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 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-benefits analysis of COVID shutdowns, investing for either a Trump or Biden win in November, his friendship with Warren Buffet and the life lessons discussed 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.

Today I 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.

For 75 years the world has lived in a Pax Americana where global domestic product has increase by 20 times. Now this peace seems to be under threat as some countries are becoming more reluctant to cede 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.

I am continuing my string of interview 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 in over 100 years ago as a Realtor, Consultant, Builder/Developer and Elected Official. From that his family's initial purchase in 1914, the property grew to nearly 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.

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 bank 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.

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.

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 actual 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.

You are a citizen of your hometown, your state and your country. 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.

Like many Americans this past week, I watched in horror as protests and looting spread across America in the wake of the brutal police killing of a black man that was captured on video—shocking scenes that have come atop a once-in-a-century pandemic and a Depression-like economic slide. The officer responsible for killing him faces at least third degree murder charges and will likely spend many years in jail. But it is clear now that there are thousands of organized activists coming from other states to incite riots. They seek to tear down existing political and social structures and replace it with something else with their folks in charge.  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

comes along and teaches us yet again that it is in charge and can change the world overnight. We went from the best economy in decades to a global pandemic that is threatening to usher in a global depression. Where do we go from here?

For the past half-century, the U.S. has more than doubled spending on nearly the same number of public school students and has made no progress in the basic mission of education. More than 60% of students still are not proficient in reading and math after nearly 50 years of continuously increasing spending. Let that sink in for a moment. Unfortunately, education at all levels in this country has become quite politicized and, from teachers to administrators to politicians to parents, we are all guilty of tolerating this level of underachievement.

Jim lays out the purpose and vision for how Americas can reestablish it’s roots as a middle ground country and seize control back from career politicians who only seek more power. He explains how our country’s federalist infrastructure is vital to a sustainable, effective government.