Would you pay for a concert by two people you wouldn’t normally care to see if it meant helping a cause you supported?

Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen are doing a fundraiser concert in New York for Barack Obama’s campaign this month. My guess is there aren’t too many people on BET.com lining up to buy tickets for that one. But if you support Obama, would you kick out the cost of a ticket?

Other celebrities like Oprah and John Legend who support Obama, but I don’t know if John Legend is touring right now and if Oprah’s doing fundraisers I know I couldn’t afford the plate.

And does it matter to you whether celebrities support a candidate or not? Who could get you to donate to a candidate if you weren’t already planning on doing so?

“What y’all wanna do? Wanna be ballers, shot callers…?”  - P. Diddy 

Ok, what the hell does he have to do with my post about money today? Dude might be a corny lyricist, but in his braggadocio, what the man formerly known as Sean Combs was saying is that everybody wants to be rich but few people really have an idea of the mentality it takes to get money and keep it.So here’s a list of “10 secrets that millionaires keep”, courtesy of MSNMoney.com. Here’s a couple hints: if you think being nice, flaunting everything you have and paying taxes like a regular Joe are part of the plan, you’re wrong. Now, if you were rich, what lifestyle changes would you make to make sure you kept your wealth.

I know I’ve been a little heavy on the celebrity money misfortunes lately, but it just seems like the news keeps on coming. Last week, Michael Vick’s bad money decisions made headlines, yesterday it was Jermaine Dupri allegedly not paying workers at his restaurant. Now it’s Damon Dash, who just sold the Pro-Keds shoe line back to its previous owner after owning the license for the brand for only four years.

Selling a business ain’t a bad thing, but in this case it’s other things happening at the same time, especially the foreclosure on two of his cribs in Manhattan. The bank that holds his mortgage says he and his wife owe $7.3 million total; they were supposed to be making mortgage payments of $78,000 per month. At that rate, you’d have to be almost eight years delinquent with payments.

Sigh. Well, since I know I’m going to get comments and emails accusing me of being a hater, lemme end like this: the reason I post about celebrities and their money woes is to show that everyone, even those who look wealthy in front of the camera, can have money problems. Fame doesn’t make you immune, and in a lot of cases, the saying more money, more problems is exactly right.

That said, I wish Dash, Vick, Dupri and all the celebs I write about a quick rebound.

OK, how many times a month can there be another story about an entertainer or athlete with a business venture gone all kinda wrong?

This time around it’s Jermaine Dupri, whose Atlanta restaurant closed…apparently without letting employees know it was coming. Or, um, paying them. In fairness, the restaurant business is one of the toughest to be in and JD wouldn’t be the only celeb to have a restaurant fail. But the employees think they were done real dirty. JD’s mom, who ran the spot, didn’t have anything great to say about her workers, either. See for yourself here and make up your own mind. (thanks KTC for pointing me to this).

I’ve poked fun at celebrities and athletes before for some of their financial mistakes. Not that I think it’s funny when people are duped or fall on hard times but sometimes the things that people will do with their money just crosses that big, red line in the sand that says “STOP! YOU’RE BEING EXTRA!”

But this weekend I was reading my homegirl Jemele Hill’s blog and ran across something VERY extra but not at all funny. Jemele writes for ESPN.com and had linked to this story by another ESPN writer about Michael Vick’s finances. Here’s a sample:

Banks in Toronto; South Bend, Ind., and Charlotte, N.C., demanded repayment of more than $6 million in loans used to finance a car rental business, a wine enterprise and other ventures. A sports marketing company that he hired and fired even before he was drafted in 2001 hounded him for another $5 million in lost fees. And he faced breach of contract charges on two other deals…

A review of bankruptcy court records and other litigation filed against Vick shows a remarkable series of blunders and thefts that could leave Vick insolvent even if he manages to retain the bonuses the Falcons and the NFL are trying to take back from him.

-Lester Munson, Espn.com

Somehow, shaking my head still doesn’t seem like an appropriate response. Jemele’s post on the subject is a little less forgiving.

Seriously, people, at what point does the madness end? How many times do you have to hear a story like this one before some pro atheletes and entertainers become wiser about trusting just anyone with their cash?

Bernie Mac was an icon. So was Isaac Hayes. American comedy and music fans will miss them both.

And I know this might sound cold, but we may not miss them nearly as much as the entertainment industry does. Bernie and Isaac weren’t just stars; more importantly they were BANKABLE stars who consistently made the industry money, even when they weren’t working.

