What I Did This Weekend (Extra Credit)

This weekend I celebrated two of my best friends' birthday (they're twins), and we had an amazing weekend. We started it off by playing a round of golf on Friday morning at the beautiful Camarillo golf course. After that, we went back to the birthday boys' house in Calabasas to play tennis and swim. To begin that night, we went to Lucky Strike in LA Live to bowl a few rounds and have some drinks, which was a lot of fun. I bowled an 80 and a 155, so needless to say I need to work on my consistency. Next, we came back to USC to relax for a little so we could go out that night. We had a few more drinks at my apartment and then took an Uber to the Bungalow in Santa Monica. We hung out there for an hour or two and had a great time, and then took an Uber back to USC.

It was a very packed day and I'm still exhausted from it, but it was a ton of fun. Happy birthday to Max and Sam, even though they will never read this.

A World We Dare to Imagine - Part III

The Burk Family Foundation for Financial Freedom 

My organization is called The Burk Family Foundation for Financial Freedom, and we will help people of all ages become financially independent. 

I am extremely passionate about this line of work because I have noticed that young people aren't educated about finance as well as they should be. I can't speak for everyone else, but my high school taught me nothing about investing or saving. I've been able to take a couple of finance classes at USC, but neither of those truly prepared me to be a successful investor. The fact of the matter is that the sooner you start investing, the better your chances are of being successful. While you're in your 20's you can obviously afford more risk, and more risk is the only way to attain more rewards. The thing is, I believe a lot of people are afraid to fail in their 20's, and getting over that simple fear is the biggest hurdle in becoming financially free. Most people in their 20's don't even know what a Roth IRA is, and it's one of the easiest ways to guarantee becoming a millionaire. If you can manage to put aside $100 every month and put it into your Roth IRA, and do that for 40 years, your account will be worth around $1 million. I know 40 years seems like ages away, but if you start at age 20 and begin increasing your monthly deposits over time, the timeframe can be shortened. The point is, there are ways to guarantee financial freedom if you play the long game and stay disciplined. Unfortunately, this is not a part of everyday education. 

This organization is unique because there really aren't any others who do what we do. We will be targeting middle school, high school and college kids and teaching them how to save and invest their money, and I've never heard of an organization currently doing that. 

Anima Mundi Development Partners should support my organization because we are not only doing a service to the world by educating the youth about finance, but we will be also me making a lot of money along the way. Anyone who is involved will experience the pleasure of working towards a better future with incredible people. 

Thank you for your time.

A World We Dare to Imagine - Part I

"Today we are redefining the geography of community and accepting shared accountability for common human values. We have the chance to extend the notion that all men are created equal to every human being on the planet. This will require global structures and products we are only beginning to imagine.... Each of us in his or her own way can contribute something by thinking -- and acting -- like a true global citizen. We have only one world for all of us on earth, and the future really is ours to create, in a world we dare to imagine together." 


This quote really gets me thinking about how I might change the world in a positive way. It's hard to compare myself to anything remotely close to Jacqueline, but not everything needs to be on a large scale; the smallest steps can still make the world a better place. As of now, I see myself making the world a better place by helping people grow their wealth and attain financial freedom. While I don't have any plans to help any poverty-striken or underprivileged people, I know that at some point in my life I will give back to them. I just want to help people understand that the stock market is a game that can be won if played correctly, and in doing so you can be financially independent, which should be everyone's goal. 

Random 2- Stock Market

Today I'm going to write about the stock market. While watching CNBC this morning, I heard an interesting stat: the Dow Jones peaked on January 26, and has been trading below that level ever since. January 26 also happens to be my birthday, so that kind of makes me feel bad. People have lost a lot of money ever since my birthday. Although, I think it has more to do with the pending trade war between the U.S. and China than it does the day I was born. Also, historically, people trade less during the summer because a lot of people are on vacation. Once everyone returns and Q3 begins, I think the market will recover nicely.

Tesla, as you all know, is my favorite stock. There were some bad headlines over the weekend, as Elon Musk reportedly asked the company's suppliers to lower their prices so that Tesla could become profitable. This news did not sit well with investors, and Tesla is down almost 3% today. Again, just like I said in my Expert Article: this is a buying opportunity. Asking suppliers to lower their prices is very typical in the automotive industry and does not warrant any type of overreaction. However, Tesla is obviously the media's favorite company to write bad things about, and they hopped on the opportunity to publish something negative about the company. I will be purchasing a few more shares of Tesla on this news... wish me luck!

