Locally Grown with Jim Fini

I'm a Boomer, married to a Gen Xer, with Gen Z kids. My and my parents' generation has left us with an ever-expanding unsustainable federal government that has taken on a life of its own, and we are sticking our kids with the bill. However, all is not lost. There are lots of smart, practical and patriotic kids who are willing to step up now to be part of the solution that rights the American ship. My guest today is 24-year-old Lance Lunceford, one of those kids. Please join us.United We Stand. Divided We Fall. Each One for the Other, and All for All.

In the words of the immortal Joan Jett, "I love Rock & Roll so put another dime in the jukebox baby." Join me and my older cousin Tom Fini as we traverse the decades from his early 1960s band, the Del Mars, to todays music including one of my original songs. We explore the singer-songwriter ethos, within the context of protest music then and now. Stop what you're doing and put on those headphones because you don't want to miss this one. United We Stand. Divided We Fall. Each One for the Other, and All for All.

My guest today is American entrepreneur and politician, Christopher Collins. Chris served as the U.S. representative for New York's 27th congressional district (Buffalo NY area) from 2013 until 2019. Prior to his time in Congress, he ran for Erie County Executive in 2007 on a platform of smaller county government, lower taxes and operating efficiency and he defeated the Democrat incumbent with 63% of the vote in a county with 140,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. Quite an accomplishment.Unlike many of our elected representatives in our 3-tier constitutional republic, Chris was a successful entrepreneur and business guy long before he ran for public office. That means he built something of value to society that employed others in our free enterprise system. After earning his BS in Mechanical Engineering and MBA, Chris started his career as a mechanical engineer at Westinghouse Electric. In 1983, Westinghouse spun off their gear division, and Chris rose to be CEO of the Nuttall Gear Corporation located in Niagara Falls, New York. In 1997, Collins sold Nuttall to Colfax Corporation.Chris moved to Florida a couple years ago and he and his wife, Mary, have three children and three grandchildren. Full disclosure: Chris' younger brother Ted and I were fraternity brothers at Syracuse University.Welcome to the Locally Grown Podcast Chris Collins.

Laz Lopez joins me today to tell his family's story of escaping communist Cuba and achieving the American Dream as a successful business owner in the U.S. In these challenging times, it's just the reminder we need about how precious and tenuous our American freedom really is.

Elon Musk recently labeled NPR and PBS as “government-funded media” on Twitter, angering both organizations. Is he right, and does it matter anyway?For many years, I supported PBS and NPR financially. I just loved their music, movies and documentaries and their news and opinion programs, that while left leaning, were conducted in a civil tone. They at least made token attempts to cover both sides of a debate but things have changed and they are now peddling activism as journalism.  Listen as I unpack this for you in great fact-based detail.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”  63 years ago, a great American, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called out injustice and held America accountable to its constitutional principles. Now there's a new ideology permeating all corners of our society that demands we judge “not by the content of character, but by the color of skin.” 

Inflation and interest rates are inflicting painful damage today. Yet seemingly without notice the national debt is working like a cancer sapping the nation's long-term economic vitality. Whether we reach the “doom loop,” or just become mired in stagflation, unchecked government spending and mounting national debt will drain all growth potential from the national economy sooner rather than later. This is everyone's problem.

I was introduced to Larry Lawton through Congressman Bill Posey's office as someone with a compelling story that can help point at-risk kids in the right direction. Man what a story ! Larry was was one of the biggest jewel thieves in American history who ultimately spent 12 years in prison for his crimes. Upon his release in 2007, Larry moved to Florida and began his career as a successful author, motivational speaker, and You Tuber. He is also the founder of the Reality Check Program that educates at-risk kids on the consequences of a life of crime. Larry is the host of his own very successful YouTube channel that boasts over 1.4 million subscribers. Geez, I wish my audience was that big.   Don't miss this show!

Climate? Guns? Abortion? Equity?  Nope. Listen Up for America's Biggest Issue.

It's been a month since my last podcast where we spoke with Florida Congressman Bill Posey. I've had a lot of family stuff to deal with which I will get to later.  But I wanted to get this out by Memorial Day because it is such a powerful transitional holiday, and I am definitely in a transitional point in my life. 

