As we head into the final stretch of the presidential election, no topic will frame the outcome more than the momentum of our economy. Recent data suggests the economy is at an inflection point in terms of inflation, wages, and productivity.

As we’ve often pointed out, one of mankind’s most fundamental problems is that economies need population growth to sustain prosperity, at a time when governments struggle to provide infrastructure while sustaining the planet.

In a January Vistage Trends webinar, Vistage Chief Research Officer Joe Galvin asked Optimize President Marc Emmer what he considered the number-one geopolitical threat in the world today. Marc answered, “our enemies ganging up on us.”

If you want to understand why things are as they are, listen to the Freakonomics episode with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. This post is a recap of his illuming narrative about the new world order.

Let’s face it, economists are often wrong. But why has their calculus about inflation been so fundamentally flawed? Why is the current form of inflation so persistent?