2025 as the New 1925: Will Crypto be Trump's Teapot Dome Scandal?
Might 2025 turn out to be the new 1925? In other words, are we currently in the Roaring Twenties and on the brink of another Great Depression? This historical analogy, according to the Financial Times’ chief economics commentator Martin Wolf, isn’t entirely fanciful. Economic history doesn’t exactly repeat itself, Wolf acknowledges, but it has a rhythmic quality. We are living, he suggests, in a “slow-motion” interwar moment. And while FDR is Donald Trump’s mirror image, perhaps the most similar President to Trump was Warren Harding whose administration was deeply tarnished by the Teapot Dome scandal. Crypto, Wolf suggests, might turn out to be Trump’s Teapot Dome. And 2026, Martin Wolf warns, might turn out to be significantly more turbulent for both the US and global economies than 2025.
Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Martin Rees on the Limits of Science: Why the Universe Might Be Too Complex For Humans to Ever Understand
Michael Stein on Accidental Kindness: A Doctor's Thoughts on the Importance of Empathy
John A. Farrell on How Ted Kennedy Became a Great Man When He Was Most Distanced From the U.S. Presidency
Mae Ngai on The Chinese Question: Gold Rushes, Migration, and the Global Politics and Economics of Race
Cody Keenan on Ten Days in June: On a Pivotal Moment in Barack Obama's "Battle" for America
Daniel Drache: Has Populism Won? Must Democratic Politics, on Both Left and Right, Be Populist Now?
Orly Lobel: Can Digital Technology Can Be Harnessed to Realize Equality, Inclusion, and a Brighter Future?
David Sax: Why, If We Want to Create a More Human World, the Future Must Be Analog
Jonathan Clegg on Messi, Ronaldo, and the Radical Remaking of the World's Game Over the Last 20 Years
Katie Hickman on Neither Heroines Nor Villains: The Brave-Hearted Women Who Settled the American West
Joseph Sassoon on A History of the Sassoons—One of the World's Great Global Merchant Families
Becca Andrews: How the Destruction of Roe v. Wade Undermines Fundamental American Rights
Vladislav M. Zubok on the Soviet Union Might Be Dead, But the Consequences of Its Disastrous Collapse Continue to Haunt Us