I am so pleased to have as my guest GOP Congressman Bill Posey who represents Florida's 8th Congressional District. He serves on the House Financial Services  and Science, Space and Technology committees.  Prior to that he served 8 years in the Florida State Senate and 10 years on the Rockledge, FL city council and prior to that, he was the founder of a large real estate company. Having been an entrepreneur, and then elected to all three branches of our American government, makes Bill pretty unusual as a politician. We have read each others books and share a common belief that much more of government should be done at the local level as our founders intended. Join us as we weigh in on all the big issues our country faces, as well a little bonus chat about UFOs!

Ultimately, our freedoms and rights power the innovative culture that makes the United States the most successful political experiment in history. Even with its historical warts, America has improved the living standards of its citizens more than any human culture that has ever existed. Democracy, protection of individual freedoms, harnessing the power of diversity while creating a strong collective identity. These are strengths that China and Russia will never have without a revolution. This makes me optimistic that we still have what it takes to win The New Cold War. We just need the right leaders, united in mission, to galvanize the public into believing in the power of a United States of America. It's been said that politicians only act when there's fire in the living room. Guess what? There is fire in the living room. We can do this!

My guest today was a guest on this podcast about 18 months ago and we talked about how rising geo-political risks threaten the 75-year-old Pax Americana where global domestic product has increased by a factor of 20 times. Well, it appears those risks are now a clear and present danger as Russia has invaded Ukraine.  Not only this, but China has also publicly stated that its partnership with Russia “has no limits.” The challenge to the US as the pre-eminent super-power is not some future event. It's here now and we will unpack this with retired U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, David Hunter.

Dr. Rikki Eriksen is a marine biologist focused on the health of our oceans. She grew up in Florida, living on the water with the amazing marine wildlife. Summers were spent on a sailboat in Denmark with her grandparents and winter school breaks sailing in the Caribbean. As a teenager, she started noticing the marine ecosystem was choking to death and that she had to do something about it. 

The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.  Much of recent American federal government policy seems to fit into this paradigm. Like let's print a  whole lot of money then act surprised when we get inflation.  Or stop enforcing our immigration laws and be shocked when millions of foreign people including criminals, terrorists and those who don't share our values, flood our southern border.  I hope most of would agree that hyperinflation and more drug and sex trafficking on our streets are bad things. And yet policies from the current federal crew are encouraging exactly those things.  I think the rub is that they do not expect different results. They want and expect these results because they think these policies will increase their power. Now that is not insane. All people act in their own self-interest, most of the time. That logic trail traces all the way back to Charles Darwin.  And so it is with our education policy. Our public schools seem to be getting worse, or at least not better. But the cost of the bad performance has outpaced inflation for decades.  Why would we let the same people responsible for our diminishing public schools, be the ones to fix them?  Now that's the definition of insanity.

History repeats and unfortunately, we are on the downhill run of the latest cycle. But remain optimistic because we have a system with a demonstrated track record of success. China has emerged as a powerful rival, but its authoritarian system will remain its Achilles Heel.  Stay vigilant and start thinking about what happens after we get through the coming hard times. And remember, United We Stand, Divided We Fall, Each One for the Other, and All for All. 

Today my guest is Cecil Grant, the host of the new “Changing the Narrative” podcast which you can find on Apple, Pandora and other places. His podcast focuses on issues seen through the lens of a middle-aged African American man who deeply cares about his country and is alarmed by what he sees. He has the moral authority to really challenge bad government policies that hurt the people they are supposed to help. For example, his July podcast entitled, “Gun Violence versus Gang Violence: The Problem in Chicago”, he takes Mayor Laurie Lightfoot to task,  for failing to call out the root cause of gun violence in Chicago which are gangs.  His August 20th Episode, “Remove that Racist Rock!”, takes a fun approach to highlighting how many of our political leaders are enraptured with the false notion that America is an irredeemably racist garden made for whites-only that must be pulled-up root and stem in favor of… well we're not sure yet.

