“My ask of you in reading this note is that we make an effort to hold several conflicting ideas in our heads at the same time. Like, for example, that the American socioeconomic system desperately needs fixing after decades of venal corruption from (mostly) Democratic but (also) Republican Administrations AND there is an underlying global system worth preserving that gives the United States enormous privilege, wealth and freedom of action in the world. Or, for example, that there’s no reason to doubt the authentic intentions of Donald Trump and his Administration to improve the position of the United States AND their economic policies can have the unintended consequence of blasting the underlying global system to smithereens, making it impossible to achieve their goals. It’s really not easy to hold all of these ideas simultaneously! Every bit of party propaganda from the left and the right, every big voice on social media, everyone wants you to give yourself over to a single idea of party purity and ignore everything else. But it’s just not true.
The truth is that the United States became as sclerotic and bloated under Joe Biden as the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev, and that Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and its obscene cover-up made the United States government a global patsy and a domestic feeding trough. The truth is that our border policy was stupidly permissive. The truth is that we really do need to eliminate vast swaths of the Federal bureaucracy and the Christmas tree funding programs that always grow and never shrink. The truth is that a Department of Government Efficiency is a really good idea.
AND the truth is that the purpose of government is not efficiency for efficiency’s sake. AND the truth is that the quality of mercy is not strained and neither is due process, so that justice may be sure but never cruel. AND the truth is that spending money to curry political favor abroad through CIA USAID programs is a lot cheaper and a lot more efficient than sending in the Marines, AND is a lot more profitable than seeing the Chinese take our place in the world.
AND the truth is that we have three co-equal branches of government, where the unconstitutionality of a President ‘vetoing’ Congressionally-authorized spending programs through Executive Order is well-settled law. AND the truth is that government debt isn’t like our own personal debt, so that we can’t go broke as a nation AND we’re nowhere near having a budget crisis AND we have the strongest, most vital economy in the world AND we can still grow our way to a more equitable prosperity without breaking a global system that works so formidably to our advantage.”
He stands out among a few who agree the why behind what Trump is doing but reject the what and the how. Ben shows why a unipolar world with America at the helm, often referred to as Pax Americana is good for both America and the world and yet Trump is undermining exactly that.
- “Pax Americana is the Bretton Woods monetary system and the Plaza Accords and the SWIFT banking system and the unquestioned dominance of the USD as the world’s reserve currency.
- Pax Americana is the NATO alliance and the Pacific Fleet and CENTCOM and the NSA and the unquestioned dominance of the US military as the world’s security arbiter.
- Pax Americana is the American brands, American universities, American entrepreneurialism, and most of all the American stories that have dominated the hearts and minds of everyone on Earth for the past 50 years.
- Pax Americana is the ability of the United States to set the rules for every coordination game in the world. The rules of trade, the rules of intellectual property, the rules of money, the rules of culture, the rules of war … all of those rules were made by us. Only by us! And in return we gave the rest of the world two things: global peace (pretty much) enforced by a blue-water navy with force projection capabilities anywhere in the world, and unfettered access (pretty much) to the buying power of the American consumer.
- The United States has seen more than 300 million citizens lifted into the highest standard of living in the history of the world, as we have exchanged intangible things like services and the full faith and credit of the US government for tangible things like oil and semiconductors and food at an unimaginable scale.
- The world has seen more than a billion people lifted out of crushing poverty, mostly in China and India but everywhere else, too, as the capacity to make tangible things has shifted permanently (yes, permanently) from West to East.”
- “The unipolar moment of American military dominance becomes a multipolar scrum of regional spheres of influence and diminished global security.
- The US dollar becomes a choice, not a necessity, and debt issuance on everything and everywhere – not just by the US Treasury – becomes more risky and expensive.
- Global growth and productivity become permanently diminished versus their potential.
- Highly efficient but non-robust systems, both economic and political, break. Not all at once, but slowly. And then all at once.”
If you want to read our other published material, please visit https://marcellus.in/blog/
Note: The above material is neither investment research, nor financial advice. Marcellus does not seek payment for or business from this publication in any shape or form. The information provided is intended for educational purposes only. Marcellus Investment Managers is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and is also an FME (Non-Retail) with the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) as a provider of Portfolio Management Services. Additionally, Marcellus is also registered with US Securities and Exchange Commission (“US SEC”) as an Investment Advisor.