AMDP ROUGH DRAFT

AMDP Rough Draft

TO: Professor Clark Hansen, CEO of AMDP

FROM: Andrew Burk

DATE: July 1, 2018

SUBJECT: SolarCity

When you instructed me to identify and research a possible investment opportunity in a company that is committed to the triple bottom line, one company immediately came to mind: SolarCity. The company has been a subsidiary of Tesla Inc. since 2016, when Tesla CEO Elon Musk purchased it for $2.6 billion. Before I dive into SolarCity’s specifics, I would like to reiterate the most important aspects we are looking for in a potential investment. 

Triple Bottom Line

The triple bottom line is an accounting framework that has three parts: social, environmental, and financial. The financial aspect has obviously been the most important in the eyes of many when it comes to business, but the last few decades have led to more and more companies focusing on the social and environmental impact of their business decisions. 

1.     Social– Everything to do with people, including fair treatment of employees and off-site labor, enacting favorable practices in business communities, etc. 

2.     Environmental– Implementation of sustainable practices and reduction of environmental impact; green initiatives, recycling programs, etc. 

3.     Financial–Addition of social and environmental responsibilities can benefit a company’s financial bottom line. A lot of this has to do with millennials being more environmentally conscious and more willing to spend money on sustainable goods.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

CSR is a company's sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates. Companies express this citizenship through their waste and pollution reduction processes, by contributing educational and social programs, and by earning adequate returns on the employed resources.

Social Enterprise

A social enterprise is an organization that is involved in the sale of goods and services to a market, but also has specific social goals that serve as its primary purpose. They are notvolunteer organizations in that they operate as an enterprise by selling in a market, and can be registered as for-profit or non-profit. Profits are then used to fund social programs.

Carbon Footprint

Carbon footprint, regarding businesses, refers to the amount of carbon dioxide (and other carbon compounds) emitted due to the consumption of fossil fuels by that business. This can be measured by finding the total output of greenhouse gas emissions caused by the organization. It is extremely important to reduce carbon footprints because an increase in gas emissions is primarily responsible for the climate change that has led to global warming.

Born on Third Base #2

Towards the end of the book, Collins raises an interesting point about the morality behind charitable giving from the wealthy. He describes a wealthy auction event that he attended in Massachusetts, which led to him wondering about a troubling trend he was noticing - the use of charitable funds to compound the existing advantages of the wealthy. Collins believes that tax-deductible giving should not worsen existing inequalities, but reduce them. By reducing their state and federal tax bills with donations to their children's schools, these wealthy individuals are worsening the gap, which is an extremely overlooked issue in our country.

Collins lists a few ideas he has that could help reduce the inequality gap. First, he thinks that raising minimum wage/health care and having a guaranteed minimum income would help level the playing field. He also thinks we should have fairer tax policies so that competing companies are taxed at the same rates. One of the biggest solutions that Collins suggested was preventing the wealthy from having unfair political influence, which currently disenfranchises millions of voters. I definitely agree with this; bribery needs to be fully removed from our government in order for the inequality gap to shrink. Collins truly has a special mind and I found myself agreeing with the majority of his ideas.

Born on Third Base #1

I think that Chuck Collins did a great job of starting the book by describing his own situation; understanding the author's perspective makes reading the book a lot easier. I particularly enjoyed the part where he mentions a major life decision he made at age 26. Collins decided to donate the entirety of his $500k trust fund, which would be worth over $7 million today. To have that big of a heart and so little greed at such a young age is truly admirable and definitely made me more interested in reading the rest of the book.

I also found Collins' suggestion that we must re-learn how to think about wealth to be very interesting. In particular, the part about 'makers vs. takers' got me thinking about the roles of certain groups of people in society. There are the people who create jobs for other people, and there are people who live off of government handouts. Collins makes the case that racist, white minds naturally consider the 'takers' to be dark-skinned people, which creates a huge problem in our society, and I definitely agree. While I think that society is progressing in the right direction, I definitely think that the older white generation of 'makers' are still very racist. Those people still take up a large portion of the top 1% of wealth, which puts minorities at an innate disadvantage. Collins does a wonderful job of tackling these issue in the first portion of the book.

Random

My Analysis of the Dallas Mavericks' Draft

While I am excited about Luka Doncic and believe he will be a very good player in the NBA, I am a little nervous about giving up our 2019 first round draft pick in order to get him. The Mavs have been really bad the last few years, so that pick could potentially be a top 10 pick if we have another bad season. We could have kept the pick and drafted Mo Bamba at 5th overall instead of trading up to #3 to get Doncic, and then gotten another top prospect next year, so that makes me a little worried. The Mavs have been looking for their franchise center for years now, so passing up on Bamba was a bit questionable. They must have really loved Doncic.