The Biden Administration is busy. Very busy. Busy making sure all we hear about is racial politics, the dreaded COVID Delta Variant, climate change, diminishing our election laws, defunding our police, and turning our schools into indoctrination centers. So I guess it's understandable that they have missed the growing threat that our adversaries pose to our place in the world. China and Russia both hack our companies and government while invading their neighbors with impunity. We are about to reward Iran with a re-start of the sham nuclear deal by the same State Department crew who "negotiated" it during the Obama years. China's Navy is now the largest in the world and Russia just introduced a new Mach 7 missile that completely obsoletes our nuclear defense capabilities. What will we do when China decides to invade Taiwan? Or when Putin decides to take the rest of Ukraine he doesn't already control? Or when any of our adversaries flood their operatives into the U.S. through our porous southern border? I'm not optimistic when I hear our President say that "white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today." I'd fall down laughing if this wasn't so serious. It's obvious to even the casual observer that our adversaries are NOT defunding their police, NOT opening their borders to all comers, NOT focused on climate change, NOT changing their schools which are already indoctrination centers, NOT changing their elections processes because they are already rigged, and NOT changing their military from a fighting force that can actually win wars, into a race-gender-sexual orientation safe space. For anyone that thinks America is a nation of bigots, I would invite them to spend time in China or Russia or just about anywhere else on this planet. It feels like we are living in an episode of the Twilight Zone.My guest, retired US diplomat David Hunter, joins me to unpack all this Geopolitical risk. Hold on to your hats!

Today my guest is Andrew Shelley, author of the book, “American Butterfly”, an excellent exploration of the roots of the American culture wars through the lens of a deep-fried southern fish out of water.  We explore Andrew's transition from a boy born to a conservative southern family to a northern liberal living in Boston and how that has helped him empathize with and find value in the conservative voices that are increasingly shut down in our divided political environment. Don't miss this fascinating dialogue between a liberal and libertarian searching for common ground in America.

Just like e-commerce internet companies in the 1990's, most crypto projects won't succeed. However, the ones that do transform our world. In the last decade, Bitcoin and Ethereum emerged as two of those transformers. If you invested $2000 in ETH five years ago, you'd be retired now. This is because the ETH improvement on blockchain architecture is the platform upon which other disrupters will build their applications. My guest Putnam from Stormborn Partners and I will try to unpack all this and more. Join us!

The fact is that middle ground in America is to the Right of where we are now, not further Left. The pendulum swings back and forth in politics but a razor thin Democrat majority in the House and an equally divided Senate, is NOT a mandate to discard the Constitution and re-do America as a socialist utopia. At best this is going to continue to alienate a least half the country and that is not unity by any definition. Doing what I say, or else, is not a negotiation. I pray that Joe Biden shakes off his obvious cognitive decline long enough to resist his party's worst impulses.

Anti-discrimination laws have historically targeted a company's intent but in 2015, a Supreme Court ruling allowed certain types of outcomes to be considered discrimination even if there was no explicit intent to discriminate. This is called disparate impact and we think this is really bad policy. It has the opposite affect of what our government intends. My guest Werner Kruck talks about how this dynamic actually raises costs and limits choices in the financial services industry for poor and minority folks. There are better ways to address inequities in our country. Join us in this fascinating  “root cause” analysis.

For years, really smart people sneered at Tesla and shorted its stock. Over the past 10 years, all Tesla has done is revolutionize the auto industry, deliver an 18,885 percent return for its shareholders, and make Elon Musk either the richest or second richest man in the world, depending on the day. Bitcoin is kind of like Tesla. Here's what Bill Gates said on 2/27/2018 when Bitcoin was $10,755:“The main feature of crypto currencies is their anonymity. I don't think this is a good thing. The Government's ability to find money laundering and tax evasion and terrorist funding is a good thing. Right now, crypto currencies are used for buying fentanyl and other drugs so it is a rare technology that has caused deaths in a fairly direct way.”Then there is no less an investing legend than Warren Buffet on May 5, 2018, summing up Bitcoin as “probably rat poison squared.”  Gotta admit that is funny. Bitcoin was $8,723. As of this writing, Bitcoin is at $52,314 and is the best performing asset class over the last decade, rising over 9 million percent. We are seeing an increasing amount of buying by large financial institutions and billionaire investors who see it as a great hedge against our corrupt political class and profligate money printing by the Federal Reserve.  Tesla just announced that it will convert $1.5 billion of the cash on its balance sheet to Bitcoin.  That follows other big-time investors like Paul Tudor Jones, Stanley Druckenmiller, Bill Miller and publicly-listed companies Square and MicroStrategy to putting some of the company's cash into Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Mexico's second richest billionaire, Ricardo Salinas Pliego stated that he put 10% of his liquid net worth into Bitcoin. I expect Apple to announce this year that it will convert several billion dollars of its massive cash hoard to Bitcoin.  Don't miss this episode as I dissect all things Bitcoin and Crypto with my guest, Putnam Kling of the exciting new digital asset fund, Stormborn Partners.

