The Conscious Investor
Chasing after Financial Freedom often bankrupts other parts of life.
That’s why the Conscious Investor Podcast goes beyond Financial Freedom and helps investors cultivate Personal Freedom by featuring experts in the core areas of health, mindset, and investing.
If you’re looking to grow financially, if you long to unleash your full potential, and build a life of meaning without bankrupting the most important parts of life then this show is for you!
The Conscious Investor
Ep511 The Impact of Robust Legal Systems in Developing Countries With Julia Cartwright
Discover how robust legal systems can transform developing economies with our insightful conversation featuring Julia Cartwright, an economics professor at Kalamazoo College. As a key player in the Sudra Global Justice Program, Julia shares her firsthand experiences working in Uganda and Rwanda to strengthen their legal foundations. Learn why a strong legal system is critical for sustainable economic growth and attracting both national and foreign investments. This episode promises to enhance your understanding of the intricate link between law and economics and why it matters for global investors.
Ever wondered how legal systems can shape economic outcomes and public trust? Julia guides us through the complexities of implementing plea bargaining in the court systems of Uganda and Rwanda, drawing fascinating contrasts between common law and civil law frameworks. Hear about the practical challenges of integrating tribal laws with colonial legal systems and the broader implications for justice and social stability. This chapter provides a nuanced view of the legal reforms necessary to address case backlogs, restore public confidence, and reduce extrajudicial actions like mob justice.
In our final segments, we turn our focus to the importance of legal record-keeping in developing countries. Julia shares a compelling story from a Ugandan village, highlighting innovative solutions for digitizing records to ensure fair legal processes. We also delve into pressing economic issues in the U.S., such as national debt and local policies, and discuss how these concerns impact population movement and educational institutions. Emphasizing the collaborative effort needed to invest in personal growth, we encourage listeners to share this invaluable episode with someone they care about. Join us for a thought-provoking discussion that bridges global legal systems and economic realities.
Hello Conscious Investor and welcome back. I'm your host, julie Hawley. For over four years, I've paired my background in real estate, investing, education and coaching to create powerful content for you each week. This podcast is where we take a holistic approach to investing by focusing on three ingredients to a life of personal freedom health, mindset and wealth. We'll talk about everything from passive investing through syndication and how to use your retirement accounts to boost your investing, to mineral balancing and gut brain health, and into topics that cultivate your inner strength and resilience so you can thrive regardless of any of life's current events. And yes, those are all episodes currently available and linked in the show notes below. Join me each Monday for a mindset episode and later in the week for an interview with expert investors and health professionals, so that you can experience your greatest health, strongest mindset and build the wisest wealth. Julia, I am so excited to have you here on the Conscious Investor Podcast. Welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for having me, julia. I've heard amazing things about you and it's wonderful to meet you via Zoom.
Speaker 1:It's really fun when we get to meet by way of your husband. And here we are finally getting to meet and Conscious Investor, you are here at the genesis moment of us meeting and I'm so excited. I know this is going to be so powerful. Julia, we have to open with the question of all questions conscious investing question is what do you do and how on earth did you get started?
Speaker 2:So I'm a economics professor at Kalamazoo college and I was previously an economics professor at Pepperdine University. I got married last year, moved to Michigan new life, new everything and I still work with this group at Pepperdine called the Sudra Global Justice Program, and this makes up a big portion of my professional clinical capacity and we can talk a little bit more about that. My day job. Well, I guess during most of the day I'm an economics professor, I specialize in microeconomics and then, as far as the clinical side goes, the Global Justice Program works on integrating implementations and interventions in various legal systems around the world. We're primarily in Uganda and Rwanda right now. We're primarily in Uganda and Rwanda right now. We're expanding into Ghana and about a dozen more countries just in the next year to help shore up their legal systems and make their economic growth more foundational and sustainable.
Speaker 2:So that is another big part of my day job and it fuels a lot of the research that I do with regards to how law and economics are integrated. And I'm thinking about your investors, what's important to them, and I think a really helpful component is understanding how the foundation of our legal system here in the United States really sets the groundwork for faith in investing and how various legal systems can either increase or decrease our national investment in that country, but also foreign investment in that country, and how those big ratings can change. So that is just in a nutshell what I'm up to. I have a few other research interests, but the law and economics is a really big pursuit right now that I'm doing and I am a support system for my husband who does a lot of real estate investing, and I do some of my own small multi-family real estate investing and so I have one foot in that camp as well and we do a little bit of real estate investing research. But the legal component really makes up the most of my day.
