I have been reading a lot of older writing, both fiction and nonfiction and it has shown me how cyclical history is with the issues that occur, and I genuinely think that the fact that Gen Z and young people in general are not familiar with history aids this defeatist attitude that we are in a doomsday scenario. I’ve been reading a lot of Salinger as well as the reviews and critiques on him from his time period and came across the Angry Young Men’s movement which was literature published in the 1950s about working-class men who express dissatisfaction about their social and political standing through excessive anger and sarcasm— essentially a timely version of what a lot of young men are doing now. This is all to say that the lack of knowledge of our past has led to the Gen Z response of antisystem because they believe this is the first time the systems have failed people when in reality there is always and will always be rift and change. I believe that the merging of entertainment and news is what initially led to a lack of knowledge on history as we began to know everything that has happened in the past 24 hours but nothing of the past 60 years—Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman was a great book I read that touches on this as well. Loved this post!!
This is a really good explanation of some of the challenges facing the US today. As a 29 year old, I really sympathize with the folks going into college/graduating college, and expect to see investment into AI squeeze job rates for the age group you mentioned. Not to mention implications on student debt bubble. There does seem to be an undercurrent of hopelessness, because the mechanisms that used to work for driving progress forward through targeted government investment don’t really seem to work and haven’t seemed to work for over 20 years. Even the CHIPs Act had clear issues. Not even sure where to start on tackling that, the initiatives you mentioned are good investments for the future in building a more critical-thinking culture around the digital, but I’m not sure how we translate that to real-world.
Very wise beyond your years. Thank you for a comprehensive, factual, analysis of today's troubling times for everyone in the USA below billionaire status.
I have not read a more clearly stated analysis of the administration's economic policies. In addition, you address important, but often overlooked issues, such as institutions, trust, and critical thinking. I hope Gen Z can find faith in themselves and the future. Thanks
> And to be clear, there is power in bringing manufacturing back to the United States. We desperately need another Bell Labs and another DARPA.
Neither of these are manufacturers though. They are research labs. They benefited greatly from access to engineers and manufacturing experts e.g. DoD would consult with Bethlehem Steel for new alloys. I wouldn't say no to more research labs, but it's very different from having industry that makes it work commercially, at scale.
To restore trust it is vital that institutions—and the people managing them—behave in a way that inspires trust. Your point in Warren Buffet is revealing. We need more leaders that are prepared to act with courage and integrity. The way that many institutions and people (from Columbia to Bezos) are submitting to pressure is very dispiriting. But there is a better way.
I’d love to hear more on uncertainty and its relationship to business.
America has been one of the best places to do business because of its consistency. Economic policy changes have usually been slow and predictable from administration to administration and from the Fed (ie forecasting rate changes). This reduces risk for companies when they invest large amounts in big projects. Now what do they do?
Why would Ford or any other large manufacturing business invest a few billion into building a new factory in the USA to avoid tariffs when this administration flip flops hour to hour, day to day? Or do they just wait 4 years for a new, potentially stable administration? Or do they just leave the US and invest in a country with more stable economic policy?
Love your analysis thank you. As others comment here, China however is not all roses yet. Their strengths and problems are the inverse of ours. Amazing state sponsorship for innovation and education. Terrible track record at fostering and sustaining organic profitable growth. For every Baidu, Alibaba, and Deepseek, there are thousands of empty housing developments and bridges to nowhere. And Xi has a history of disappearing entrepreneurs that injects a different kind of market uncertainty.
I think to your point our only hope is building back trust. Question is what it will take to elect leaders we believe have our back.
Good stuff. More heterodox than typical biz perspective. I'd recommend a pinch of skepticism about Louisiana's education miracle. Also, pitting deregulation/globalization against protectionism is a phony binary perpetrated by private capital. The "vibes shift," probably fashioned as response to your "vibecession," wants to hype unfettered markets as the friend of freedom, liberty, innovation, democracy, and prosperity, and state regulations and taxes, gov, the enemy. My bet would be it is a losing hand vis-a-vis China and just another rationalization for austerity, nothing new at all, and more techno-delusional than techno-optimist. Yes, of course, we should invest in AI and the gov should guide that investment; towards democratic and environmentally sustainable goals. We should NOT be expecting AI to solve all that stuff after we've gotten there by any means necessary.
I appreciate your nuance as this really being a series of trade-offs.
Immigration - Fewer resources are more valuable than highly skilled people coming to America who pay into the tax pool and take very little from it. But, the expense of this, as Eric Weinstein and other academics have pointed out, is the suppression of wages for US citizens.
Housing - Post WWII, we have been incentivized to think of housing as one of the key components to wealth creation / stability. (Incentives = interest tax deductions + Gov't Agencies which pseudo-guarantee mortgage backed securities) This has led to capital being invested in a home instead of a more productive asset. And, what happens when a group of people have a bunch of value in a particular asset? They protect its scarcity by impeding the building of new homes. I really feel for young people in this regard today.