Jim brings in his buddies Cecil Grant and Ted Zwijacz to provide an analysis of Biden's unprecedented 50 executive actions from the perspective of "the average Joe American."

I published my book, Locally Grown: The Art of Sustainable Government, in October 2019 thinking that I was at the forefront of a movement to restore America's bottom-up constitutional design and its power to make government more responsive, holistic and sustainable. Silly me. I discovered a couple months ago that Charles Marohn has been turning grassroots principals into real action with his Strong Towns organization for more than a decade.  This is one of my favorite interviews with someone who is a true kindred spirit.  Our bottom-up movement just got a helluva lot stronger now that Locally Grown and Small Towns have discovered each other. Don't miss this thought provoking conversation that will get you thinking about how to get involved in your own community to counter the crazy top-down thinking that has infected our country.

For those of you who have been listening to my podcast and reading my blogs, you know that I periodically focus on making a stronger more sustainable you, by bringing in interesting, smart guests who can help you make money. Last year I had Whitney Tilson to help you align your investments with the macro-trends he sees in the world.  This week I am continuing that effort focusing on you, albeit from maybe a little different direction. My guest, Lyn Alden's investment service, was introduced to me a really smart friend of mine, Dave Baggett who was also a guest on this show.Lyn's background lies in the intersection of engineering and finance. What a great combination. She has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a master's degree in engineering management, with a focus on economics and financial modeling. She has been doing investment research for over fifteen years in various public and private capacities. Her work has been featured in Business Insider, Marketwatch, The Daily Telegraph, The Street, CNBC, US News and World Report, Seeking Alpha, Kiplinger and many other media outlets. You can subscribe to Lyn's newsletter for free at www.lynalden.com, which is how I got started. This led to me joining her very reasonably priced premium membership, where I get access to her model portfolios and proprietary investment research. 

Joseph McCarthy was a Republican Senator from Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, he became the public face of anti-Communism in the midst of the Cold War by using his position as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations to identify communists, Soviet spies and sympathizers that had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. Ultimately, the smear tactics that he used led him to be censured by the U.S. Senate. Today, the term "McCarthyism", is used broadly to mean demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character and patriotism of political opponents.Unfortunately, it seems we are at the beginning of another era of persecution of political opponents, except this time it is a different group of ruling class elites practicing McCarthyism.

Christmas is a joyous time that calls us all to be grateful, enjoy family, and think about others. But there is also no denying the fact that Jesus was a revolutionary who was unafraid to speak truth to power. He had the ultimate skin in the game and that is what all of us need to do more of. Get out of our comfort zones, help our fellow man, speak truth to power and keep the flame of liberty shining bright. My New Year's resolution is to put more skin in the game.

Protests are a form of protected free speech that is vital to our nation. Our founding documents were designed specifically to protect us from  government over reach and tyranny and ultimately recognized the power and duty of the people to resist  that government when it fails us. In his timeless essay "Civil Disobedience", American philosopher Henry David Thoreau exhorts us to get up off our butts and speak out lest we lose our precious liberty. America has a great tradition of using music as a form of civil disobedience.  As a child of the 1970's, I appreciated those songs that spoke about injustice and immorality, whether it was classic rockers like The Who or the punk music of The Sex Pistols and The Clash. Our country finds itself once again in dangerous times and I think a little Civil Disobedience might be in order.