Speaker 1:That is so. There's so many different ways that we are going to go with it. Okay, All of that is so Conscious Investor. Can you see why? I was like I have to have Julia on the show, Like we were blown away. Those of you who attended the conscious investor growth summit and those of you who have listened to the episode with her husband, Alex Cartwright, earlier on the podcast um, I think a year and a half ago at this point, you were probably amazed with him. And now can you see, like massive power couple and Alex like you have, like like you and Julia have to meet, and I can see exactly why. And this is something not at all.
Speaker 1:but what's interesting, julia, is that honestly, I think about the legal rights of of investing, but it's a very, very limited and, I think, conscious investor. If we're honest with ourselves, we really kind of think in a very silo way oh, is this a red or blue state? Like, which direction are they going to favor the landlords? Are they going to be more tenant friendly? And that's really honestly, I think, the extent that many I'm going to go Prieto's principle 80-20. I bet 80% of the investors. That's the extent that they think about the legal ramifications of investing. But you have this experience in Uganda and other countries that you can see and you're just brilliant, so you can see these parallels of how much more important it is. So, like, let's go to school, girl, I want to know what you know, like, what do we need to understand? What are and how does, how do we see this play out in other countries? And then, what should we be aware of here in the U S?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. As you were mentioning, we are extremely blessed here in the United States to have our legal system, and our financial system lays the foundation for any type of investment. If there is some dispute, we feel very confident as investors that we can go to our local or federal, state or federal legal system and they will back our contracts. So that is really part and parcel what our investing in real estate is all about and part of. I don't know if your audience has the stomach for this, but a big portion of a diversified portfolio is actually investing internationally. So this could just be putting on your mind and your heart, maybe what things to look for internationally. So each country has you can think of a credit score or a credit rating, and this is really important to how foreign direct investors see our legal foundation, and so for national investment and also for foreign investment. So there's a huge. As you can imagine, the scores are not determinate of how much investing is happening, but they are very determinant of how much investing is happening, but they are very correlated with how much investing is happening. So if you typically have a low rule of law score or a low credit score, you don't see as much investment and I can talk about kind of the extreme legal system that I deal with in Sub-Saharan Africa and we expand a lot about that. But what really gives the engine and power to the US economy is our capital and financial markets. And again, we kind of take those for granted of how amazing and robust these are and it's telling when we I'll give you a few examples of working in a legal system abroad. That's just very, very different than kind of what we see here in the United States, just something to put on the minds of your investors.
Speaker 2:So Moody's actually downgraded the US credit rating last year in November and I'm sure everybody is paying attention to that, but that's a big red flag, is paying attention to that, but that's a big red flag. And our treasury secretary, janet Yellen, was not happy about that because that's kind of a referendum on her work as the treasury secretary. But it's good to have these checks and balances and this private credit rating group saying you know, we actually are losing a little bit of confidence in the United States because of all the spending that we see on the federal level. So that's something to keep in mind. So just a little bit of background. Yeah, please, can we, can we?
Speaker 1:just like I, I can. In my mind, I have my layman's terms of what the consequences of that downgrading, what the outcome can be Right, but again, I'm on the layman's terms. You are in the thick of this and understand it. Can you just give us an idea of what are the ramifications of that type of downgrade?
Speaker 2:Sure. So typically it makes our debt a lot more expensive, and so we can think of, for example, the interest rate on our debt, and, as the Federal Reserve is keeping rates really high right now, that's going to impact the interest on our debt. And something to keep in mind here is the debt to GDP ratio, and when I was in high school and college, whatever decades ago, a lot of the economists were saying it's very low. It's very low. It's not something we need to keep in mind or it's not something we need to worry about right now, but fast forward 2024, and that debt to GDP ratio is getting very concerning, and a big component of that is the interest payments on debt, and that's going to have big consequences on just interest rates in general, and it can also cause the Federal Reserve to be more hesitant to lower rates. They would like to lower rates, to lower interest on the debt, but that could lead to more inflation, and so it's sort of this yin and this yang that the Federal Reserve is trying to navigate. So, in order to lower the interest on the debt, they'd like to lower rates, but this could have other consequences, for inflation, for example.
