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Think Well, Think Different is a series of columns devoted to discussing trends in fintech, both from the consumer and founder points of view. Click here for previous columns.

For the last few years, we have heard that the establishment is under threat. Challenges from minority political ideologies, democratizing technology platforms and innovative employment and financial relationships.

Heres a nonexhaustive list of some of the major political, consumer, and societal trends that have lead us to where we are today: Tea Party, Uber, Occupy Wall Street, bitcoin, Facebook, Tyler Perry, Paypal-Venmo, rise of Square, Netflix, Airbnb, Spotify, Black Lives Matter, Twitter, Amazon, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Tesla, #MeToo, Instagram, and finally, global pandemic, COVID-19.

It is not important to identify when these challenges began, but the key question is what happens next.

CEOs, investors, and politicians all try to predict where business/consumers/voters are headed (the third group significantly more poorly than the first two). Its pretty much the whole job. Steer the company, the fund, the country in the right direction while operationalizing the ability to react and respond as needed.

There was a time when it appeared the challengers had the establishment on its heels. Remember when Bernie Sanders was leading the Democratic Party primary to a potential run against Populist President Donald Trump. It seems like ages ago now, but it was only a few weeks ago. Trump, still President obviously, appears to be headed for a general election against establishment stalwart Joe Biden...assuming, that is, we have a General Election in November. Only kidding. Sort of.

The starts and stops of how the Challengers will upset the establishment go back well beyond the recent examples above. For a time, the gig economy was going to revolutionize how we work. The insurgency was decoupling work from singular W-2 employment with one employer.

Prior to the 1980s, success was found comfortably within the establishment of corporate America. Not only did working for the same company for ones entire career offer stability, but the company paid for retirement as a defined benefit (DB) to long-term employees. Here in Detroit, it is not uncommon to meet people whose father worked for the same auto manufacturer for 40 years (and, in some cases, that is the same company where the familys grandfather worked as well).

Starting in 1980, the proportion of private wage and salary workers participating in DB pension plans fell from about 40% to 20%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Though we spent the 2010s assuming it would be gig economy workers or freelance workers that defined the next 10 or more years of work, the increase in those workers, defined by a primary income source, did not materialize. Perhaps more salaried workers took on a second or side job, but between 2005 and 2015 the number of gig workers stayed relatively consistent at 5% of workers, at least based on tax filings.

Similarly, the threat of fintech on big banks has been framed as an attack on the establishment. In fintech, however, there have been more serious threats than those posed by gig workers on corporate America. Technology platforms connecting users with providers more efficiently have improved access and, in some instances, lower costs.

Certainly, peer-to-peer payment platforms saved time and money over the previous system of reconciling checks, removing cash from ATMs or simply owing someone $20 indefinitely. At the same time, direct deposits never really lost control over the primary source of cash. Cryptocurrency challenged central banking. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple offered alternatives to a sovereign currency and international money transfer, but regulators have pushed back.

The push and pull of establishment and insurgency is American history in many ways.

What makes 2020 different is a third threat. A true disruptor to everyone establishment and Insurgent alike.

COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, has everyone rethinking work, home, and even love. Thinking about COVID-19 in the context of a disruption makes sense because it demands we rethink how we do just about everything. From within our businesses to within our lives, everyone is asking the same question. How much will change after the COVID-19 threat subsides?

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For instance, a threat of this magnitude could scare consumers (and voters) back to safety, safety in the establishment. At the same time, a threat this fundamental to who we are and how we live could inspire consumers (and entrepreneurs) to take more chances. After all, life is short.

More than likely these choices will not be binary. It is wrong to prepare for EVERYTHING to change or NOTHING to change. The hard predictions (or bets) are which things stay the same and which change. As you evaluate your business and start to plan for the future, one helpful framework for trying to prepare for whats next is to consider the establishment or the insurgency? There is security in the establishment. There is energy in the insurgency.

Just as Donald Trump proved in 2016 that the insurgency can win (and take over the establishment), the COVID-19 crisis response might empower (and inspire) customers and creators alike to break free from traditional corporate America. Banks may find that customers move to fintech platforms or nonbank lenders more easily, especially if the perception is that the bank is not responsive or attentive during the crisis.

