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
Are You Drowning in Work? Nick Sonnenberg on how to reduce clutter and enable productivity
Do Women Make Better Murderers Than Men? Ren DeStefano on female serial killers and why she suspects everyone might have a murder in them
Great Kingdoms of Africa: John Parker Liberates African history from the colonial narrative of oppression, suffering and powerlessness
Hallucinations, Guardian Angels and The Third Man: Dr Ben Alderson-Day on the strange science and true stories of the unseen other
Keen On Keen: Andrew Keen on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, ChatGPT4 and the general state of tech in 2023
Appropriating the appropriators: Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai on why female novelists like herself should appropriate the voices of men
As the Crisis Deepens: A rather miserable Keith Teare on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and our lack of trust in ideas and institutions
Horror Literature as a Form of Realism: Leopoldo Gout on the living dead who layer Mexico City
Grasping at the Realities of Today's Banking Crisis: Brad DeLong on the new economic laws of our social media age
The Case for Cultural Appropriation: Martin Puchner on how culture is simultaneously owned by nobody and by all of us
Beijing 1949: Elisabeth B. Armstrong on the most consequential anti-colonial feminist conference that you've never heard of
How to Walk the Walk: Neil Gross on three police chiefs who defied the odds and changed American cop culture
Has World War One Ended Yet? Alice Winn on innocence, privilege, violence, sexuality and love in 1914-18 England