More than 23% of our population is within the education bureaucracy. If that bureaucracy is becoming less tolerant of free speech, how can we expect the adults that emerge from that system to be tolerant of free speech?  As time goes by, it will feel increasingly normal for those adults to become intolerant of speech they don't agree with, and that intolerance endangers our democratic republic.

Those of you who have been listening to me for a while, know that I am a big proponent of de-centralized power. My book, Locally Grown: The Art of Sustainable Government, is all about that. The Constitution enshrines this decentralized power model by giving most power to the states and the people, though we have strayed frighteningly far from that model now.  One of those important state powers is to make and enforce election laws. The result is a hodgepodge of different rules that can vary widely across states. Some states require government-issued ID  to vote while others view ID as racist or discriminatory. It's hard to believe there is such wide disagreement on something like this. Some states, like Georgia, have runoff elections if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, a situation we just witnessed a few weeks ago. A run off election on Jan 5 will decide two Senate seats and thus the balance of power for the country. Like free speech, non-uniform voting rules are not always pretty but the last thing we should be doing is trying to federally regulate any more of our key liberties.  Still, some state voting rules are better than others if transparency and integrity of elections is the goal.  Today my guests are Leslie Swann, the Supervisor of Elections for Indian River County Florida and her assistant Shane Bias. It's clear to me after this discussion that our processes are best practice should be a model for other states and counties.

Well, here we are! It looks like a narrow contested Biden victory. We have three tumultuous months until the “swearing in” on January 20th 2021. What have we learned ? That, we are still a sharply divided nation that has voted for divided government. Feels like Americans are looking for middle ground, not radical change. We have also learned that a few swing states within a few swing counties determine federal elections. Proof that "local" still matters in the power game. Then again, who our next president is matters less, now that we are a entering a brave new world of central bank control that is becoming beyond the reach of our elected leaders. Don't miss this one. 

A few years ago when my son was looking for a summer league basketball team to join, he came across a local AAU team that was really outstanding. He wondered if he was good enough even to make the team. When he inquired, he was introduced to Coach Antoine Jennings who gave him the low down on the requirements for joining his crew.  It wasn't like other AAU teams where you just tried out and if you were good enough, you were in. Crossover was different. In order to play, you had to meet strict personal, academic and tutoring requirements. Marcus had to commit to becoming an academic tutor at the Crossover Mission for disadvantaged kids before he would be eligible to join the team.  When he told my wife and I about it, we were curious. As we learned more, it became clear that their mission was incredible, and we encouraged Marcus to get involved. Before you know, our whole family got involved tutoring kids. It's been a rewarding experience and we have learned so much, not to mention making new friends.  So, it is with great pleasure that I welcome Crossover co-founders Cathy DeSchouwer and Coach Antoine Jennings to our show to tell their incredible story.

I have always found it ironic how spirituality is usually low on the list of priorities when times are good but when times become difficult, people turn to God for hope and solace. Who hasn't said a prayer when something bad happens that goes something like this? “Dear God, if you just help me get through this, I promise be a better person.” Or some version of the great prayer from Saint Augustine, "Lord, help me be good and pure, but just not yet." Like insurance, cyber security and the military, we often don't value God and spirituality until we need it. And God always seems to find a way to deliver. Join me in discussing the weighty issues of who we are, why we are here and how to make sense of difficult times, with Reverend David Johnson, Senior Minister at the Community Church of Vero Beach, Florida. I hope this show helps nourish your soul.

In April of this year, I wrote a blog post entitled “Coronapocalypse.”  Back then, I suspected that the Corona virus pandemic was overblown reasoning that politicians, scientists and the media didn't have enough data and were being super cautious with policy. Six months later, the data indicate that the pandemic is definitely overblown but the reasons for the hype have changed. For months now, certain “health” authorities, the political class and their media hand maidens have relentlessly promoted a fearful narrative about the COVID-19 pandemic as if the daily count of new cases were a major public health emergency.  If we have learned anything in the past eight months, it should be that that lockdowns have questionable benefits that are hard to prove, but they impose huge economic, health and societal costs which everyone can see for themselves. The notion that we can just close schools, businesses, churches and sports venues—with the unemployed being compensated with printed money—until someone develops the magic vaccination and not suffer huge consequences is as whimsical as the idea that if California bans fossil fuels, its wildfires will disappear. The financial and emotional stresses that come from lockdowns are harmful to both physical and mental health and the evidence is all around us.

