He’s Right…No Post-America Era

I agree 100% with Spence here. As discussed in an earlier post, there is no evidence of a ‘post-America/imperialism era,’ as many have wrongly predicted since 2008 or so. All the evidence suggests that America has only solidified its cultural and economic dominance/hegemony in the aftermath of Covid, in addition to after to the 2008 financial crisis, but how this trend has accelerated post-Covid. For example, America’s big tech companies are even bigger and more dominant, compared to pre-Covid. America’s tech billionaires even wealthier.

-7 of the 10 largest companies in the world are from America, the other three being Alibaba, Tencent (China) and Saudi Aramco.

-Since Covid, the S&P 500 has outperformed all foreign markets even in spite of the US still having a lot of daily Covid cases relative to other developed countries. The reason why the stock market does not care is that the economic loss of these people dying and getting sick is minimal to non-existent. It is mostly the economically disadvantaged and those who have comorbidities who are getting sick and dying of Covid, so having these people die quickly early in life may be a net-positive economically if it means less entitlement spending down the road. This is similar to smokers who die early in life, in their ’50s and ’60s after already retiring, but being too young to collect Social Security.

-FAANG stocks, including Microsoft and Tesla, are bigger and more dominant now than before Covid, in agreement with trend of US economic dominance strengthening since Covid, not weakening.

-Pundits who argue that America’s elite colleges and secondary schools will lose their luster due to Covid and the transition to online learning, are wrong again. It is does not matter if the classes are taught online; Harvard will still be Harvard, due to huge demand, prestige, and scarcity. I predict the college wage premium will widen due to Covid, as low-income, low-skilled people are more likely to be unemployed, similar to the 2008 financial crisis.

-America is bigger and more relevant culturally overseas than ever before. You can argue Hollywood exports degeneracy, but people are buying it, all over the world. If there wasn’t a huge market for it, Hollywood wouldn’t produce it.

-The wealthiest, most important, most admired, and most influential people in the world are American. Examples include Bill Gates, Kanye West, Elon Musk, Jeff Bozos, Tim Cook, Mike Pompeo, Trump, Pence, etc. Yeah, Boris Johnson is a big deal, but Western Europe has few celebrity entrepreneurs, compared to the US, which has many.

-Politically, America is more relevant than ever. News about Trump is a bigger deal in China then even many part of America. The 2020 Us presidential election is not just a national event, but massively important on a global scale. Trump’s Twitter account is so popular, it’s like a social network in and of itself within Twitter.