‘Quintili Vare, legiones redde! (Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!)’
Emperor Augustus, after the Teutoburg Forest disaster
Oh what a jolly, juicy, jingo-ed up world!
We’ll explain our very-minority view carefully. To the dismay of many readers, we doubt that Trump was spared by God to lead a renaissance in the US. You could say that he was selected by God — inasmuch as God and Nature are one — to do what he is doing.
But nature abhors a vacuum, said Aristotle. Nothing ever finds no place. Then again, nothing ever fills all space, either, because nature also despises a monopoly. Everywhere you look, you see not just one plant…not just one kind of person…nor one hair colour…nor one brand of vacuum cleaner or one type of whiskey. No one person has all the answers, all the money, or all the power. And no matter how witty or dim we are, we will die along with everyone else.
Empires expand. But they never seize all the power or all the space. And it is not long before the imperial race has ‘over-stretched.’ Napoleon in Moscow… Hitler in Stalingrad… Yamamoto in the Pacific… the Romans in the Teutoburg forest.
Jack Snyder refers to it as a ‘myth of empire’…that security can be enhanced by expanding outward…conquering more territory and setting up more garrisons.
The same myth exists in business. Successful companies often acquire other businesses. If they make a profit by building swimming pools, they try their hand at making movies… or publishing a newspaper. They stretch… until they lose their balance. As recounted in these pages several times, Jack Welch, an expander par excellence, bought a new company every week, while he was enjoying his heyday at GE. The stock rose ten times from 1990 ‘til the end of the decade.
But it’s hard enough to run one company…or one country…let alone dozens of them. After 2000, GE stock lost 80% of its value. It took years to fully recover.
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| Source: StockCharts |
The US is now the cock o’ the walk, with huge military and economic advantages over its rivals. It famously spends more on its military than the next ten nations combined. Its consumer market is the richest in the world…and its dollar is still the go-to currency for people everywhere.
No single other nation can come close. It would take a very rare talent to bring it down. But it’s only a couple weeks into the new administration and already Donald Trump is off to a good start.
The BBC:
‘Trump tariff “made something snap in us” – many Canadians see US rift beyond repair
‘After US President Donald Trump threatened Canada with steep tariffs, Monika Morelli from Montreal cancelled her subscriptions to Netflix and Amazon, two giant American companies. She also called off a trip that she had planned for later in the year to New Orleans. “There is something that has been irrevocably broken now, after centuries of the US and Canada being allies,” Ms Morelli, 39, told the BBC.’
And this from the India Cable, where a deportee describes his trip back to India:
‘For 40 hours, we were handcuffed, our feet tied with chains and were not allowed to move an inch from our seats…the crew would open the door and shove us in…[to the bathroom]’
Make enemies all over the world. And stretch. Already US troops are stationed in 800 bases (some of them secret) overseas. And every day brings the threat of another grab — Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Panama, Gaza.
But even with Trump at the helm, the USS America probably has a few good years before sailing to Alang. What should it do? What course should it take? Historian Paul Kennedy frames the challenge:
‘The task facing American statesmen over the next decades, therefore, is to recognize that broad trends are underway, and that there is a need to “manage” affairs so that the relative erosion of the United States’ position takes place slowly and smoothly, and is not accelerated by policies which bring merely short-term advantage but longer-term disadvantage.’
A genuine ‘America First’ agenda could probably ensure a graceful, peaceful and civilised future. Yes, the US could calmly and carefully husband its resources. It could cut $2 trillion out of current spending, going back to 2019 levels, and balance the budget. It could stop trying to run the world and bring the troops home.
Or, it could follow the well-trod path into the Teutoburg forest.
Regards,
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Bill Bonner,
For Fat Tail Daily