US Dollar - The fact the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency is both a blessing and a curse. The US Treasury Bond market is one of the deepest and most liquid financial markets in the world, primarily because we have so much debt : -) I remember early in my career, a client wanted to purchase Norwegian Gov't Bonds. I was told the trader only came in a few hours a day, a couple of times a week because Norway had so little sovereign debt outstanding! Because we are the world's reserve currency, the Dollar is consistently overvalued versus others and makes our businesses less competitive abroad.
China... Eh, I am not sure China's recent equity market performance is a sign they're more "progressive" in their policymaking than the US. I think it was just 2022 when China last cracked-down on the country's technology sector and the accompanying wealth it was creating.
Trade - Your point using China's "state owned" ship building industry is a perfect example of trade-offs. How should economies that rely mostly on the private sector for financing compete with countries that use state resources to provide a cheaper cost of capital? I am not saying tariffs are the right answer (mostly they are not) but the broader point is a more fair playing field for US (and in this case other countries ) companies to compete abroad.
Abundance - I really enjoyed Thompson and Klein on Bari Weiss's podcast as well. Honestly, I was more struck by the similarities of their ideas and Vance's speech at the a16z conference than the differences. There's an ideology here that can and should be embraced by both sides of the aisle as a way to create things. (Reminds me of the Peter Thiel quote, "We wanted flying cars and instead we got 140 characters.")
I thought I was the only youngen who couldn’t get a job… I’m a recent UK Econ graduate, first class degree, and was rejected by every single entry level minimum wage job for the last 6-months. Thank god managed to find my niche and get something sorted last week, but it really is sparse out there. Friends I’ve been speaking to in the same position are saying it’s taking 6-9 months to get a job, and most can’t even get work at a bar because last years grads are still occupying all those jobs…
I don't know why you cherry pick DOGE cancelling cancer research but yet omit all the billions of dollars of fraud and waste they have already saved. They aren't going to get everything right, but if you want taxes to go down then we need to eliminate the insane amount of government waste
I have been reading a lot of older writing, both fiction and nonfiction and it has shown me how cyclical history is with the issues that occur, and I genuinely think that the fact that Gen Z and young people in general are not familiar with history aids this defeatist attitude that we are in a doomsday scenario. I’ve been reading a lot of Salinger as well as the reviews and critiques on him from his time period and came across the Angry Young Men’s movement which was literature published in the 1950s about working-class men who express dissatisfaction about their social and political standing through excessive anger and sarcasm— essentially a timely version of what a lot of young men are doing now. This is all to say that the lack of knowledge of our past has led to the Gen Z response of antisystem because they believe this is the first time the systems have failed people when in reality there is always and will always be rift and change. I believe that the merging of entertainment and news is what initially led to a lack of knowledge on history as we began to know everything that has happened in the past 24 hours but nothing of the past 60 years—Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman was a great book I read that touches on this as well. Loved this post!!
Good commentary as always. Thanks for doing this and trying to make sense of the current moment and where we may be going
thank you!
This is a really good explanation of some of the challenges facing the US today. As a 29 year old, I really sympathize with the folks going into college/graduating college, and expect to see investment into AI squeeze job rates for the age group you mentioned. Not to mention implications on student debt bubble. There does seem to be an undercurrent of hopelessness, because the mechanisms that used to work for driving progress forward through targeted government investment don’t really seem to work and haven’t seemed to work for over 20 years. Even the CHIPs Act had clear issues. Not even sure where to start on tackling that, the initiatives you mentioned are good investments for the future in building a more critical-thinking culture around the digital, but I’m not sure how we translate that to real-world.
Very wise beyond your years. Thank you for a comprehensive, factual, analysis of today's troubling times for everyone in the USA below billionaire status.
thank you!
💯
Also, I have to admit I misread “American shipbuilding industry” as “American shitposting industry” at first…
we sorta outsourced that too with the bots lol
I have not read a more clearly stated analysis of the administration's economic policies. In addition, you address important, but often overlooked issues, such as institutions, trust, and critical thinking. I hope Gen Z can find faith in themselves and the future. Thanks
> And to be clear, there is power in bringing manufacturing back to the United States. We desperately need another Bell Labs and another DARPA.
Neither of these are manufacturers though. They are research labs. They benefited greatly from access to engineers and manufacturing experts e.g. DoD would consult with Bethlehem Steel for new alloys. I wouldn't say no to more research labs, but it's very different from having industry that makes it work commercially, at scale.
To restore trust it is vital that institutions—and the people managing them—behave in a way that inspires trust. Your point in Warren Buffet is revealing. We need more leaders that are prepared to act with courage and integrity. The way that many institutions and people (from Columbia to Bezos) are submitting to pressure is very dispiriting. But there is a better way.
