Thoughts from the Frontline

First, let me wish you the best for the new year. I look forward to exploring it with you.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot and auld lang syne?

First, let me wish you Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or your favorite personal form of greetings for this time of year. I realize as you read this you are more focused on Christmas and the approaching New Year and family, so this will be a shorter letter than normal, but still a topic that is seminal in our discussions on taxes and debt.

If you really want to reduce the federal debt, you don’t have to convince Congress of anything. You can just write a check. The Treasury Department gladly accepts gifts from anyone so inclined.

Don’t Tax You. Don’t Tax Me. Tax That Fellow Behind the Tree -   Attributed to Senator Russell B. Long, Louisiana ~1930s

Back in the Great Financial Crisis era, someone quipped that the federal government had become a giant hedge fund with an army attached. That wasn’t far off. Various agencies and entities were absorbing all kinds of risky assets to stabilize an overleveraged system. It was ugly but worked, more or less…. with a heavy dose of unintended consequences like the distortion of zero interest rates on the markets.

Thanksgiving brings to mind not only turkeys, family, and friends, but also should help us recall the remarkable ideas and philosophies that helped shape, and indeed were, the foundation for the United States of America as a Republic.

If you get beyond the political rhetoric [and assembled a group to solve Social Security] it would take them 15 minutes. It would take them 15 minutes only because 10 minutes was used for pleasantries. —Alan Greenspan, Speech to the Commercial Finance Association on October 26, 2006

Exploring federal budget data is a journey through endless rabbit holes, some of which are eerily close to Alice in Wonderland insanity. Countless variables interact in unexpected ways. Seemingly small changes can cascade into billions of dollars within a few years.

Identifying problems is great. Identifying solutions is even better, especially when the politicians who are supposed to be solving our big problems don’t even try.

The ancient Greeks had a word κάθαρσις, which in English we now spell as “catharsis,” although it’s pronounced basically the same. It originally referred to purifying religious ceremonies, medical treatments, and so on.

We have been looking at big historical/economic/political cycles for the past two months. We reviewed Neil Howe’s Fourth Turning concept, then George Friedman’s twin US institutional and socioeconomic cycles, then Peter Turchin’s “cliodynamics” concept, and then Ray Dalio’s Big Cycle.