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
Episode 2245: Is it really "not hard" to be a billionaire these days?
Episode 2244: Tim Wu on how to decentralize capitalism
Episode 2243: Nick Bryant on why Trump 2.0 is as historic as the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Episode 2242: Ian Goldin on the past, present and future of migration
Episode 2241: Gaia Bernstein on the Threat of AI Companions to Children
Episode 2240: Ray Brescia on how our private lives have been politicized by social media
Episode 2239: Frank Vogl on why Trump's financial deregulation is likely to lead to another global economic crash
Episode 2238: What to make of J.D. Vance's speech at the Paris AI Summit
Episode 2237: Matthew Karp explains how progressives can successfully bulldoze America
Episode 2236: Colum McCann and Dianne Foley on what a mother said to her son's ISIS executioner
Episodes 2235: Jeffrey Toobin on whether we all deserve second chances
Episode 2234: Walter Mosley on Easy Rawlins, King Oliver and the history of fictional black American detectives
Episode 2233: John Kay on why (almost) everything we are told about business is wrong