Dr. Anthony M. Criniti IV is known as a major disruptor in the science of finance, having revolutionized the field’s entire academic foundation. His bestselling book The Necessity of Finance is a must read for anyone looking to educate themselves about this timely topic. Criniti is called “Dr. Finance” for a whole host of reasons including his innovative and vision perspective. A native of Philadelphia, Dr. Criniti is a professor at several universities, an active investor in various marketplaces, an explorer, a financial guru, a survivalist, and has traveled around the world studying various aspects of finance.
Today we are excited to sit down with the man himself to find out the real deal surrounding the financial aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic
Given the fact that you are an expert in this arena, how could we have effectively resolved the Great Pandemic from a financial perspective?
Well, first and foremost, the best way to resolve any pandemic is to have planned on how to quickly get out of one long before it ever happened. The past twenty years alone have given us so many examples that should have forced us to prepare for something like this including SARS, the Swine Flu, Ebola, and Zika. At the national level, the United States could have had a much more sophisticated plan and a larger emergency reserve of necessary resources immediately available (for example, masks and ventilators) for its medical teams and its civilians. This single act could have shaved off weeks, if not months, from the time that we have been in quarantine and saved tens of thousands of lives. We knew this day would come eventually, but we were unprepared. Frankly, there are no excuses.
The point above demonstrates what finance is about: preparing to maximize your wealth, not just for the present moment, but for the future. Consequently, it is important to plan to minimize or eliminate all potential risks that you might encounter in the course of your life. When you apply this concept to countries, it is called “economic planning” and is crucial for the safety of all of its citizens.
Now that we are hopefully moving into reopening mode across the country, what lessons can we take away from the Great Pandemic?
I think the greatest lesson that the world is learning during The Great Pandemic is something that I have been teaching for years: economics and finance are vitally important subjects. Every day we watch medical experts on the news share their opinions about Covid-19 and how we should stay in and shut down our businesses to avoid spreading the virus. After several months of focusing on only medical specialists, it is no wonder that our economy is breaking down. What about the death count from the Financial Coronavirus (Financial Covid-19)?
A country in dire economic struggle with record breaking unemployment levels is what it took for the masses to realize that you should be listening to expert economists and financialists equally or more than the medical experts for a situation like this. As I rightfully concluded in my first book The Necessity of Finance: “Every individual, group, organization, and country (in the case of economics) in modern civilization needs money, and consequently wealth, to survive” (Criniti, 2013, p. 45). Money is absolutely necessary to live in today’s world, so learning about it ranks to the highest order of scientific knowledge. You should be more afraid of a bad financial planner than a bad medical doctor. A medical doctor can kill you, but a financial planner can kill you while you’re alive. If you lose all of your money, you may walk around this planet for the rest of your life in a state worse than death.
To find out more head over to Dr. Criniti’s website.