On the other hand, banks (even old traditional ones) that rise to meet the consumers need for flexibility and leniency may win back customers who had started to stray. In moments of crisis, many people look for comparisons. One common comparison I heard from financial services companies this week was lets use the policy we did after 9/11.

Right now, your customers are working from home, and, unless you are a hospital or a grocery store, your team is working from home too. It is said it takes anywhere from 22-28 days to form a new habit. Many of us are halfway there. What habits are your customers forming? How will your team and your business respond?

Step one watch the technology, market and social media trends over the next few weeks. Indicators on risk and anxiety will inform whether most people are looking for safety or an escape.

Step two offer small tests. Marketing and messaging are sensitive areas right now. As the crisis (hopefully) subsides, use discreet offers or, if possible, A/B tests to get a sense how customers might react differently when the restrictions are lifted.

Step three react quickly. The longer the work-from-home recommendations and social distancing protocols last, the greater the likelihood of changes from the pre-COVID-19 market. When you begin to gather insights and see consumer trends take shape, be early and slightly wrong (and adjust) than late and exactly right.

Theres no historical example from our lifetime to compare to this moment. One advantage we have is information. Historically, the establishment had the information. Today, the insurgency has the same information, a voice, and a stage. The true test is not whether the establishment is invincible, but whether the insurgency or the challengers will be able to overcome this threat to stability and emerge more capable. And if so, what will that mean for you, your products, and your business?

Photo byRyoji IwataonUnsplash

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2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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Think Well, Think Different: How Will COVID-19 Disrupt The Establishment? - Yahoo Finance

In 2009, the last time Washington aimed a trillion-dollar firehose at the distressed U.S. economy, the president, a Democrat, repeatedly coupled that act of temporary profligacy with the rhetorical aim of long-term budgetary sobriety.

"One of the central goals of this administration is restoring fiscal responsibility," Barack Obama asserted back then. "Even as we have had to spend our way out of this recession in the near term, we've begun to make the hard choices necessary to get our country on a more stable fiscal footing in the long run."

There were plenty of reasons for contemporaneous skepticism about Obama's claims, but even insincere nods toward a presumed virtue can contribute to a mild braking on vice. Policy battles over deficits, debt ceilings, and old-age entitlements dominated national politics through the end of 2013, and not merely because of then-ornery, now-quiescent Tea Party Republicans. Erskine Bowles, after all, was a Democrat.

But the twin rise of President Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (IVt.), along with the strains of populism they channeled, chased deficit hawks to the despised corners of polite society by 2015. After that, the main questions left were how many zeroes would end up on the federal check when the next crisis inevitably hit.

George W. Bush's Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of October 2008 came with a $700 billion price tag. Add in Obama's $833 billion American Recovery and Reinvestmenty Act in February 2009, and we're talking a bailout/stimulus combo of $1.53 trillion, or $1.84 trillion in 2020 dollars.

By comparison, the bipartisan stimulus that was very temporarily held up by the near-universally despised Rep. Thomas Massie (RKy.), totals around $2.3 trillion, according to the bean-counters at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Even accounting for population increase (the U.S. had 307 million residents in 2009, around 331 million today), that's an inflation-adjusted per capita increase from around $6,000 11 years ago to $6,950 today.

How much is $2.3 trillion? In nominal terms, it's the same as the entire federal budget for Fiscal Year 2004. Adjusting for inflation gets you back to the federal government's $1 trillion outlay for 1987. Inflation and population together take you back to 1974. In short, Congress just approved a bailout/stimulus of $6,950 per person, which is more than the $6,600 per person in constant dollars that the entire federal government spent in Richard Nixon's final year in office.

The accumulated national debt in 1974 was $475 billion, or around $2.5 trillion in today's money ($11,700 per U.S. resident). George W. Bush inherited we-owe-yous of $5.67 trillion (which adjusts to $8.52 trillion and $30,200 per capita), and left for Obama a present of $10 trillion ($12 trillion/$39,600). As Trump readies his black sharpie for the rescue package, the debt clock stands at $23.6 trillion ($71,300 per person)and it was being goosed by trillion-dollar annual deficits even before COVID-19 hit the fan.