Speaker 2:So the biggest impact for investors is going to be interest rates and overall. If globally, people say the United States is not as reliable as it once was, that interest rate overall could go up, because with increased risk has to come at increased compensation. So these international folks that are buying our debt are going to say you know what? We're not as confident as that. You're going to repay your debt as we once were, so we're going to. We are going to require a premium on that. So that is just one factor that could be really impactful in this and something that investors are really keeping their eyes on. But that debt to GDP ratio. We're thinking of what is the capacity of the federal government to pay back this debt. The payments on the interest alone are becoming alarmingly high relative to the revenues of the federal government. So, again, the biggest impact that's going to have on is our interest rates as real estate investors. I don't know if that answers your question, but no, that does.
Speaker 1:That does answer the question. And when you say hi, I feel like I heard something yesterday that just our interest alone is billions of dollars on the national debt yes, exactly. I'm like, yes, billions. It's like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:It's hard to even fathom right what that means, and so the federal government needs to pay Social Security, medicare, medicaid this not discretionary spending and also the interest on the debt, so that's going to be a big portion of what they're obligated to spend money on this. Also, another thing that is going to really impact is taxes. So if the federal government feels like their revenues, ie the taxes we pay, are not high enough, this could influence taxation rates as well. So interest rates and taxes are, as far as the macroeconomic ramifications of this goes, probably the biggest two things that are going to be impacting our minds as investors experience in other countries, because I think that when we can step away from being in the weeds of where we're at.
Speaker 1:That gives us an opportunity to see opportunities and consequences and how things play off of each other. So how has your experience working in other countries really highlighted and magnified you know the opportunities and the consequences.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, julie. It makes me so just amazed and very thankful. So just a little bit of insight of what our team does. I work primarily with a team of lawyers and social workers that is focused specifically on implementing plea bargaining into the court system in both Uganda and Rwanda and then expanding to our dozen countries, and what this entails. And the reason this is is because our case backlog in these two countries is just overwhelming. I believe it was 2019 was the first year that in the country of Uganda, they were actually hearing a case that someone was accused of. In that year, meaning previous to 2019, someone had to wait almost a year for their case to even be heard, and so if you have a system where there's not a lot of speed through the system, it really erodes the trust that people have. And if we think about that, if somebody wronged you, are you thinking like, oh, I really don't trust the legal system, I don't know if they're going to handle it correctly, and this leads to a lot of unrest and we see a lot of what's called mob justice in some of these nations, and this can be where the local community takes it upon themselves to adjudicate justice because they don't trust the legal system, and obviously this further just undermines what the legal system is doing there.
Speaker 2:And a big component of law is. There are, of course, many different types of law, but the two main camps are civil law and common law. And common law is what we're under in the United States and this is built on precedent. So if you think about some of the things of our legal system for example, why do we have 12 jurors? That doesn't even right. You're like, how can you even have a tiebreaker? That's an even number. How did that even come about? And it came about through Anglo-Saxon common law. So years and years ago in Anglo-Saxony, folks just engaging in trial and error, they said this is obviously just my very brief description of it, but you know, like, hey, let's try 11. You know that just doesn't seem big enough. Let's try 15, too many cooks in the kitchen. So they settled on 12, for whatever reason. And we have a law based on precedent. And there's also this other big camp, civil law, and this is a statutorial, and so it's from more, not so much from the bottom up but the top down, and so, depending on what country you're in, you typically have one or two of these types of law.
Speaker 2:Islamic law is also a big category and we see especially in Africa, depending on what nation colonized these various African countries, they have different legal systems. We see correlated you know there's debates about the causality of it but we see better economic outcomes with our bottom-up approach, meaning our common law, than our top-down approach civil law and, as you can imagine, things based on precedent. Maybe you don't understand the reason, but there is a reason for that. Whereas if you're trying to make law from the top down, this could you're not necessarily understanding the nuances of the situation. So Uganda was colonized by the British and they have common law.
Speaker 2:And Rwanda was colonized by the French, so they're under Belgian law. And the Rwandans were colonized by the Belgians and they're under civil law. They speak French there. So I just mix that up, but they.
