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
The Blood Years, then and now: Elana K. Arnold on book banning, book burning and what we can learn from Second World War books about good and evil
Disorder, Disorder, Disorder: Jason Pack and Alexandra Hall Hall order our disordered world
Is peace there for the taking? Jason Pack on Israel, Gaza, the Middle East and beyond
The All American B***h: Evelyn McDonnell on Joan Didion's artistic sensibility and moral clarity
Why politics needs to be relegated to its proper place: Alexandra Hudson offers timeless principles on how to heal society and ourselves
Claudia Goldin, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize for Economics, on women's journey to close the gender gap
The Myth of Progress: Erik J. Larson on Silicon Valley's failure to change anything of any significance since the Fifties
My Bath with Hitler: Kenneth Rendell on safeguarding history at a time when fakers are much smarter and more creative than their victims
The Human Tragedy and Political Shame of America's Mass Criminal Supervision System: Vincent Schiraldi on probation, parole and the illusion of safety and freedom in contemporary America
Iron Man, Ant-Man and our relentless thirst for parasocial super heroes: Joana Robinson and Gavin Edwards on the reign of Marvel Studios
The Right Female Stuff: Loren Grush on the story of America's first six female astronauts
Should environmentalists be utopian? Dickson Despommier imagines the perfect 21st century city
From Suicide Notes to Every Star That Falls: Michael Thomas Ford on 15 years that changed the world of teen mental health and sexual identity