund. Huh? A lottery? Where the chances of winning are, oh, a gazillion to one?!?!!

The minorities surveyed included 48 percent African Americans, 41 percent Hispanic Americans, three percent Asian Americans and six percent other minorities. So black Americans are not the only misguided ones.

But that's mind-boggling. And it's troubling, given that North Carolina seems to be on a fast track to establish a lottery.

This, though, is not surprising. Most of those surveyed, over 60 percent, said they had a better understanding and more readily available information on their state lottery than on retirement plans and other types of savings.

Laws and better public policy can help improve the status of people of color. But as African Americans, we must do more as well by being less gullible and making wiser choices, and by educating ourselves and others." - http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/columnists/fannie_flono/11341115.htm