Speaker 2:So this really has a big impact on how these laws are implemented in these two nations and our lawyers are working double time because they're primarily focused or they're primarily trained in common law, but they're asked to do a lot of this type of legislation in our civil law and a big portion of that is respecting a lot of the precedents set in these various nations, so, especially in Africa, you have the law of the colonizing country and then you have the impact or the integration of typically tribal law and the interplay between those two, and so we have, and so there's a lot of precedents set by tribal law that we are trying to navigate and negotiate, and there are laws that in Uganda that you would very rarely read in the United States, just because you know it's completely different culture, completely different country, and so our team is really working to implement plea bargaining to try to get these cases through the system a lot more rapidly, and and that kind of gives a somewhat of an overview, but hopefully helpful.
Speaker 1:Okay, what's most fascinating is, really, when you were talking and then you talked about the mob mentality I was already headed there I was like, wow, if you don't have confidence and I haven't considered this ever, you know, and yes, sometimes it takes time for cases to be heard in the US, but you can see some movement, you see, and there is a level of confidence of, okay, this is going to proceed forward and there's cases to be heard in the US, but you can see some movement, you see, and there is a level of confidence of, okay, this is going to proceed forward and there's going to be an outcome, and and so there can be some patience.
Speaker 1:But as you were describing that, I was thinking like oh yeah, people take matters into their own hands and now that plays into context so many other countries where they are not under civil law and where they don't have access to efficient systems and confidence in it. I'm like, oh well, maybe that's a good indication as to why there's so much unrest, to put it mildly, in this type of country. It's so fascinating.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We had a village that we work with with a population of about a thousand of village that we work with with about a population of about a thousand, and there were seven mob justice cases just in one week in that one village. So if you think about seven out of a thousand people getting basically subject to mob justice, which sadly can lead to death, and so again, that really really erodes and undermines what's going on there. And a big part of what we do is instill confidence in record keeping. So, depending on what country you're in, some of the records for example, it's not common in Uganda to have a or some people do, but not everybody has a birth date and oftentimes your dental records will be examined if you aren't sure how old you are. And this is, as you can imagine, big legal consequences because there are different laws if you're a juvenile versus an adult, and they also do have the death penalty there, and if you are tried as an adult, this could have a lot bigger consequences. And so our task is to, even without a birth date or a social security number, how do we as a team indicate that this specific person is the specific person that we're talking about? So a big portion of our project is to digitize records and, again, depending on what country you're in, they have various forms of digitization, but the vast majority of records in Uganda are not digitized, and so that's a big part of what we do, and also data integrity education, and I'll just share a story with you about just experience with record keeping, and I'd like everybody to keep in mind that this is a completely descriptive story and also it's to indicate how honestly blessed we are in the United States to have the mindset that we do and, depending on where you're living and you can think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs if you're just trying to make it to the next day and of course, in these sub-Saharan countries, there's a huge diversity of situations, right, huge diversity. But a lot of folks are not necessarily focused on gathering data from the past and if you can think about it, you're like data is really documenting the past and to try to give you a better picture of what's happening in the future. And so what we do is we gather all this data on our clients to try to A serve them through their process, through the judicial system, but B try to make modifications based on aggregate trends to say how can we better serve them? Well, what's a tweak that we can make for a plea bargaining integration that would make this better in the long run.
Speaker 2:So I was chatting with a business researcher who I met in a hotel when I was there a few years ago and he was saying he was trying to study different business practices in Uganda and he had talked to a few folks in these markets and he said you know, I'd really like you to write down your accounting for the next few weeks and I'd like to come back and take a look at it. And they said, okay, it's fine. And so he said this is what I would like you to write down. And they said, great, it's fine. So weeks passed, the gentleman, the researcher, comes back and he asked them well, did you write these things down? And they said, yes, we did. And he said well, where, where are they Right? Where is the data? And they said, well, we wrote them down, but then we sold. The researcher completely freaks out, runs across the street, grabs this paper from this meat, trying to resurrect the data.
Speaker 2:But the point of this story is that it did not dawn on the business owner that this would even be relevant for anything in the future.
Speaker 2:He is thinking why do I care?
Speaker 2:I'm doing this task that you asked me. I didn't quite realize that I had to hang on to the paper and clearly he wasn't incentivized to hang on to the paper. But he's thinking why is it important for me to be thinking about the past when all I'm trying to think about is the future? So this is a very different mindset of us in the United States and I think it's a really good, just just a kind of a fun story to indicate just thinking about things in a completely different way. And if you are not documenting the past, it's very difficult to have these different trends that you're trying to draw. But also, I think it's also telling to us, as as folks that are trying to be really conscious, is what was more important to that person than the data gathering? And if we're really serious about being intentional, about helping people in even a business type of way, what was actually a more pressing issue that this person was concerned with? That they weren't even focused on anything. You know, data collecting, future oriented, wise.
