Colossal Wrecks

Is the US repeating the mistakes of past empires? Its pomp? Its vanity?

How about this, the New York Times:

Trump publicly unveiled his plans for the arch last week, during a dinner for the wealthy donors who are funding the $200 million ballroom addition to the White House.

He showed off renderings and presented three models in different sizes, all of which looked similar to the Arc de Triomphe, France’s neoclassical monument that was finished in the 19^th century.

“Small, medium and large — whichever one, they look good,” Mr. Trump said, holding out the models. “I happen to think the larger one looks, by far, the best.”

Arcs of Triomphe are conceived and built when the nation is triumphant. France’s Arc de Triomphe was designed in 1806. Then it must have seemed as though nothing could stop the victorious French under its Big Man, Napoleon.

In 1805, the Grande Armee, beat the combined Russian-Austrian forces at Austerlitz. Bonaparte feigned retreat and then circled around to crush the enemy. It was such a superb victory that it put the Corsican in the same small group of geniuses as Hannibal and Alexander the Great.

In 1806, France was on top of the world…her ‘big battalions’ ready to march…and her leader unmatched. Surely an arch….in the style of Titus’s arch in Rome…seemed appropriate.

They don’t ring a bell at the top of the stock market. But when they put up triumphal arches you might hear the faint jingle of soon-to-be-forgotten glories. Only six years after beginning the arch, the French, angry with the Tsar for failing to respect their trade sanctions, attacked Russia. The campaign was a disaster. Three years on and France’s European empire was finished. Napoleon, perhaps the greatest military man of his generation, had made too many enemies. Two of the biggest of them — England and Prussia — trapped him at Waterloo. And the triumphs were over. Bonaparte spent the rest of his life exiled on Saint Helena, fighting rats.

The Arc de Triomphe is modeled after the Arch of Titus in Rome. It too was built near the very peak of Rome’s glory — in 81 AD — by Domitian to commemorate his brother, Titus. It was Titus who led the siege of Jerusalem, in which he did to the Jews more or less what they now do to the Gazans. He leveled their city, destroyed their temple, and dispersed and enslaved the survivors.

These triumphs were incredibly appreciated by the masses. They got to participate, if only by proximity, to the loot…got to look over the slaves who would later be put to auction…and got the pleasure of watching their enemies (at least, they were told they were enemies) get publicly executed.

Caesar himself brought back the rebel, Vercingetorix, and had him strangled before a cheering Roman mob. Maduro, are you paying attention?

But Rome’s clock was ticking too. Until around 100 AD, Rome’s history was one conquest after another. Each time, the winning general was accorded a ‘triumph,’ in which he marched through the streets ahead of the booty, slaves and captives he brought back.

After 100 AD, however, Rome was on the defensive. Thereafter, it was a long, bumpy, downhill slide…with no more conquests…and few triumphs.

Bubble markets have their moments of triumph too… just before they fall apart. It is then too when prices get furthest removed from real values. Chris Mayer, who runs Woodlock House Family Capital out of our office in Ireland, sends this remarkable news flash:

‘Since early September, companies with positive earnings on the Russell 5,000 index have gone approximately nowhere. But companies with negative earnings — that is, those that lost money — are up 17%.’

And what about OpenAI, now said to be worth about $500 billion? Does the business plan bring back memories of 1999? Sam Altman explained it:

The honest answer is we have no idea. We have never made any revenue. We have no current plans to make revenue. We have no idea how we may one day generate revenue. We have made a soft promise to investors that once we’ve built this sort of generally intelligent system, basically, we will ask it to figure out a way to generate an investment return for you. [audience laughter] It sounds like an episode of Silicon Valley, it really does, I get it. You can laugh, it’s all right. But it is what I actually believe is going to happen.

That interview was in 2019. And today, OpenAI is still losing money, about $5 billion last year.

What do we make of it? The feds’ arches and the investment milestones…tell us what passions their designers read. And we…we just await the ‘decay of those colossal wrecks.’

Stay tuned…