This one is an exciting deep dive into the future of work, the raging Cyberwar, Big Tech friend or foe and game planning for the outcome of the 2020 election. Join me as I dig in with two really smart and successful guys. Serial tech entrepreneur Dave Baggett and  S&P 500 C-suite executive and Lockheed Martin board member, George Bailey.

As promised,  I had Whitney back to talk about a mutual passion we have: Public Education Reform.  But before we get to that, we talk about what the betting odds are for the November 3 elections and how to plan your investments for that outcome. Jim and Whitney are joined in a lively Q& A, by seven of Jim's subscribers, that includes sales and financial professionals and school teachers. Don't miss this one.

In this epic time in our history when the country seems so divided, we all need to take a deep breath and recognize a great American life.  She was born Ruth Bader in Brooklyn, NY in 1933 of a Russian Jewish emigrant father and a Jewish mother from Brooklyn. Her first taste of hardship came early when her mother died the day before Ruth's high school graduation. She went on to attend Cornell University where she met her husband Martin Ginsburg who she married a month after graduation in 1954. She gave birth to her first child a year later while working for the Social Security Administration as her husband was a new Army officer at Ft. Sill Oklahoma. In 1956, Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard Law School, where she was one of only nine women in a class of about 500 men. The Dean of Harvard Law reportedly invited all the female law students to dinner at his family home and asked the female law students, including Ginsburg, "Why are you at Harvard Law School, taking the place of a man?"

I love movies that start at the end and work their way back.  One of my favorites, Pulp Fiction, is Quentin Tarantino's magnum opus. It's a black comedy based around the criminal underworld of Los Angeles. It weaves several stories together and presents them in a non-linear story arc. The opening scene takes place in a diner, where a couple are discussing their business of robbery over lunch. They decide that the diner they are at is perfect for their next job; a conclusion that doesn't play out until the very end of the film. At the end of the film, the couple's attempted robbery of the diner is brought to a halt when they demand that Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) hands over a briefcase he is guarding at his table. Of course, the importance of this briefcase is featured throughout the film, resulting in an intense finale between Jules, Vincent (John Travolta) and the thieving couple. Suffice it to say, the couple does not leave with the briefcase, but they do leave with their lives. And a little money courtesy of Jules, the shepherd.There are other great movies that start at the ending like American Beauty, Pan's Labyrinth, the 1979 musical Quadrophenia by the Who, and the classic Forest Gump.  There is a poetic simplicity in getting right to punchline, or most of it, at the beginning so the audience knows right way what they are dealing with.  It's the hook.  In that artistic spirit, I begin this blog near the end, leaving enough room to postulate a couple of different endings in the future. I deviate from my normal “just the facts” approach to paint a dystopic near-future presidential election story that seems outrageous. This is an experiment so hang in there, as the story winds through fact, fiction and a surprise ending that will blow your mind.

As is the case with several topics in my book, voting is proving to be an issue that is front and center in our politics right now.  Our country is divided, and elections are close.  The difference between winning and losing a Presidential election often comes down to a few thousand votes in a relatively few counties. Of the more than 120 million votes cast in the 2016 election, 107,000 votes in three states effectively decided the election. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania account for 46 electoral votes. Trump won PA by 68,236 votes, WI by 27,256 votes, and MI by 11,837 votes. Those 107,000 people represented 0.09 percent of all votes cast in the election. This was only the fourth time a President was elected without winning the popular vote. Both the electoral college and the US Senate were created by the founders precisely to prevent the tyranny of a few densely populate states from dominating the government. Donald Trump won about 80% of the land mass in the United States despite losing the popular vote. The 2020 electoral map is likely to look pretty similar to 2016 regardless of who takes the White House.  This doesn't bode well for America's future.