We also drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo's little brother in the second round, and he has enormous potential because he has almost the same body as his older brother. While he is very raw, I believe Rick Carlisle will be able to coach him up and turn him into a solid player. Even if he is only half as good as his brother, it will have been an amazing draft pick. We also drafted Ray Spalding out of Louisville, who is 6'10" with a 7'4" wingspan. He will give the Mavs some much needed length and should help out defensively a ton.

Lastly, we also took Jalen Brunson out of Villanova. The guy is a pure floor general, and a proven winner. He won a national championship at Villanova and should be really good backup point guard behind Dennis Smith. Overall, the Mavs had a really good draft but losing our first round pick next year has me a little worried. After 20 straight seasons of making the playoffs, we have now missed it the last few years, so hopefully we can get back to where we should be this season.

Expert Article- Tesla

Tesla: The ‘Short Squeeze’ of the Century

How You Can Make Bank off of the $10 Billion Bet Against Elon Musk

A ‘short,’ in regard to the stock market, is when an investor bets on a company to decreasein value over time. A short squeezehappens when those investors are wrong about their pessimistic bets against a company and thus lose their money when the stock increases. This is where the ‘squeeze’ comes in: these investors have lost somuch money betting against the stock that they decide to fully close their short positions. In doing so, the stock’s buying volume spikes and the price is driven up. This has happened many times in the past, most notably in 2008 when a Volkswagen short squeeze temporarily drove its share price up from €210.85 to over €1000 in under two days. This briefly made Volkswagen the most valuable company in the world. Needless to say, investors who owned shares of Volkswagen got super rich. Tesla is currently the most heavily ‘shorted’ company in the world.

Short squeezes are rare opportunities for patient and savvy investors. The stock market is hectic, and it can swing heavily in either direction at any time, so it is extremely beneficial to have a fundamental set of rules to follow throughout the turbulence. I will share with you my set of rules on how to take advantage of Tesla in the same way that investors took advantage of Volkswagen in 2008. That being said, you should never invest any amount of money that you aren’t willing to lose. There are risks in every investment, and this happens to be an opportunity with potential for abnormally high rewards. 

Rule #1: Buy the Dips

It is unwise to pour all of your money into a stock at one time. No matter how confident you are in a stock, there will always be unexpected events that cause short-term decreases in a stock’s value. You can use this to your advantage by, for example, using 50% of your intended dollar amount as the initial investment, and saving the other 50% as a cash reserve. Cash reserves are essential for lowering your cost basis in a stock, which is the fundamental way to increase your returns over a long period of time. This will help protect your portfolio from experiencing extremely volatile swings, something every investor should be seeking. You are essentially lowering your risk, and that will undoubtedly serve you well in the long run. 

This method is very important for Tesla because it is one of the most volatile stocks in the market. Much of Tesla’s value comes from the present value of itsfuturecash flow; in other words, the company’s potential for growth in the future. This is what gives Tesla the most potential of just about any stock, but also gives it significant risk. Buying the dips (purchasing more shares of the stock after a short-term decrease) will lower your cost basis over time and help you achieve higher returns, which is every investor’s goal. 

Rule #2: Know What Matters, Know What Doesn’t

In the age of social media, it is becoming increasingly difficult for investors to separate real news from fake news. Media outlets have one goal, and that is to attract the most viewers to their content. In other words, they are trying to get you to click on their articles by any means. For them, clicks equals cash. This has led to a huge decrease in the quality of news in today’s world, making it harder for investors to know which information to take into consideration when making an investment. 

For example, one of Tesla’s most innovative features in its cars is the self-driving feature. This technology is still a work in progress, but it is undoubtedly leading to a safer future. Car accidents are currently the leading cause of deaths for Americans under the age of 44. Anyone who thinks that cars are currently safe and do not need improvements for a safer future are simply oblivious. The self-driving feature in Teslas are already available in a number of its cars, and inevitably, there have been a few accidents. Whenever an accident happens, every media outlet wastes no time publishing articles about the accidents, often criticizing Tesla for being unsafe. Anyone with a long-term mindset should understand that accidents were always going to be a part of the process of creating a safer future. That being said, these accidents are a wonderful time to use your cash reserves to purchase more of Tesla’s stock. While this isn’t necessarily fakenews, it is news that you can use to your advantage when other Tesla investors are panicking. In late March 2018, Tesla’s stock dropped 8% on news of a fatal accident. If you would’ve purchased a share of Tesla on this news, that share would be upabout 40% as of June 18. Needless to say, taking advantage of unmeaningful news can lead to huge rewards. 