And unlike Obama in 2009, Trump doesn't currently feel the need to even rhetorically hint at future tradeoffs. The president reportedly said in late 2018 about any future fiscal crisis: "Yeah, but I won't be here." Add in the likelihood of future bailouts and stimuli, and basically we're all Modern Monetary Theorists now.

The annual budget deficit, which snapped an entire generation of conservatives into attention when it crossed the $1 trillion threshold a decade ago, is likely to top $2 trillion before the fiscal year is out. The Government Accountability Office and Congressional Budget Office were calling the country's long-term fiscal outlook "unsustainable" back when the good times were still rolling. Now revenues are taking a massive hit, demand for government service is going through the roof, and the U.S. Mint's going brrrrr.

Libertarians back in 2008-09 tended to make four types of predictions about the bailout/stimulus. Onethat the unpredented swooshing of cash and Federal Reserve intrusion into the economy would trigger long-dormant inflationdid not come to pass, and so many policy enthusiasts have taken that as a cue to ignore libertarians.

But there were three other forward-looking objections to socializing the failures of deep-pocketed losers during the financial crisis: that the ensuing debt load would unduly dampen the eventual recovery, that failing to fix the underlying government distortions that caused malinvestments in the first place would make bailouts an eternally recurring phenomenon, and that papering over problems with money would create new, even more dangerous bubbles.

With today's Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Congress has cemented what we already suspected: that the federal government does not care about learning from directly relevant mistakes it made in the recent past.

There is no more politics of fiscal prudence in America, just a competition to see who can wag the biggest firehose. While the bodies begin to pile up in New York City and elsewhere, Washington has responded with a massive course of experimental economics. May we respond better than rats in a cage.

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How Much Is $2.3 Trillion? More Than Even Obama Could Imagine - Reason

The 73rd annual Travel Goods Show was held in New Orleans on March 4 and 5, which seems like an eternity ago. During the show, I took a temporary break from the news amid the comforting rows of rolling luggage, racks of neck pillows and community of travelers whose pulses also rise over soap containers and portable coffee presses. In the midst of so much uncertainty, the products were reassuring and hopeful: One day soon, we will be speed-wheeling through international airports and sleeping fitfully at cruising altitude. And when that day comes, we will need to stock up on the latest gear and gadgets not pasta and antibacterial wipes. Over the two days, I picked through 20,000 products pitched by 130 exhibitors from 20 countries. (The virus prevented 20 Chinese companies from attending.) I inspected contraptions that made me wince, such as sleep aids that resembled instruments of torture, and others that I enthusiastically welcomed into my life and my luggage. Here are my top discoveries:

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Keeping insects away: Wearing bug spray is hardly fashionable, but neither is scratching like a dog infested with fleas. To bring some panache to an outdoor imperative, Pang Wangle founder Jennifer John infused permethrin, an insecticide blessed by the World Health Organization, into a line of garments. "Insect Shield was created for the military," she said, "but we're putting it into pretty clothes." The line includes an infinity scarf ($48); the Optimist Pant, which resembles leggings ($64); and a wrap ($58) in four colors: sandshell, rust, faded denim and black. John, a New Orleans resident who frequently battles bugs in a steamy environment, plans to introduce a linen pant with more air flow. The repellent lasts for more than 70 washings and deters a host of bugs, including mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers and midges, also known as no-see-ums. The clothes are stylish: Imagine Eileen Fisher dressing a remake of "Out of Africa." I also conducted a deep sniff test and inhaled the comforting scent of natural fibers, including organic cotton, silk and fibers made from eucalyptus and beech trees. The scarves won't cover all of your exposed parts, so you will need to loop and layer creatively.