Speaker 1:It's amazing to me to be so detached from data. You know, I mean, like here in the US, we're constantly referencing data and I mean you're doing this all the time. Conscious investor, you're looking back at, you know what are my spending habits, what are the trends in this market? I mean, we're constantly referencing past data to inform our present decisions so that we can have the future benefit. So it's wild.
Speaker 2:It's wild Yep and thinking about just, and it's absolutely mind blowing to me because, again, we are so blessed to have the situation that we are that, even without a lot of historical data, people are able to make those amazing decisions and investment decisions in these various countries. And some of the biggest growth that we see around the world is actually happening in sub-Saharan Africa. So it's a huge and China specifically has noticed that with. I don't know if you're familiar with their Belt and Road Initiative, but China's investing in a lot of infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa. Some of the best roads that I've ever driven on were Chinese built roads in Africa. And so that is just, from a foreign and direct investment perspective, showing confidence that this is a place for some really serious economic growth.
Speaker 2:And we're trying to bolster this growth with the legal system. And our ultimate goal is to show these, because there are these macroeconomic indicators of the wealth of judicial systems and the wealth of different legal systems, judicial systems and the wealth of different legal systems. So we would like to see this is our ultimate goal of seeing how our interventions have actually increased those initial statistics and, hopefully in the future, have increased people's confidence in investing in these nations, because everyday Ugandans and Rwandans feel more confident going through the legal system. They're more likely to call the police and trust them with this situation as well. So that is definitely our goal in the long run to try to instill that type of confidence.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Well and honestly, you see a lot of people, a lot of sentiment, and I don't follow a lot of news media sources, so I'm not the one watching Fox and CNN or whatever QVC, whatever it is I'm not watching, but you get a sentiment as you speak with people in casual, friendly conversation about people I. The sentiment I get is a lot of people in the U? S are starting to have pulled back from that confidence of this is you know.
Speaker 1:The leaders have this figured out and I can call the the local police department. I just think about you know a lot of the you know hey let's defund the police and things like that, like. So I'm it's interesting to see these efforts because you guys, you know there's evidence that supports hey, when these parts are intact in a country, the country can thrive. I don't do you see anything there, or you know? I'd love to just hear your, your input and insight, if there is any like, on the sentiments of the U?
Speaker 2:S and yeah, thanks, thanks, lajuli, and I think and I love where you're thinking, because you're always thinking like this seems a little, perhaps you know, far flung talking about these legal systems, but to your greater point, it has really big implications for what we're doing here and as much as we're always thinking relatively right. It's like right now trust in institutions in the United States is fairly low relative to past decades, depending on how far back you want to zoom. But it's funny because sometimes when I travel abroad I'm like, wow, I know our system has problems, but it's looking pretty darn good relative to some of these others.
Speaker 2:But that, and I think, just like the Moody's downgrading, it's a good check and balance to this system and, like I was saying, even professional economists 20 years ago were not worried about the debt, whereas now even Republicans and Democrats are saying we need to get this under control. We need to get this non-discretionary spending ie social security, medicare, medicaid and the interest payments on our debt under control, because this has ramifications for everybody and no presidential administration wants to be the one to do it, because this means that we potentially have to means test these things, meaning you're only able to get these benefits if X, y, z or increase the age. I don't know if you heard about Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, the backlash that he had by increasing the wage to receive federal benefits in France, but it was not good. People were very, very upset. So no administration wants to be that person. But I think, just looking at the silver lining of all of this mistrust is I think in the long run, it's going to bring Democrats or Republicans together more, because it's giving them a common problem of saying you know, erosion of trust in institutions impacts whoever is in office, whether it be in the congressional level or the presidential level or the local level office, whether it be in the congressional level or the presidential level or the local level, and so I know right now things don't look great as far as trust goes. But that's why we need this check to say you know what, maybe there's a reason for this. Right, we have been spending quite a bit, and this is on the Republican and the Democrat side. I'm not pointing any fingers here. It's equal groups are both equally um, equally um, responsible for, for what's going on here.
