Indian Prime Minister Embraces Policy Idea Featured in New Bestselling Book

When I was growing up in Compton, California, I could care less about having a bank account, that is until a dapper banker came into my classroom when I was 9 years old and made it relevant to my life.

I remember asking this banker -- who was dressed in a blue suit, a white shirt and a red tie, and just so happen to also be caucasian - "what do you do for a living, and how did you get rich, legally?"

People laugh when I say this today, but I was dead serious at 9 years old. And while I mentioned here that the banker was caucasian, he might as well have been green as far as I was concerned (as in the color of US. currency).

You see, the only 'business success stories' I knew growing up in Compton, California, other than my own father, were images of drug dealers and thugs. But this man, standing in front of me in my classroom, said he was a banker and he told me that he financed entrepreneurs. And then he said this -- "if you wanted to do anything in life, you will have to understand the global language of money (financial literacy), and you would need a bank account." It was a passport or an on-ramp into an entirely new world he explained.

I remember to this day thumbing through the pages of my first passbook bank account.

I can remember how the paper felt in my hands.

And I can remember placing my first money into it too. Money I earned.

That feeling changed everything in my life. It opened a door to a world no one in my neighborhood seemed to have a clue about (the world of free enterprise and my own job creation plan). And one more thing -- it and the lessons on financial literacy I learned from the banker that insured that I would not be taken advantage of by financial predators, later on in life.

I remember saying at 9 years old, "I don't really know what an entrepreneur is, but I am definitely going to become one!" And here I am today. An entrepreneur businessman, meeting a payroll and employee people in a growing global enterprise.

The next year, when I was 10 and with a $40 loan from my mother, I started my first little business; the Neighborhood Candy House, in Compton, California. I put the corner liquor store out of the candy selling business, made $300 a week, and created a job that no one else would give me. Oh, and I made a number of future bank deposits too! Changed everything in my life, this one little experience.

It wasn't actually about the bank account itself. It was about the access, the optionality, the protection, and the aspirations it created in my life. It helped me to focus on my future.

Today, this I know to be true: "If you don't understand the global language of money, and you don't have a bank account, you're just an economic slave..."

On August 12th, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally announced a new Bank Account for All national policy for India, which is both bold and audacious, yet it is also common sense too. And now it will become the new national policy of one of the largest and most relevant nations in the world today. Or tomorrow for that matter.

A Bank Account for All is one of the 20 bold public policy and action recommendations featured in my new bestselling book, How The Poor Can Save Capitalism: Rebuilding the Path to the Middle Class. The Solution for the 100%.

I don’t know whether the Prime Minister and his team were inspired by our work or not, but what matters most is that he acted! He did what Ambassador Andrew Young and I have been trying to get leaders in the U.S. to do for almost a decade. Prime Minister Modi deserves full credit here.



The HOPE Plan recommends, amongst other things, establishing access to banking as a legal human right for every American, at birth.



Keeping an estimated 40 million underbanked and ten million unbanked American households outside of the mainstream banking system is more punitive to them, and to our national economic health, than simply allowing them low-risk access to universal debit card–based banking. In addition to exposing millions of people in low-wealth communities to unscrupulous providers of nontraditional financial services, the lack of a bank account carries a host of other consequences. For instance, many Hurricane Katrina survivors could not receive Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) Agency payments because they did not have a bank account to accept funds, and participation in the new Affordable Care Act will require either a bank account or some other acceptable form of mainstream financial access. Ensuring a bank account for all will directly link financial literacy with financial capability for every American citizen.

On January 8th, 2014, Ambassador Andrew Young and I recommended that our nation adopt what we called a Silver Rights Bill, which would have been the equivalent of a bank account for all here in America. See the original article here.



But it was back in 2007 that Ambassador Andrew Young, the chief lieutenant to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the civil rights movement, and today my mentor and friend, first recommended this as a bold national policy recommendation to then U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, then running for President.

The Senator's team discounted the idea as 'not American enough,' whatever that means. I believe it could have been the very thing to fire the imagination of America, and ignite an entirely new conversation through the whole of the country, around the uplift of the whole of America.

We don't have to agree, but we have to agree to dream big dreams, and to be willing to re-imagine everything. This conversation could be a gateway to 'no more Ferguson, Missouri's' in America. Ferguson is after all, an entire American city that never got what I call The Memo.

The Memo is a primer on how the free enterprise system works. And without that, there are no jobs. As my friend Van Jones once told me, "the best to stop a bullet is a job."



I’m glad that India, and her new Prime Minister Narendra Modi— got The Memo, and is now doing something about it. It's a powerful beginning. Commendations to him.



The original Marshall Plan rebuilt shattered cities; this new HOPE Plan must rebuild hopes, dreams, and a common-sense pathway toward a shared future prosperity, before we build one new road, bridge, or building. In fact, if we don’t do the former, the latter won’t mean much.



The HOPE Plan for rebuilding America includes things that can be done right now—by our government, yes, but more specifically by each of us. These potentially game-changing actions to steer us toward a more prosperous and inclusive union are practical, and are within our reach; enabling all of us to contribute to the fulfillment of the promise of the U.S. Constitution and our Bill of Rights, that every American will enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not some of us. All of us.



Today, bringing hope to the U.S. economy calls for an economic Marshall Plan for our times. Call it the HOPE Plan.

Its armies are the least of these, and the command staff are American and global business leaders, backed by government leaders with both vision and courage.

The mission is nothing less than lifting up the working poor, the underserved, and the struggling middle class (the 'teetering class') and offering them the tools, the road map, and the inspiration to reclaim their lives, and a society that actually works for all.

Excerpt From: John Hope Bryant. “How the Poor Can Save Capitalism.” iBooks.

Let’s go.

John Hope Bryant is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE and Bryant Group Companies, Inc. Magazine/CEO READ bestselling business author of LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass), and is the only 2010-2012 bestselling business author in America who is also African-American. His newest bestselling book is HOW THE POOR CAN SAVE CAPITALISM( Berrett Koehler Publishing). Bryant is a Member of the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans, and co-chair for Project 5117, which is a plan for the rebirth of underserved America.

Follow John Hope Bryant on LinkedIn Influencers here.

Photo Credit: Narendra Modi on Flickr