No more soggy soap: My soap storage routine is shameful. I usually start the trip with a bar in a plastic bag and end with a sliver wrapped like a Halloween mummy in toilet paper or tissues. So I was beyond excited to find Matador's FlatPak Soap Bar Case ($12.99). The lightweight waterproof pouch is constructed out of a fabric called welded Cordura that allows the bar to dry without leaking or creating a slimy mess. After washing, simply slip your wet (!) soap into the sleeve, fold down the roll top and snap the buckle enclosure like a troll-size dry bag. You can decrease the size of the container as your bar diminishes, then expand it when it is time for a full-size replacement. The company also makes FlatPak Toiletry Bottles ($12.99) for more liquidy substances. Simply transfer your toothpaste, shampoo, lotion or other goopy product from the larger bottle or tube to the pouch using the wide-mouth opening. Then squeeze out your daily amount through the small hole in the cap. The item can hold up to three ounces, the magic number anointed by the Transportation Security Administration. Be sure to write the contents on the white label, so you don't end up brushing your teeth with conditioner.

Hold the phone: BendyMan needed a strong woman to help carry his load and light the way. Walter + Ray complied. Like her rubbery male counterpart, BendyWoman ($10) works multiple jobs. For example, she can hold a smartphone or tablet in her lap, illuminate dark surroundings with her button eyes, and use her limbs as hooks for bags, hats and dangling cords. Of course, BendyCouple have their limitations. They can't, for instance, reliably carry your hot chai or coffee through the airport. For these moments, the California company launched the Trolley Partner ($15). The heather gray luggage accessory has three pockets: two spaces can hold a cup or water bottle, and a third is sized for a smartphone or documents. The ultralight item wraps around the handle of a rolling bag like a cummerbund, and the Velcro closure prevents jiggling and spills as you race to your gate. However, Tania Rodrigues, the company's founder and designer, reminds beverage-swilling travelers to "put a lid on your coffee and a stopper."

Squeeze your luggage: TheRollink Flex Vega 21 won the Innovation Award for best new luggage plus the Buzz Award deservedly so. As someone who just returned from an expedition cruise to Antarctica with her mother and her rolling bag, I can't overstate the need for collapsible luggage in small spaces. The carry-on, which will become available in June ($89), features a polypropylene hard shell with fabric sides, up to 11 gallons of storage space, two wheels, a retractable handle, a side pocket and several color choices. Standard stuff, until you break it down: The bag compresses to two inches in thickness. I am terrible at spatial challenges, so I was the perfect guinea pig for this test. After a quick demo by Eyal Azoulay, the Israeli company's chief executive, I stepped up to the table. I unzipped the bag, pushed in the soft sides and watched it come crashing down like a house of cards. In its slender state, the bag could slide under a bed or squeeze into a narrow closet, out of toe harm's way.

A portable chair: If you suddenly need a seat maybe you found a perfect patch of lawn in Paris or happened upon an engaging busker in Nashville pull up Standley's Leanbag ($89). The Danish-designed backpack transforms into a lounge chair: Attach the padded seat to the clips on the bottom edge and pull out the aluminum frame, which fits snugly against the bag's sides when not in use. The bag is sturdy, unlike many stadium chairs. At the New Orleans show, I pushed my full weight against the frame, and neither seat nor seated toppled over. The backpack, which comes in camel, black or burgundy, shares the same utilitarian chicness as Sweden's Fjallraven Kanken backpack. But all of Standley's products hold a little secret inside: an inscription to "Watch More Sunsets than TV." Whether that sunset is in the sky or on your laptop, which slides into its own padded sleeve, is not specified.

Vanity on the go: Trust me, a hotel or cruise bathroom mirror is not a true reflection of yourself. Your skin is not wan; your eyes are not jaundiced. Blame the lighting, not last night's second martini. To look your best, Riki Loves Riki created Riki Colorful ($80), a miniaturized version of a Hollywood star's bulb-trimmed vanity. The portable mirror closes like a clam shell and pops into action with three dimming settings and a magnetic tray that allows you to curate your makeup kit, so you don't have to bring your entire toolbox. With the depotting device (heart-shaped, of course), remove your chosen palette of eye shadow, blush, foundation or other cosmetics and place the smaller squares and circles on the magnetic tray. If the individual sections do not have a metal backing, affix one of 20 magnetic stickers. If your cruise ship hits a wave or your travelmate accidentally topples your Riki, your makeup will stay put. The mirror also comes with a USB cable, rechargeable battery and velvety case for clandestine touch-ups.