Speaker 2:And I I see another thing happening a lot which I'm really encouraged by was there's a lot more focus on the local, and this is going to. Obviously, as investors, we're only subject to so many local things. Right, it's like, obviously we're impacted by our county, we're impacted by our state, but especially with shoring up a lot of these local ties, and we see a lot of folks, especially post COVID, utilizing so this is a thing called the taboo effect, which just means moving with your feet. It's just an economic concept. So it's like, hey, we see really high taxes and not a lot of police protection in states like California. We actually see lower taxes and more protection in states like Florida.
Speaker 2:So what's going to start happening is, with this exodus of investors and just people in general, the other states are going to have a reality check of the rules of economics and finance eventually come and get you. You can only kick that can down the road so much. But I think we're going to start seeing I mean, with the amazing federalism that we have here in the United States, it allows states to differentiate themselves, and you touched upon this at the beginning that investors are thinking about county, state, local laws, taxation, any type of permitting that you need, and so I think there is definitely going to be more of a clamoring for that, and these states that are not providing a good financial situation are really going to have to get their house in order. And this is a silver lining of the high interest rate environment. Again, not that anybody likes this, but it really causes both governments and, I know, real estate investors, business owners, anybody to kind of cut the fat and say, okay, things are a lot more expensive now. What do we really need? What is something that's superfluous that we can cut out of our budget, maybe as the state or local level, and what we need to really focus on what drives business growth? So I see a and again this might I'm not making a prediction here, but this could be five, 10, 20 years down the road.
Speaker 2:But I think it's going to shore up a lot more business friendly regulations in these areas, just out of necessity for these different um, for these different cities and localities, because they're thinking, you know, we just lost a big portion of our population. Um, we need to kind of get our act together. I live in the state of Michigan and we have so, just on the educational front, a lot of people are concerned about many people are having fewer children and so universities are saying that just decreases the number of potential customers that we can have if people are having fewer children. So it's really forcing universities to look in deep and say what drives our admissions? Central Michigan University a few years ago had, I think, a drop of a quarter to a third of its students in a few years, which is huge, absolutely huge and devastating. But just as an example, and especially with declining population in all states, states are really going to have to take a hard look at their environment and ask themselves what's going to be more fundamental to driving business growth.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting. I was flying back from doing some inspections on an assisted living facility in Wisconsin. And on that flight back home I was sandwiched between these two wonderful women. One was working on her master's and the other is, you know, maybe a sophomore, and they were both talking about the college system.
Speaker 2:They were talking. Here I am between them.
Speaker 1:It was an interesting conversation about oh yeah, those three schools shut down and that forced all these people to come to this one particular school. Like, yeah, what you're saying with that? But so that's interesting because it's also it's a tangible something that we can actually see and point to, like here's a result, here's an outcome that is happening because of and we can, I imagine I'm not the economist, but I imagine that we can extrapolate that to other areas of life and say like, okay, well, this is what happens when these forces come into play. This is an outcome that takes place.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and population growth is a really important indicator for any type of investment and something just to keep our eye on, especially with just declining population in the US overall, saying, okay, what are these? Just as a savvy investor being thinking what, what is going to? So we have these declining populations in various states, more maybe just by natural declining birth rates, but then we have an influx of migration from these other states. So it's going to be, regardless of what party you're on, it's going to really cause local municipalities to be thinking about what's driving business and to create a the regulatory and taxation environment that's going to be more friendly.
Speaker 1:So, when we, as we, as we wrap this up, I'm curious what you're most excited to see take place here in the U S that will have a open up, more opportunities. I think I say there are always opportunities for investing. Um, we just need to get creative sometimes. But but what's something that you're looking forward to noticing here in the U S?
Speaker 2:that is a very good question. I always try to be optimistic as far as what I'm hoping for, but I see, I really, and I think this to be the case and what I kind of just mentioned. But I Houston, for example, is a is a city where a lot of people are investing in and they are, and one of the unique things about Houston is they don't have traditional zoning laws. So this might be a bit of a pipe dream, but I hope that other cities look at where we see successful growth and try to mimic those type of regulations and oftentimes this happens on a deal to deal basis, I'm sure, as you, as your investors know to try to get some type of oh, this is the official law in the books. But we can make this exception to the rule and I'm excited to and this is a hope of mine to see those exceptions more become the rule, because local leaders will see that this is so important.