I’d love to hear more on uncertainty and its relationship to business.
America has been one of the best places to do business because of its consistency. Economic policy changes have usually been slow and predictable from administration to administration and from the Fed (ie forecasting rate changes). This reduces risk for companies when they invest large amounts in big projects. Now what do they do?
Why would Ford or any other large manufacturing business invest a few billion into building a new factory in the USA to avoid tariffs when this administration flip flops hour to hour, day to day? Or do they just wait 4 years for a new, potentially stable administration? Or do they just leave the US and invest in a country with more stable economic policy?
Love your analysis thank you. As others comment here, China however is not all roses yet. Their strengths and problems are the inverse of ours. Amazing state sponsorship for innovation and education. Terrible track record at fostering and sustaining organic profitable growth. For every Baidu, Alibaba, and Deepseek, there are thousands of empty housing developments and bridges to nowhere. And Xi has a history of disappearing entrepreneurs that injects a different kind of market uncertainty.
I think to your point our only hope is building back trust. Question is what it will take to elect leaders we believe have our back.
I love your writing. You give a great voice to us young people.
Dear USA: plz build more physical infra 🚄🚞🚂 :)
Good stuff. More heterodox than typical biz perspective. I'd recommend a pinch of skepticism about Louisiana's education miracle. Also, pitting deregulation/globalization against protectionism is a phony binary perpetrated by private capital. The "vibes shift," probably fashioned as response to your "vibecession," wants to hype unfettered markets as the friend of freedom, liberty, innovation, democracy, and prosperity, and state regulations and taxes, gov, the enemy. My bet would be it is a losing hand vis-a-vis China and just another rationalization for austerity, nothing new at all, and more techno-delusional than techno-optimist. Yes, of course, we should invest in AI and the gov should guide that investment; towards democratic and environmentally sustainable goals. We should NOT be expecting AI to solve all that stuff after we've gotten there by any means necessary.
I appreciate your nuance as this really being a series of trade-offs.
Immigration - Fewer resources are more valuable than highly skilled people coming to America who pay into the tax pool and take very little from it. But, the expense of this, as Eric Weinstein and other academics have pointed out, is the suppression of wages for US citizens.
Housing - Post WWII, we have been incentivized to think of housing as one of the key components to wealth creation / stability. (Incentives = interest tax deductions + Gov't Agencies which pseudo-guarantee mortgage backed securities) This has led to capital being invested in a home instead of a more productive asset. And, what happens when a group of people have a bunch of value in a particular asset? They protect its scarcity by impeding the building of new homes. I really feel for young people in this regard today.
US Dollar - The fact the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency is both a blessing and a curse. The US Treasury Bond market is one of the deepest and most liquid financial markets in the world, primarily because we have so much debt : -) I remember early in my career, a client wanted to purchase Norwegian Gov't Bonds. I was told the trader only came in a few hours a day, a couple of times a week because Norway had so little sovereign debt outstanding! Because we are the world's reserve currency, the Dollar is consistently overvalued versus others and makes our businesses less competitive abroad.
China... Eh, I am not sure China's recent equity market performance is a sign they're more "progressive" in their policymaking than the US. I think it was just 2022 when China last cracked-down on the country's technology sector and the accompanying wealth it was creating.
Trade - Your point using China's "state owned" ship building industry is a perfect example of trade-offs. How should economies that rely mostly on the private sector for financing compete with countries that use state resources to provide a cheaper cost of capital? I am not saying tariffs are the right answer (mostly they are not) but the broader point is a more fair playing field for US (and in this case other countries ) companies to compete abroad.
Abundance - I really enjoyed Thompson and Klein on Bari Weiss's podcast as well. Honestly, I was more struck by the similarities of their ideas and Vance's speech at the a16z conference than the differences. There's an ideology here that can and should be embraced by both sides of the aisle as a way to create things. (Reminds me of the Peter Thiel quote, "We wanted flying cars and instead we got 140 characters.")
Thanks so much for your great work!
I thought I was the only youngen who couldn’t get a job… I’m a recent UK Econ graduate, first class degree, and was rejected by every single entry level minimum wage job for the last 6-months. Thank god managed to find my niche and get something sorted last week, but it really is sparse out there. Friends I’ve been speaking to in the same position are saying it’s taking 6-9 months to get a job, and most can’t even get work at a bar because last years grads are still occupying all those jobs…
Great post as always!
I don't know why you cherry pick DOGE cancelling cancer research but yet omit all the billions of dollars of fraud and waste they have already saved. They aren't going to get everything right, but if you want taxes to go down then we need to eliminate the insane amount of government waste
Perhaps because cancer research is important to people who have or may get cancer.