[Editor’s Note: This edition of the Economic Prism has been published in years past to coincide with the Independence Day holiday. The themes explored within grow more relevant with each passing year. We are republishing it with several light updates. Enjoy!]
Time and place
The days are long and hot in the Northern Hemisphere, and true American patriots spit on their hands and raise their red, white, and blue. On the Fourth of July, free and brave people stand on their own two feet, reluctantly accepting the federal holiday allowance of duty and self-sacrifice. Rugged individualism and uncompromising independence are essential to their character.
With purpose and intention, they gather in a joyful crowd along the coastline to celebrate American independence. Freedom-loving people, descendants of Andrew Jackson, gather to eat hot dogs, throw horseshoes, and drink corn syrup and fermented grains. As the sun disappears beyond the western horizon and the stars twinkle brightly, they hoot and holler at the spectacle of fireworks and sparkling fireworks.
These festivals prove that even in an age of big government, there is still a time and place to enjoy the virtues of representative self-government. Of course, anyone is welcome, as long as their vehicle is registered, their income tax paid, and their documentation, including up-to-date vaccination records, is available.
Liberty. Liberalism. Independence. Limited representative government. Sound currency. Private property rights. Rule of law. A humble and respectful public. Avoidance of foreign entanglements. Rafting the Mississippi. Creedence Clearwater Revival. Trim your waist.
In fact, these ideas have disappeared from our daily lives like a horse-drawn plow over the past century. Sadly, the Republic was gone long before Elvis took his last pill. The net that Washington cast has been entangling the earth ever since. There is little that can be done to avoid being caught in that tangled web.
But why ruin such a magical day?
Instead, let’s go back to the not-so-distant past and add to the magic. To a magical time and place—before Homeland Security, Facebook, Google, iPhones, and contact tracers tracked your every move. To a time when freedom was a little freer. And when currency devaluation was a little more subtle.
creative destruction
The boiling point in politics, business, and popular culture often goes beyond what seems like a whirlwind of warning. Then, in a short period of time, a revolution explodes the status quo, extinguishing it. Only later does it become clear that the pot had been boiling for years or even decades before it exploded.
In the early 1990s, Hermosa Beach scrub freestyle skater Steve Rocco took a huge hit on the corporate skateboarding industry. With a meager budget financed by a predatory loan from a shark named Kirby, Rocco quickly took down what are now three of the fattest, most aging skate companies.
In a classic case from Joseph Schumpeter, “A storm of creative destruction” He revolutionized industries and subcultures.
In the late 1980s, the big skate companies capitalized on the popularity of vert ramp skating and took the sport out of reach for the next generation of skaters. In order to protect their marketing investments for many of their sponsor pros, the big skate companies acted as gatekeepers, blocking new talent from entering the professional ranks.
Rocco exposed what had become an elite industry through design innovation, relentless effort, and insightful parody. In the blink of an eye, the old-school products were outdated, the brands were outdated, and the pros were lacking. The traditional skate companies watched their sales plummet in a short period of time.
Street skating, accessible to all children with a board, has replaced vert skating as the leading sport, and Rocco’s company, World Industries, has capitalized on this better than any other company.
Breaking through the Great Wall
Then, in late 1998, Rocco and five other partners sold their 70% stake in World Industries to SPC, a private equity group. The company was valued at $29 million at the time of the sale. Rocco retired to Malibu before his 40th birthday, but retained his financial stake in the entire company.
documentary, The man who breathed soul into the worldHe shows you how. In less than 90 minutes, for free, you’ll learn more about entrepreneurship than any fancy business school can teach you.
Rocco’s creative disruption of the skateboarding industry opened up the sport to a new and much larger cast of hungry kids. World Industries opened the doors to many new skater-owned and -operated companies through partnerships and distribution deals. This really opened the floodgates to a massive wave of energy, urgency, youth, creativity and anxiety that hit the industry in wild and unpredictable ways.
For example, Plan B, founded in 1991 by Mike Ternasky (RIP), was formed under a distribution deal with World Industries. Ternasky’s vision was to sponsor the most talented skaters and create a super team that would actively push the boundaries of what was physically possible.
Matt Hensley, Rodney Mullen, Danny Way, Colin McKay, Rick Howard, Mike Carroll and Pat Duffy have all changed the sport at an almost incomprehensible pace.
Many inexplicable tricks have been dreamed up and successfully executed by Plan B skaters. The team’s creativity, excellence, style, elegance, and ‘go big or go home’ mentality were best demonstrated on July 9, 2005, when Danny Way, after suffering a devastating slam on his first attempt the day before, landed a huge 360 degree aerial flight over the Great Wall of China.
The Great Wall has not been successfully destroyed since Genghis Khan in 1216.
Red, white, blue
But what’s the point of all this? Or, more appropriately, what does Steve Rocco, World Industries, Danny Way, or anything like that have to do with Independence Day and the colors red, white, and blue?
Frankly, this has more to do with American independence than eating a hot dog and downing a can of beer on the beach.
The U.S. economy, and by extension the world economy, has reached a boiling point. There is no going back. You can see it. You can feel it. You can hear it. You can smell it. You can taste it.
Government planners and strategists are currently lining up a tired plan to be deployed at the moment of maximum panic: economic patriotism, universal basic income, modern monetary theory, trade wars, total currency destruction, travel restrictions, central bank digital currencies, social credit scores, World War III, and more government control and erosion of freedom and liberty.
But these plans will not fix what is to come. Moreover, these central planners’ programs will only make things worse while flattering extreme populism.
So, in keeping with the American tradition of freedom, free will, and independence, do as Rocco did. Create something new, and make it by your own rules.
A centralized nationalist government could ultimately confiscate every last dollar you earn, but with a little luck, you “A storm of creative destruction” It’s like a tornado in the Midwest that’s destroying the status quo.
Wishful thinking? Maybe.
But it might be worth a try for Independence Day in 2024.
[Editor’s note: It really is amazing how just a few simple contrary decisions can lead to life-changing wealth. And right now, at this very moment, I’m preparing to make a contrary decision once again. >> And I’d like to show you how you can too.]
thank you,
MN Gordon
For Economic Prism
Back to the economic prism in red, white and blue
