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
Exposing Hollywood's most notorious interwar celebrity spy
What chance peace in Israel?
How to write a #1 global bestseller
How Tucker Carlson's Putin interview captures today's "new, new media" revolution
Uncovering the world's mightiest (and tiniest) narco-state
in defense of cultural liberalism
Do nations have psychologies and can they experience collective trauma?
After Rape
Born in Blood: Scott Gac explains why violence is the defining feature of American history
Can the American university survive the 21st century? Nicholas Dirks explains why American universities need to reinvent themselves in our winner-take-all age of social media and AI
How to Win the Global Battle to Power our Lives? Ernest Scheyder on the new economic war between China and the West to control critical minerals like lithium, copper and cobalt
Why Scientific Truth Might Be Infinitely Weirder Than Scientific Fiction: Mike Chen on "A Quantum Love Story"
Should Elon Musk have publicly visited Auschwitz? Keith Teare on Musk, X, Instagram and the breakdown of civility in our social media age