For 2024: Focus Less on the Headlines

“I read in a newspaper that I was to be received with all the honors customarily rendered to a foreign ruler. I am grateful for the honors; but something within me rebelled at that word ‘foreign’. I say this because when I have been in Canada, I have never heard a Canadian refer to an American as a ‘foreigner’. He is just an ‘American’. And, in the same way, in the United States, Canadians are not ‘foreigners’, they are ‘Canadians’. That simple little distinction illustrates to me better than anything else the relationship between our two countries.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt, address in Quebec, 1936

It’s impossible to ignore the historical parallels between today and another moment of profound transition, the early 1990s. U.S. President Donald Trump’s diplomatic efforts are channelling the “peace through strength” ethos that defined U.S. foreign policy at the end of the Cold War. Much like the peace dividend of that era, which allowed capital to flow from the military-industrial complex into innovation and new industries, Trump’s new deals aim to lower global tension, cut risk premiums, and unlock resources for economic
expansion.

In a year marked by fiscal surprises and technological upheaval, America stands at a crossroads. The June 2025 budget surplus has upended the old narratives, leaving Wall Street’s perennial skeptics scrambling for new alarms. Yet beneath the noise, a deeper transformation is underway.

The Federal Reserve, central bank ideology, and the future of economic order “The Federal Reserve…