Whitney Tilson is the founder and CEO of Empire Financial Research, which provides advice, commentary and in-depth research and analysis to help people become better investors. He is a Harvard alumnus both as an undergrad and as an MBA.  Prior to launching his investment career in 1999, Mr. Tilson spent five years working with Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter studying the competitiveness of  inner-city companies which led to the founding of ICV Partners, a private equity fund focused on minority-owned and inner-city businesses. Before business school, Mr. Tilson was a founding member of Teach for America and then spent two years as a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. Whitney is an avid mountaineer and has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Blanc, the Matterhorn, the Eiger,and the Nose of El Capitan. He also regularly competes in obstacle course races, including the last four 24-hour World's Toughest Mudders, winning the 50+ age group twice. Whitney and I met in Jackson Hole in March  skiing  with our kids.  Whitney and I cover a wide range of topics including a cost-benefit analysis of COVID shutdowns, investing for either a Trump or Biden win in November, his friendship with Warren Buffet and the life lessons discussed in his new book due out later this year.

Today my guest is Retired Colonel Scott Caine who is running for the Florida 8th Congressional seat. As a fighter pilot, Scott's stellar military career included more than 3,400 flying hours, and culminated with his final post as Vice commander of the 9th Air Force, where he led more than 29,000 military men and women. Scott is a long-time resident of Vero Beach Florida with his wife Pam with whom he raised 3 grown children.  I had Scott on my show last month where I met him for the first time. Since then I've been following his campaign and must say I'm quite impressed. To the point where he has my vote and I urge anyone living in the Florida 8th Congressional to vote for him as well. You can learn more at www.caineforcongress.com.  While we are blessed with a pretty good Representative in Bill Posey, I think it's time we have the Scott's brand of proven leadership and his his deep foreign policy and military knowledge that will be invaluable as we meet the challenge of a rising China.

In June, I did my annual salmon impersonation and swam upstream from FL to my spawning grounds of New England.  During my visit, I spent some time with dear friends in Peterborough, NH and discovered a new book in “the throne room” that their son was reading. It was Anti Fragile by Nassem Taleb. Initially I thought it belonged to my friend John but I was impressed to see his son was the owner.  I read one of Taleb's previous books, the best-seller The Black Swan and it was pretty darn good, so I bought a copy and dove in.  What I found was a more elegant explanation and confirmation of some of the key concepts in my own book, Locally Grown: The Art of Sustainable Government published in 2019, six years later than the 2012 Antifragile. Little did I know it but I was recognizing the same evolution of our society towards fragility and away from antifragility. Spoiler alert: This is not a good thing. The book left enough of an impression on me that I wanted to share some of its insights and how they apply to building better government and better economic outcomes for each of us. 

I thought I'd take a break from our focus on rebuilding America through more powerful state and Local Government and talk about US Foreign Policy.  Foreign policy is one of the few enumerated powers our Constitution gives to the federal government. After WW2, The United States emerged as THE preeminent superpower as its military guaranteed free and open sea lanes and relative peace on the planet, in exchange making the US dollar the global reserve currency. For 75 years the world has lived in a Pax Americana where global domestic product has increase by 20 times in that tenure. However, now this peace seems to be under threat as some countries are becoming more reluctant to cede more of their sovereignty to global institutions, and China is challenging the US as the preeminent super-power.Today I have someone with the experience to help us sort this all out.  Retired US Diplomat, David Hunter served in South Korea (1992-96), India (1996-99), Ukraine (1999-2000), Pakistan (2001-02) and Spain (2003-04).  In 1983 he was a Visiting Fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS),  Johns Hopkins University.  He published a book in 1991 "Western Trade Pressure on the Soviet Union.  He holds a Masters Degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics , an MBA from the Crummer School, and a BA from Emory University.  

