Could Trump’s anti-globalism have negative repercussions for the US? A sobering caveat about the potential catastrophic consequences if the US gets the future context for AI wrong. Is the US learning from Asian oligarchies? Is Big Tech destined to eat itself alive? Stark revelations of a key MAGA leader’s plans for the new Trump era.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Harold James, How Trump’s Anti-Globalism Could Backfire
(Project Syndicate, 27 January 2025)
The crux of the argument: the US economy’s heavy dependence on global capital is potentially a big vulnerability. If foreign inflows were to dry up in response to new tariffs, corporate tax policies, a strong dollar, or other policy decisions, Americans would have to consume less, which would be experienced as a decline in their standard of living (paywall that may require prior registration, 5-7 min).
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Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, Behind the Curtain: A chilling, “catastrophic” warning
(Axios, 18 January 2025)
Shortly before leaving, Jake Sullivan (the White House former national security adviser) warned the current administration that the next few years will determine whether AI leads to catastrophe. Unlike previous dramatic technology advancements (atomic weapons, space, the internet), AI development sits beyond government and security clearances, and in the hands of private companies with the power of nation-states. In Sullivan’s words, “US failure to get this right could be dramatic, and dramatically negative”, including the democratization of extremely powerful and lethal weapons; massive disruption and dislocation of jobs; an avalanche of misinformation (free access, 5 min).
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Simon Commander, Connections, power and privilege: Is the US learning from Asian oligarchies?
(360Info, 28 January 2025)
The author of “The Connections World: The Future of Asian Capitalism” explains what the US can learn from Asia and why Big Tech’s ability to influence electoral outcomes and then work in concert with political power is perilous for political and economic competition. Would a plutocratic-oligarchic path in the US be a sustainable one? In his own words, “the disparities – above all in opportunities – and their continuation across generations might suggest considerable space for opposition from coalitions of the excluded and disenchanted. But equally, it might suggest temptations of a more explicitly authoritarian nature” (free access, 4-5 min).
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Mihir Desai, I Study Financial Markets. The Nvidia Rout Is Only the Start
(The New York Times, 28 January 2025)
Like the ouroboros (a serpent eating its own tail), the Harvard professor argues Big Tech is eating itself alive with its component companies throwing more and more cash at investments in one another that are most likely to generate less and less of a return. Global investors currently see the Magnificent 7 (Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, Meta and Alphabet) that constitute more than 30% of the market capitalization of the S&P 500 as the “premier safe assets” and have thus stopped demanding significant immediate returns. We should just expect “a slow grind of low returns on excessive spending on a technological future that will not be nearly as revolutionary or imminent as promised” (gifted article, reads in 6-8 min).
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Molly Redden and Andy Kroll, “Put Them in Trauma”: Inside a Key MAGA Leader’s Plans for a New Trump Agenda
(ProPublica, 28 January 2025)
The article under discussion is three months old, but it details what Trump would do when (and if) in power. In private speeches delivered in 2023 and 2024, Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, described his work crafting legal justifications so that military leaders or government lawyers would not stop Trump’s executive actions. In several videos, he argues that his plans are a response to a “Marxist takeover” of the country; and likens the moment to 1776 and 1860, when the country was at war or on the brink of it. He also says that the timing of Trump’s candidacy was a “gift of God.” In short, he recommends making civil servants miserable in their jobs, and lays out plans to use armed forces to quell any domestic “riots” (free access, 15 min).
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