Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe by Niall Ferguson review
(Evening Standard) – From plagues and volcanic eruptions to the current Covid pandemic, mankind has always been faced with catastrophes.
Thought Leader: Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson: Looking to Nixon for a Peek at Trump’s Future
Niall Ferguson and Fareed Zakaria with Bloomberg for this week’s Trumponomics to place Donald Trump’s ambitious plans for the US economy in historical perspective.
On this week’s episode of Trumponomics, we speak with historian and commentator Niall Ferguson and CNN host and author Fareed Zakaria at the Milken Global Conference about Donald Trump’s economic worldview and how it stacks up against reality. They both argue that the US hasn’t hollowed itself out over the past three decades, as the US president’s rhetoric suggests.
Instead, the country has surged ahead of its peers. Gross domestic product is nearly double that of the Eurozone, wages have eclipsed those in Germany and US companies dominate global stock market capitalization. Ironically, this opens up the possibility that the US economy is “anti-fragile,” and that the trade war is a kind of shock that the US can withstand. “If you not only get tariffs, but more importantly you get a weaker dollar, and you get lower interest rates…then the Cassandras will be proved wrong again,” according to Ferguson. The “critical issue here..is as the dollar goes down, what do rates do?”
Both commentators agreed Trump’s shift toward sweeping tariffs and industrial policy could carry steep costs for US consumers, and that the effort to return to 1950s levels of manufacturing employment flies in the face of decades of economic history. Zakaria adds that it also risks sidelining the services-driven economy that currently employs most Americans.
Ferguson says the “most scary thing about the past month” is that the dollar fell after Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs were announced—but bond yields rose. He explains that this is very rare in modern financial history, and shows the risk of repeating the “Nixon moment” of the 1970s. That was when, under President Richard Nixon, the dollar was weak but rates rose because inflation went up, and the stock market fell almost 50%. “There’s risk embedded in this whole strategy” says Ferguson. But he adds that Trump has been lucky before. “It could work, and we mustn’t underestimate the probability that once again Donald Trump surprises to the upside.”
The panelists also discuss when else in American history we’ve seen echoes of Trump’s policies, why we’re seeing a rise in cultural politics and how tensions over China policy will be resolved at a time when the administration is shaking up global alliances.
Sir Niall Ferguson, esteemed historian and Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, offers unparalleled expertise on the evolving global landscape. In his insightful discussions, he explores key geopolitical shifts. With a deep understanding of economic and security dynamics, Ferguson brings a historical perspective to today’s most pressing global challenges. To invite Sir Niall Ferguson to your next event, contact WWSG.
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