Take Bernie Mac: he never played the lead role in a feature film but the films where he played his biggest supporting roles (the “Ocean’s) series, were blockbusters. Ocean’s Eleven was made for $85 million and grossed $450.7 million worldwide. Ocean’s Twelve was made for $110 million and grossed $362.7 million. I couldn’t find a production budget for Ocean’s 13, but the worldwide gross was $311.3 million.

Keep in mind that’s not counting the advertising dollars his hit show brought in for ABC during its five year, 103-episode run, or how much money HBO made from his comedy specials or the fact that he had two movies in post production when he died.

And Isaac Hayes? Please. I couldn’t immediately find a database where his music sales were available, but do you REALLY need numbers to quantify successful an artist he was? Hot Buttered Soul. Black Moses.  The theme from Shaft? And remember that the bulk of his catalog was made in the 1970s, when the music business was still VERY profitable. He also wrote, produced and played instruments on other hit artists’ songs, and how many hop-hop cats are making money sampling his work?

Oh yeah, he was the voice of Chef from South Park, too.

Two icons gone. HUGE losses for their fans and two industries.

Last week I wrote about the sob stories of pro athletes who don’t manage their money well and end up blowing millions of dollars in just a few short years.

Today, the flipside, courtesy of a Wall Street Journal story about one of my favorite ballers of all time: Steelers hall of famer Franco Harris. If you don’t know why he’s famous, just Google “immaculate reception”. But you don’t need to know about his football heroics to understand why a lot of younger athletes need to emulate what he’s done in retirement. Franco retired in ‘84, at a time when athletes didn’t make nearly as much as they do now. But the WSJ story says he retired with NO DEBT AND a lot of what he made as a player saved up.

He had his degree and went into the food business, and has ultimately made more money as an entrepreneur than he ever did on the field. Maybe Ron Mexico Mike Vick, Chris Henry and half of the players who retired from the NBA need to look up the man’s number and ask for a little advice.

Seriously, folks, why is it that “professional athlete” and “squanderer” seem to be synonymous?

This week it’s Chris Henry, the former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver who may have spent more time suspended from the league because of arrests than he did playing for the $2.5 million he was paid since being drafted in 2005. He sat out all last season for one of those arrests and just when you thought it was safe, nope, homeboy goes and allegedly beats up some 18 year old. The Bengals booted him and y’boy is without a contract right now.

No problem, right? I mean, if you or I made $2.5 mil. over the last three years, we’d still have cash stashed. Not this dude, according to his lawyer, who yesterday had the stones to say in court that Chris is so broke he can’t even pay for a transcript of his latest trial! Those cost what, $50 bucks? In this story, Henry’s lawyer is quoted as saying “He has no funds whatsoever and can’t even meet his current obligations.”

What obligations would those be, given his $360,000 house was already auctioned off and his truck was repo’d, according to the story?

But let’s leave Chris Henry alone for a second, he clearly has enough problems. The homie Frugalista posted this week about Ookie  Michael Vick filing for bankruptcy, citing $10 million in assets and $30 million in liabilities. Here’s what I posted in her comments. The other day another friend of mine sent me this hilarious but sad link to an ESPN.com column about the 60 percent of NBA players who end up broke within five years of leaving the court.

Just sad.

There’s a proposal in Congress right now to create a “National Save for Retirement Week”. Not sure what week that would be, but the point would be to emphasize financial literacy and officially encourage Americans to be proactive about putting money away for when they’re no longer working.

I think it’s a great idea, if it’s implemented right. I mean, if you could craft a campaign that had the ubiquity of the “50 Million Pound Challenge“, where you’d attach a prominent TV personality’s image to it and have him or her on commercials every day telling people to save, that might work.

So who should it be? Someone rich with pop appeal like a Jay-Z or Oprah? Or someone like a Suze Orman, who’s already synonymous with talking about money? And what kinds of messages would get you more interested in learning how to save your cash?

So what there hasn’t been a new episode in years! The classic dance show Soul Train has been sold by its creator, Don Cornelius, for an undisclosed sum, the New York Times reported today. The new owners, who include the former head of Diddy’s Bad Boy Films and the group publisher of Ebony Magazine, now have plans to release DVDs of the old episodes ad are thinking about creating new ones.

It’ll be interesting to see how Soul Train, as a show and as a brand, holds its own in the era of 109th & Park and TRL.