Speaker 2:My husband and I invest in Texas, primarily Houston, and it's funny because our local municipality wasn't as friendly to the hotel conversion that we do.
Speaker 2:But when they saw our success in Texas they said, hey, wait a minute, we want people to invest in us.
Speaker 2:So I think even that just friendly competition amongst states and municipalities can lead to different jurisdictions adopting maybe more creative things that they would otherwise be hostile to.
Speaker 2:Or maybe just taking a look at why do we have these specific type of regulations with regards to the height of buildings, as I'm sure you and your investors know, many regulations are subject to buildings on a certain height or lower, and you're thinking why is that the case? You'd think that it would be these big buildings, but it's typically the result of a negotiation that happens between a very large company that has influence in the government and the government themselves. So governments might be taking a look and saying you know, we actually really want to promote business growth for these mom and pop investors and we're going to make this a blanket rule for no matter how tall your building is, you know, with regards to green space requirements or parking requirements. So that's what I'm hoping to see more of, and I know that some states are getting really jealous of Texas and Florida. So I hope that jealousy leads to them taking a good look at them and saying you know, what could we adopt that's important to the constituents of our state? That could really help.
Speaker 1:I love that and I will double down on zoning. I'll just say, when it comes to zoning, and I think about just the impact on housing in and of itself, it's something where, honestly, there are times where I've said, is this predatory Like? Is this just predatory to like prevent people from and to control the housing market? Because if we had some shifts in the zoning laws, more people could go in, develop, do more, infill, do more and it would serve a community well. So I have a lot of personal opinions on that, that I'm always excited when zoning laws are looser, but you and I understand there is a balance in that those do serve a purpose. I do understand that. So is that healthy? Let's really truly evaluate how this particular zoning is serving our community.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, or maybe some law in the books that's been there 40 years ago and someone forgot what it even did, and so to revisit those and say what about? This could potentially be restrictive to any type of business, investment and growth.
Speaker 1:It's so important. Oh gosh, julia, I knew we were gonna run up against the clock and because I'm like I mean, we spoke on the phone one time and that was just amazing, and just to be able to share space with you here, with the Conscious Investor, has been just amazing.
Speaker 1:I love your insights and it's so important to be able to extrapolate and not just into contextualize our state, our world here in the US. When we can look at that in relation to other countries around the world, it can give us a different context and, like you said, wow, we have it really good here and we take it for granted a lot of times my words not yours, and so it's. I appreciate that perspective that you've brought to the table for us. And yeah, so okay, how can the conscious investor you know, get in touch with you? Look at the hotel conversions you know that you and Alex are working on Like what's the best way, julie.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. By the way, this has been delightful. What's the best way, julie? Thank you so much for having me. By the way, this has been delightful and I'm extremely grateful to be on. I can be found at LinkedIn at Julia R Cartwright, and my husband is our main guru of this. I am the chief creative officer of Hotel Shift, but that is our main hotel conversion company. Hotelshiftcom is our site and I recommend that you check it out and, um, just maybe consider, consider, uh, the, the hotel conversion space. I don't have any international offerings to give. I wish I could. You know. Hey, here's a hotel conversion happening in Uganda, but maybe that's something down the road that we can work on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe down the road To further diversify portfolios. I love it and Conscious Investor this is, I mean. The way they're doing the hotel conversions is so powerful and it's providing solutions in communities, and so, if you're looking for another alternative asset to you know, add into your investment portfolio. Yeah, I say this and I'm very cautious about who comes on the show and especially who I say this about. But, like, if you're interested, if you have some inclination, you definitely want to reach out. You know you want to get in touch with the cartwrights. You want to, like, see what hotel shift is doing, what they're all about. You must do your own due diligence, okay, but but go check out what they're up to.
Speaker 1:Go connect up with Julia over on LinkedIn, follow what she's doing, because she's like just absolutely extraordinary, and I know that you've discovered that also. Julia, thanks again for your time and coming on the show.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. This has been great, so much fun.
Speaker 1:Conscious Investor. You are amazing and remember it is absolutely free to support the show by simply sharing this podcast episode. So if you share this with somebody, that's how this show grows and it expands and it reaches more people, and I rely on you. We're in this together. It's a collaborative effort so that we can reach more people and share, you know just, this amazing opportunity of investing in personal growth and development. So don't hesitate to do that. It means the world to me when you do take a moment to share this with someone that you care about. Until next time, cheers to your health.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