Stay safe, in style: Welly starts with a stackable metal tin, a reusable, recyclable and retro material that puts plastic to shame. Then the company fills the palm-size container with items critical for non-911 medical emergencies. The Quick Fix Kit ($6.99), for example, is stocked with eight colorful fabric bandages in two sizes, plus three single-use antibiotic ointments and three hand sanitizer packets. If you're more accident-prone, upgrade to the Human Repair Kit ($8.99), which increases the first-aid supplies to 30 bandages, two kinds of ointments and six hand sanitizers. When it's time for a refill ($3.49), turn your cuts and scratches into a fashion statement with decorative bandages featuring such whimsical motifs as monsters, eyeballs, unicorns and rainbows.

Embrace compression socks: At the SockWell booth, which seemed cool enough to sponsor a roller derby team, I realized how wrong I had been about compression socks ($26.99). I learned that everyone, not just folks with vascular disease, should don a pair. That I should wear them not just for long flights but for extended hours of walking, standing and sitting as well. That they come in different heights, from knee-high to ankle. And that the style choices are no longer "ugly and uglier," in the words of Emily Yann, a national sales manager. SockWells are made of merino wool grown in the Rocky Mountains and bamboo rayon, which help manage moisture and keep your foot and shoe drier. Yann recommended moderate compression for short-haul flights and firm compression on lengthier trips but left the design decision to me. She showed me dozens of patterns and colors, including some that sparkled. I was drawn to a hot pink pair with a chevron pattern, proof that I was an enlightened compression sock-wearer.

Tea, please: Coffee drinkers seem to receive all of the attention and inventions from the travel industry (see the AeroPress Go Travel Coffee Press, which won Best Use of Technology and appeared in Travel's 2019 holiday gift guide), while tea-sippers are left holding the soggy bag. But no more. Lightload Puer Tea's sampler pack ($6.99) is a tiny peridot box filled with five bricks of Camellia sinensis that was harvested from the high mountains of China's Yunnan province. The slabs of compressed leaf tea are as small as a square of chocolate and can fit in a wallet or pocket. When tea time rings, break off a piece for a personal-size mug or drop the whole 5-gram portion into the pot for gallon tea party. Disciples of the "leave no trace behind" ethos can do exactly that with a big gulp.

Stay untangled: Logan Bailey, founder of Fuse Reel, found his inspiration inside his university library in Utah. Not in the stacks but on the study tables, amid a spaghetti tangle of chargers. His mission was to tame the cables. Two years ago, he came out with the Side Winder ($26.99), which organizes a Macbook charger with a simple snap of the case and the wheeee! of the wheel. He eventually expanded the line to cover the entire Apple oeuvre, including earbuds and chargers for iPhones and iPads, called the Snap Back (from $9.99), and his latest release, the Watch Side Winder ($11.99). With all of the products, you can charge your gadget while it's housed in a Fuse Reel, but the Apple Watch's has an additional amenity: a docking station. You can also shorten or lengthen the cable distance between machine and outlet, so you won't be the traveler who trips other passengers with your lifeline.

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At the annual Travel Goods Show, plenty of pack-worthy products - Brownwood Bulletin

Former Rep. Bob Inglis has seen this movie before.The economy racing toward calamity. Time running out to save it. A massive stimulus bill pitched as the only way to avert catastrophe, but the politics around it less certain.

In the South Carolina Republicans case, it was the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, the $787 billion rescue package that passed in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis.The message to Congress then was as clear as the one coming from the White House today as the coronavirus threatens the physical and financial health of the nation: Vote for the massive spending bill or watch the American economy go up in flames.

It was just really bad at the time, we had to do something, Inglis said in a phone interview Tuesday.He remembered local community bankers imploring him to support the bill, warning him ATMs could fail by that Monday morning.Other trusted advisers warned the entire banking system could collapse if he voted no. All the people with pitchforks downtown were saying, Burn it down, tear it up. But I remember knowing I just had to do it, he recalled.