Rule #3: Trust Your Gut and Eliminate Emotions

It is inexplicably important to refrain from letting your emotions get the best of you. Investing is a very thrilling game, and seeing your investments swing heavily in either direction can result in unavoidable emotions of either extreme happiness or extreme disappointment. When you see one of your stocks drop heavily, it is natural to lose hope and consider selling the stock to avoid more losses. On the flipside, seeing one of your stocks rise heavily can lead to unreasonable optimism and make you want to buy more. Trusting your gut means remembering what your plan was before you initially purchased the stock and sticking to that plan. Things do not always go as planned, so eliminating emotions will help you stay calm throughout unexpected turbulence in the market. This is NOT a game of emotions; it is a game of numbers, having a strategy, and executing the strategy. If you tend to let your emotions get the best of you, I recommend that you refrain from investing until you have better control of them. 

These rules apply to anystock you may consider investing in, but Tesla is the company that will make you the most money if you play the game correctly. It has gone through a long-term uptrend over the course of its eight-year history with numerous downswings along the way, and those downswings were the perfect opportunities to get in the game. Once you experience significant gains in your Tesla investment and gain confidence, apply these principles to any other stock you feel confidently about and watch your net worth skyrocket.

Job Description

Corporate Sponsorship Intern

A corporate sponsorship intern for the Los Angeles Rams is a person who helps the team’s sponsors perform their business operations on gamedays. The tasks involve running the VIP ticketing booth, putting up signs around the stadium, and handing out merchandise to fans. We also got to work at the team’s training camp during the summer, where our responsibilities included playing with kids in the Kid Zone, setting up the field for the players, and manning the hospitality tents. 

There are three descriptions that will help clarify the role of corporate sponsorships intern for the LA Rams. 

·     Ticketing

·     Signage 

·     Utility 

I’ll describe how these three tasks may present themselves on a typical day. 

Ticketing

On gamedays, the ticketing process is simple but important. The interns are given a list of names to eventually cross off of the list once they come and show their ID. After approving their ID’s, we give them their respective VIP tickets. The important part is, these people are the friends and family of both the Rams’ players and the players on the opposing team, so we have to make sure they are dealt with appropriately and professionally. 

Signage

Signage is an overlooked part of any stadium by the fans. No one thinks about who actually put the signs up or how much the companies are paying for the publicity. The answers are: the interns, and a lot. Not only do we put up signs for various companies, but we also put up the directional signs that help fans navigate the stadium. Needless to say, corporate sponsorship interns are vital to the team’s success. 

Utility

What I mean by ‘utility’ is the ability to do many unrelated tasks. The interns are often called upon to do things for other divisions within the organization, so it is very important to be versatile. For example, I might be sitting at the VIP ticket booth on a gameday and receive a call from my boss, who tells me that Jane from Marketing needs me to carry a few signs to the other side of the stadium. The point is, you have to be willing and able to drop whatever you’re doing to help with anything at any time. 

Growing a Farmer - 1

Things I Liked

For me, Kurt's commitment to growing and expanding the farm is an analogy to my time here at USC. Just like Kurt treating the farm as a growing opportunity rather than a full-time business, I look at USC in a similar way; I'm here to grow and expand my mind, and I don't look at myself as a "full-time student." I think that mindset helped Kurt learn while simultaneously taking pressure off of himself, and that is something we can all be better at.

Something else that I really enjoyed was how Kurt learned through trial and error. He was extremely observant while performing all of his tasks, which is another thing that I could improve, because being observant allows us to learn things that we wouldn't have otherwise noticed or even thought about trying to learn.


Things I Didn't Like

The only complaint I can think of so far is how slowly the book progresses; sometimes I feel like I understand the point that is trying to be made, but it takes 10 more pages to finish the sub-story. Maybe I'm just an impatient millennial, but that would be my one complaint.

Who You Are Matters

I'm from an area called Preston Hollow in Dallas, Texas, in the same neighborhood as former President George Bush. I went to a private school from kindergarten through 12th grade with about 100 kids in each grade. I plan on returning to Dallas in the near future, and I'll get there by getting my degree at USC and using it to get a wealth management job back home. My parents are both hard-working and compassionate people, and those are traits I believe they passed down to me. The biggest difference between my parents and me is probably my passion for sports; they both enjoy going to games occasionally, but they've never understood my obsession for basketball, football, soccer, and baseball. I would say that I have definitely developed my own expectations for myself; in fact, I really don't think my parents understand how high my expectations are for myself. Someone who I look up to as a model of great passion and responsibility is Dirk Nowitzki. The guy has stayed in Dallas for 20 years and won an MVP and a championship (against LeBron). If I were to choose a wild animal that I have a special connection with, it would be a cheetah. They're just very methodical and patient creatures, and I think I am too. The most significant childhood encounter with nature I've had is definitely when I went on a safari in South Africa. I saw just about every wild animal in their natural habitat and it was the most incredible thing I've ever done.