Today I am continuing my string of interviews with local leaders with Tim Zorc who is currently serving his second term as a commissioner for Indian River County Florida.  Tim continues what his family started over 100 years ago as a Realtor, Consultant, Builder/Developer and Elected Official. From his family's initial purchase in 1914, the property grew to over 10,000 acres with operations such as Lazy “K” Ranch and Kerr Gift Fruit Company. As a real estate developer Tim and his family have built hundreds of homes and commercial buildings.  Tim and his wife Laura are local philanthropists and foster parents and help other families foster children.  He and his fellow commissioners are responsible for overseeing over 1,300 employees and an annual budget of more than $300 million.  Tim's current focus includes the following: ·       Environmental and economic development plans for all of Indian River County·       Pilot projects to help clean up the Indian River Lagoon and Bethel Creek ·       A 12-point economic development plan to help create new jobs in the county

Colonel (Retired) Scott Caine is a 30-year veteran of the United States Air Force as a fighter pilot, and culminated as Vice commander of the 9th Air Force, where he led over 29,000 men and women. His service included deployments to Europe, Asia and the Middle East which shaped his understanding of the strengths capitalism and freedom provided in our great country. With the rising threat of homegrown Socialism, Communist China reaching into our institutions, and our crushing national debt, he is stepping up to make sure America does not lose sight of the founding principles and values he defended for 30 years. Scott Caine is running for Congress to be a strong advocate for our Constitution, the free market that powers our economy, and strengthening our military; all so America maintains our standing as The World Leader.

We are so pleased to have our guest Brian Barefoot with us today. Brian has one of the most distinguished careers I've seen in a long time. Not too many folks graduate from college, have an incredibly successful business career, then return to their alma mater as President. Brian did exactly this with Babson College outside of Boston, MA. In between, he had a long career in as an C-level executive in financial services at Merrill Lynch and Paine Webber. He was also CEO at NeoVision Hypersystems, a technology firm that invented “heatmaps” until its sale in 2001. Brian currently serves as a board member of a blockchain start-up, a banks and two investment funds. As if that's not enough he has served on the board of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and our own Cleveland Clinic Indian River Medical Center Foundation in Vero Beach, FL. He served as mayor of Indian River Shore, FL from 2013-2018 and, finally, he is running for school committee here in Indian River County. You can't get more Local than that.

Today I am finishing a 2-part series on the principles I believe should drive good government policy that I discuss in my book, Locally Grown: The Art of Sustainable Government. Last week we talked about two main principles that act as the limits or boundaries within which everything else happens. They are Sustainability and Adherence to the US Constitution. If policy is unsustainable, like endless printing of money, then it will eventually cause hyperinflation and collapse the economy. If a policy is unconstitutional, such as open borders, then hundreds of millions of immigrants will flood into the country, overwhelm the social safety net and destroy the meaning of citizenship. These are common-sense principles that most American citizens understand. This week I talk about other core principles for good governance, including Promoting Work, Simplification, Harnessing Excess Capacity, Growing the Double-Bottom Line and electing Negotiators, NOT Ideologues. You can subscribe to my podcast at Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Spotify, BuzzSprout and Stitcher.

Today I talk about the principles that underpin the concept of Locally Grown Government.  The first two are the most important because they act as the limits or boundaries within which everything else happens. They are Sustainability and Adherence to the US Constitution. I think the structure of the Constitution was designed to be sustainable. It has allowed America to adapt to changing conditions while still remaining mostly true to the principles of bottom-up government and primacy of individual freedom. However, the flexibility of the Constitution also provides enough room for bad policy to be implemented that could ultimately tip the balance away from sustainability. It seems to me we are at that tipping point.  After the first two principles, we will go into more depth about other important principles that would guide policy making.

Jim brings in two of his smart buddies from different sides of the aisle, for a civil discussion about the charges of systemic racism within our nation's entire police force. We dive into an analysis of the recent civil unrest to determine whether the root cause is actually systemic racism or poverty.  In contrast to both sides of the aisle screaming at each other, we search for middle ground despite our differences.  Listen in to find out what we agreed on as a root cause and the good middle earth policy ideas we suggest to fix what ails America.

How do you think about your status as a citizen of your hometown, your state and the United States?   So how do you think about your “Local?”  I think for most folks, this is a new question.  But our Constitution requires that we think about it because it spreads power among those three levels of government, where we pay taxes and live by the respective laws. The beauty of the bottom-up government our founders created, is that it embraces the commence sense fact of diversity. We are a huge beautiful nation that contains people of all races, and cultures and faiths who, like my grandparents, immigrated here for the same reason: Freedom and opportunity. They were leaving countries with less freedom and opportunity.