The people with the pitchforks were local tea party activists, who railed against the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, embedded in the bank rescue. They quickly dubbed Inglis Bailout Bob after the vote.

Two years later, the tea partiers backed Inglis GOP primary opponent, county solicitor Trey Gowdy, who defeated him in a runoff by a landslide.Ingliss good friend and fellow Republican, Rep. Gresham Barrett, suffered a similar fate. Although Barrett had been the front-runner in his race for South Carolina governor, his eventual support for TARP served as powerful ammunition in the Republican primary, which Barrett lost to a lesser-known state representative named Nikki Haley.

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He voted for a stimulus and lost his seat. And he says he'd do it all again. - Roll Call

Voltaire has been quoted as saying, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Why do I open with this quote? Because I think it is necessary to remember this quote when trying to analyze the quality of the coronavirus past, present and future responses and actions. No one has done perfect but there has been a lot of good.

People have complained that the Trump administration did away with the office of Global Pandemics. Others argue that is was folded into another branch of Homeland Security. Either way, what difference, in the long run, did having it or not make considering the rapidity of this pandemic? What would have been done differently, if anything?

China lied and didn't share what was necessary for the rest of the world to take appropriate and early action (assuming the world would have any action earlier even if they knew all the facts earlier). Other similar infections seemed to be similar and were self-limited (SARS, MERS, H1N1, Ebola) and didn't require a worldwide shut down before disappearing.

The Chinese Wuhan city and Hubei province were locked down on Jan. 23 due to the rapidly spreading virus. One week later, President Trump imposed a travel ban for those coming from China. He was severely criticized at the time. Would anyone now think he was wrong? He quickly also imposed other travel bans from areas of the world that had coronavirus infections. Bold moves that may have saved the United States from quickly becoming overwhelmed with newly infected people because they caught it from international travelers.

Thousands and tens of thousands in China, South Korea and Italy were being tested for the coronavirus. I've yet to understand how and where they got all these testing kits so rapidly for testing a brand-new virus. The U.S. is being criticized for not having this immediate testing ability. I'm not sure where the holdup was but again, so what? With so few Americans having the virus because we were protected from foreign visitors with infections, we essentially lost nothing in the way of safety for not immediately being able to test people. Since the only therapy was quarantine and since almost no one at the time had the virus, not having the testing kits changed nothing. Now that we have the kits and time has passed, we are seeing the numbers go up and taking necessary precautions and actions.

So, what are the necessary precautions and actions? The same exact things we should have been doing for all viruses such as the flu. Wash your hands frequently, avoid sick people, if you're sick stay home. Viruses pass people to people. If you're not around people, you don't get it or pass it on. Now the federal government and some states have made the above recommendations either mandatory or strong suggestions. I anticipate these actions along with warmer weather (flu disappears beginning around this time of the year) will dramatically and quickly decrease the number of new cases over the next few weeks. Also, if the new treatment with hydroxychloroquine and Zithromax proves to be effective, the death rate from this virus will dramatically decrease and this will immediately help people become less fearful of this virus.

In the future, some will argue that these draconian measures taken against the virus were unnecessary. Since so few people in the United States died of the disease (compared to the tens of thousands that die yearly of influenza), that the government's response to the virus was excessive and needlessly caused a financial implosion (recession or a depression). And it is possible they are correct. Yet, the smartest and most respected medical minds in this country and others forecast that if these measures had not been implemented, millions here and abroad could have died. We may never know who was right but I personally would side on saving humanity and people.

And finally, the U.S. government is trying everything they know to financially stabilize the economy due to this massive economic shutdown. Hopefully what they are doing and trying will be correct and sufficient.

I doubt if everything that has been done is 100% correct or even beneficial. I don't know what else could have realistically been done that would have made a difference. But as I started this opinion piece, "Don't Let The Perfect Be The Enemy Of The Good."

Dr. Jack Sternberg is a retired oncologist and past chairman of the Garland County TEA Party.

Editorial on 03/27/2020

Print Headline: 'Perfect is the enemy of the good'

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COLUMN: 'Perfect is the enemy of the good' - Hot Springs Sentinel