The Toothpaste is out of the Tube

I recently had the opportunity to attend a dinner where Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase CEO, gave a talk about the future of our nation through the lens of both the domestic and global economy. His insights were eye-opening, to say the least. Dimon made it clear that we are living through a period of significant change, and that victory will not be won via war, but rather through resources. 

It is important to set the stage for what is happening economically in United States. As I write this, the economy is still riding the coattails of COVID-19. During the height of that crisis we had $4 trillion pumped into our economy. Right now, consumer credit is tanking exponentially with each month that passes, the US dollar lost major value within the last 30 days, and while we keep hearing that jobs are plentiful, I think there is a major difference between what is being reported and what people are seeing themselves at street level. Clearly, we are not doing the things we need to do to keep our economy strong.

What is worrisome is what is happening on the world stage. Again, as I write this, both China and Russia are vying for power. For years now, they have been rounding up resources that our modern world needs in order to sustain itself. We are heavily reliant on a few things that would be relatively easy to cut off. For example, we need semiconductors to make our electronics work. China is currently the largest producer of semiconductors, followed closely by Taiwan. If they stop supplying us tomorrow, American industry would grind to a halt. In the past, we have avoided bad outcomes like that through diplomacy. But today, we are not spending any time building alliances. We are not securing strongholds. We are making ourselves politically irrelevant by focusing on our internal chatter rather than fortifying our place on the world stage

At this point in the discussion, I jumped in with the following question: “So clearly, politicians don’t understand the math. They don’t understand strategy, or else they are simply not willing ot make short-term sacrifices for the long-term gain. How do we fix it?”

Dimon looked at me in the eye and said, “I have no idea.”

I do not write this to insight panic or fearmonger, but rather to remove the wool from your eyes. The toothpaste is out of the tube, We are on a bleak path and there isn’t much we can do to come back from it. As time marches forward, conditions will worsen for everyone. There will be more angst, more shootings, more deterioration of core infrastructure, and the only move the government will have will be to raise taxes. They will try to get more from less, and everything will slowly decline together. 

The best we can do is secure our own resources, make plans for our own futures, and buckle up.