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
Why Being a 'Good Woman' Is Making Women (and Men) Miserable
The Haves and The Have-Yachts: Evan Osnos Explores the Minds of the Ultrarich
The Vampire Economy: How Private Equity is Sucking the Blood out of the American Dream
The Company That Ate the Web: Google's Quarter Century Journey from Bridge Builder to Web Destroyer
Long Live the NO KING: An Anti-Fascist Handbook on How to Resist Trump
An Existential Threat to American Freedom: Spike Cohen on Donald Trump's Betrayal of Libertarianism
American Fascism: If You Close Your Eyes It Won't Go Away
Postmodern Patrimonialism: Trump's Everything-Everywhere-All-At-Once Strategy as a Venture Capital Model of Politics
Beyond Left and Right: The Libertarian Vision of Freedom in America
The Empire Strikes Back: Karen Hao on OpenAI as a Classic Colonial Power
We Get the Non-Fiction We Deserve: From AI Empires to Wokeness Critiques to a Year Without Sex
Everything Is Possible, Nothing Is Inevitable: Why AI Might Be the Ultimate Scarcity Trap
The Prophet of Fake News: How a 1920s Thinker Predicted today's Trump vs Musk Farce