All things considered, it has only been about 3 months since Trump took office, I feel like there is absolutely no way that this was just a single craze and from here things will even out.
I feel like until 2028 (or maybe 2026?) S&P 500 is going to look like a roller coaster.
What do you think?
I agree with most of this. However I think there are additional elements that make prediction challenging.
First, if the US undergoes any kind of revolution in the next five years, the cultural effects you mentioned could by overwritten by more recent events. I realize this sounds improbable, but the transition from the New Deal era to global neolibralism was a revolution. “The Reagan Revolution” was an actual economic and social revolution. And we’re overdue for another.
Second, both the markets and the real economy were in an unsustainable condition before Trump. The pursuit of endless growth, the disruption of climate breakdown, the end of the US’ monopolar hegemony, and the return of extreme wealth inequality in the US made the status quo impossible to simply maintain. Big changes were coming even without Trump.
I maintain some optimism. I think anti trust regulation, climate-based financial regulation, and an embrace of market socialism could render the last three months to be the last gasps of the old order instead of another point in what has been a decline decades in the making. But it depends what happens next.
Unfortunately, revolutions are frequently bloody. I think Europe’s more gradual change post WWII has meant the future is arriving more smoothly there, with less disruption.
I suspect that if the US survives, people will look at 1950-2025 as a kind of golden age, despite all the societal problems. The US really had things easy. It was virtually the only advanced economy to come out of WWII intact. Every other country had to rebuild. For the first 20ish years, regulations from the Great Depression lingered, so unions were strong and taxes were high. All of that meant that you had families where a plumber could buy a house for a family with 4 kids even if his wife didn’t work.
Since the 70s, a lot of worker protections have vanished. High taxes on the ultra-rich have disappeared. But, the US has still had the benefit of having the Reserve Currency of the world. That has allowed the US to easily run big deficits, which has allowed growth that other countries couldn’t match.
I get the impression that the time of the US dollar being the world’s reserve currency are coming to an end. In addition, US companies and universities have been places that the best and the brightest wanted to go. That also seems to be coming to an end.
So, when the dust settles, if the US does manage to transition to a more socialist country with a better safety net, it’s still going to be rough for people. They’re used to 75 years of having benefits that most countries don’t get. Probably a better social safety net and a greater equality in wealth will make up for that. But, it could be that people who were alive at this time will look back at a time when the US was the hub of the world and miss that.