Focusing on Fundamentals: Economic Survival Means Adaptation

Recorded November 20, 2019 What happens when you put up barriers of entry in a “free” market?     On this episode of New Business Paradigms, Chief of Staff Kristy Jansen and Academy President and Founder, Rinaldo Brutoco, discuss the lack of economic mobility in the modern United States before a quick riff on impeachment.  After the first public impeachment hearings, Rinaldo’s take away is simple – the process has put the chaos of the Trump White House (i.e. the emperor has been caught with no clothes) into clear focus and makes it evident that Trump is involved in every part of his organization. The second half of the show is an examination of how the economic “walls are closing in on us”, starting with the death of retail and the increasing number of farm bankruptcies.  Rinaldo likens this to trouble oil wildcatters in the Permian Basin are having, suggesting that the lack of adaptation and too little focus on fundamentals are the reason why both are failing.  In the last segment of the show, Rinaldo uses an article of the Atlantic as a jumping-off point to address monopolies in the US; compared to the rest of the world, a failure of US trust-busting has led to an economy with inflated prices and not enough competition. Articles: The U.S. Only Pretends to Have Free Markets (The Atlantic on October 29, 2019)