EP 390: Context Clues: Is a recession inevitable?

Show Notes

How do you prepare your small business for economic ups and downs? Is a recession inevitable? And what even is a recession? In this episode, unpack why the economy cycles through periods of boom and bust. I also demonstrate how a similar cycle is at play in the online business space. And I offer some strategies for making sustainable business decisions—no matter what happens with the economy.

Footnotes:

• Gates of the Arctic National Park
• Caribou population cycles
• Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Sea by Bathsheba Demuth
• Beargrass
• Mast fruiting
• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• “Are recessions normal?” on Make Me Smart
• Economic cycles on Investopedia
• Spotted lanternfly and tree of heaven
• Timothy Snyder on the Ezra Klein Show
• “The best of all possible worlds” from Candide
• A history of recessions in the 20th and 21st centuries
• Rana Foroohar on the Ezra Klein Show

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What is What Works?

"Work" is broken. We're overcommitted, underutilized, and out of whack. But it doesn't have to be this way. What Works is a podcast about rethinking work, business, and leadership as we navigate the 21st-century economy. When you're an entrepreneur, independent worker, or employee who doesn't want to lose yourself to the whims of late-stage capitalism, this show is for you. Host Tara McMullin covers money, management, culture, media, philosophy, and more to figure out what's working (and what's not) today. Tara offers a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to deep-dive analysis of how we work and how work shapes us.