Civil war, inflation, food: Lawrence Mattock

What is it like to watch your money get inflated by more than a billion percent?

Lawrence Mattock was a child when the Rhodesian Civil War began. During this interview we discuss what it was like to be a soldier, life after Robert Mugabe came to power, obscene levels of inflation, and a cultural food company Lawrence has built from the ground up.

In this clip Lawrence discusses what it was like to learn that his savings and future earning potential were being inflated.

In this section, Lawrence talks about a food company he has started during his retirement years after spending a lifetime traveling through some of the toughest places in Africa.

Banker Rita Kuster

Rita Kuster is the Chief Credit Officer for Saint Louis Bank, a community bank. For full disclosure, I met Rita because I am a member of the board of directors- which is how I knew that she has a special way of describing banking that makes it relatable.

During this interview, Rita describes her biography starting at a “banker’s bank,” becoming a regulator at the Federal Reserve Bank in Saint Louis, Missouri, and then being a banker during the financial crisis. She took a new position at Saint Louis Bank as the Chief Credit Officer and after working with her for over a year I was grateful that she was willing to sit down with me to discuss banking.

Rita discusses the challenges of preventing “Too Big To Fail” banks, how a person can get a loan, and the weird things she knows bankers have repossessed when a customer couldn’t pay their loan. Rita is very open in this conversation- offering opinions that are well thought out and not heard very often.