Footnotes
1. William
Pfaff; “The Wrath of Nations”; Simon and Schuster; New York; 1993; p. 57.
2. Isaiah
Berlin; “The Roots of Romanticism”; Princeton University Press, N.J.; 1999; p.
141.
3. Hans
Kohn; “The Idea of Nationalism”; The Macmillan Company; New York; 1961; p. 459.
4. Metro
News, U.K.; “Boris Johnson delivers Downing Street speech”; 9/6/22.
5. James
Madison; “The Federalist No. 50”; Bantam Dell; New York; 2003; p. 316.
6. Dana
Milbank; “The Destructionists”; Doubleday; New York; 2022; p. 1.
7. New York
Times; 8/24/22.
7a This
website is concerned, not with the economic theory of general equilibrium –
where nothing but extremely complex math happens, but with the dynamics of real
markets as they vary in level according to circumstances, and as they meet or
do not meet the reasonable requirements of investors. Another implication of
markets, in the scheme of things, is that the long-term health of your
portfolio depends upon the health and almost organic balance of society among
groups of people, institutions and the motivating ideas. Relevant here, to the
U.S., is an appropriate balance between generations, between undeadlocked
branches of government, and ultimately between the ethics of tradition and
change.
A new book
by NYU Stern School professor Scott Galloway, “Adrift (2022)” graphs actual
data to prove his conclusion: “We’ve gotten closest to realizing our ideals
when we’ve balanced ruthless capitalism with the ballast of a strong middle
class. Our drift away from that course is at the heart of this book. Shifting
us back is the objective of my recommendations….My
hope is that the visible landfall of progress, citizenship, and perspective
provide determination and direction. That we make a massive investment in
younger Americans, that we re-embrace our brothers and sisters abroad, that we
discern the difference between competitors and enemies, and that we recognize
before all else…we are Americans….It’s not a foregone
conclusion that we’ll get to land. We don’t just wash up on any of these shores
- the investment and leadership need to be focused and immense. However,
landfall is there. It’s only a matter of getting to it.”
This book
may be summarized by the first graph; the second is the means by which the U.S.
economy renews itself.
click here Percentage of 30 Year Olds Earning More Than Their Parents Did at 30; p. 44.
click here Share of
Adults Who Started Their Own Business; p. 80.
To which we
add an additional note from corporate finance. The fastest way for a CEO to
increase his company’s stock price is to increase the return on invested
capital, here defined simply as (net profit + depreciation)/net assets
employed. Let others do the heavy lifting by doing the investing in plant and
equipment. The U.S. manufacturing company thus looks like a tech company,
possessing licensing, some technology transfer (s.t.
negotiation), marketing agreements and now able to do stock repurchases with
the excess cash – thus reducing the number of shares.
This
capitalist pursuit of immediate profit conflicts with the broader role of
Americans as producers, thus ultimately resulting in social unrest, as
demonstrated by the riots on 8/12/17 in Charlottesville, Va.
8. Kohn,
p.p. 561, 563.
9. Kohn; p.
574.
