In this episode I have the privilege to talk with “the doer” Pablo Bustamante. The man who innovated finance and helped move Peru’s informal sector into the middle class. In this 26 min video podcast, recorded in the spirit of untold stories that drive change, Bustamante shares how Peru emerged from a collapsed state and 25 years of economic turmoil to build one of the most dynamic middle classes in Latin America.
He recounts how a generation of doers, working both inside and outside institutions, sparked a quiet revolution. From designing the return of consumer credit to helping unlock property rights for hundreds of thousands of informal families, Pablo helped reshape how finance worked for the people.
We talk about informality not as a problem, but as a parallel economy with massive potential, and how it took vision, innovation, and persistence to bring it into the formal fold. This is the story of how the market didn't just take care of it: people became the market.
Time Stamps:
3:34 – Peru’s 1968 Autarchy: 25 Years of Economic Meltdown and Hyperinflation
6:15 – Vargas Llosa’s Heroic Vision: Pablo Joins the Fight to Transform Peru
6:38 – A New Beginning: The 1993 Constitution and Economic Reintegration
7:33 – Reimagining Credit: Pablo Designs Consumer Lending for All
9:40 – Rebuilding Trust: Legal Reform as the Foundation for Investment
11:26 – Property Rights Matter: Understanding and Tackling Informality
19:00 – Financial Inclusion: Innovating for the Informal Sector
20:10 – The Long Game: 7 Years to Convince the World Bank
24:00 – Peru Today: A Country of Opportunity
Today, we sit with globally influential economist Charles Calomiris at the foothills of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, to discuss the foundations of economic development. In this 20-minute video podcast, Calomiris draws on decades of research and policy advise on economic equilibria, and international finance to deliver a compelling reality check on why secure property rights are the bedrock of development!
He explains how informality traps millions in poverty, why organizations often fail to deliver on paper promises, and how trust, leadership, and long-term vision can break entrenched cycles of corruption.
We discuss how the Reality Check Analysis (RCA) framework, a practical tool for identifying the real levers of meaningful and lasting reform.
Time Stamps:
1:10 Who is Charles Calomiris.
1:35 Has capitalism failed?
4:59 We used to have poverty now we have growing informality 70% and growing. Why? Why are economists confused? Why are Property Rights important?
6:47 The mission of the Development Organizations IMF and World Bank.
8:25 They have become the slush fund of the G7 finance ministers.
11:01 Brazil - The transformation
13:13 How should leaders operate in order to achieve irreversible change.
15:00 Peru – The growth of its middle class.
16:50 Democracy today is often clientelist. What is a corrupt equilibrium and how Property Rights help change it.
18:58 Greece – look around at what works and learn from it.
21:53 Reality Check Analysis RCA – keeps decision makers sober to create Trust.
In this 10-minute video podcast, renowned political scientist Francis Fukuyama — in his characteristically eloquent and succinct style — offers a sharp reality check on why informality continues to persist around the world. He unpacks how weak institutions, lack of trust, and structural barriers shape informal systems, and recognizes the concept of Reality Check Analysis (RCA) as a pathway toward lasting institutional change.
German elections are coming up. In our first episode we check reality with Jörg Luyken. We wonder how the crumbling of the Middle Class can affect elections.Jörg is a highly respected Berlin based journalist known for his spot on analysis of German Government and politics. He writes at thegermanreview.de We meet by a remaining piece of the Berlin Wall and we wonder if the divide actually is still alive, yet invisible.
2:58 why is middle class shrinking; why Germans vote increasingly for AFD
4:47 people give roughly ½ of their salary in taxes
6:00 rise of precariousness, of informality, yet it’s the no1 destination for refugees
8:00 housing crisis why?
13:43 rise of homelessness an invisible growing problem
20:37 Gov’t moves 100BE every yr from the State budget to the pension system – yet poverty among pensionaries is very high
22:33 bureaucracy is at its highest level – said Gov’t auditor
26:45 what has caused the rise of the AFD; what establishment parties have done for Germans to consider voting for AFD