Opinion
Alton Drew
Elected officials are constrained when it comes to their transparency as “portfolio managers.” In a previous post I shared my insights into how taxpayers should treat the United States like a colony. In the current American colony, the “mother country” is now made up of the individuals, corporations, and sovereign governments that own American debt: bonds, treasury bills, treasury notes, etc. And when it comes to individuals, it is specifically those individuals who derive most or all of their income from the yields earned on the debt plus any equity they hold in public corporations; the “rentiers.”
Public “portfolio managers” should be managing the American nation-state on behalf of American and foreign national rentiers. And while America should not manage its resources for the benefit of sovereign nations that may be holding American treasury notes or American currency in their vaults, American “portfolio managers” should be mindful of the constraints on monetary and fiscal policy created by foreign ownership of dollar denominated debt and U.S. currency.
The incoming Biden administration has made no mention of this constraint. Ironically his more poignant discussions on “Build Back Better” sound more like a rehash of the Trump administration’s “Make America Great Again” mantra with a twist of “diversity and inclusion” policy thrown in to appease voters in America’s ethnic minority class while promising to strengthen the manufacturing sector.
At the end of the day, “Build Back Better” is a strategic communications campaign aimed at the “end user” class; the group that sees government as “doer and savior”; the entity that protects and takes care of us; that looks out for the little guy. Mr Biden aims no explicit public remarks to the “mother country” class, the class I referred to before that trades on the rents they expect from the American economy. Being transparent as to the needs of the “mother country” class would also provide the remaining 99% of us an education as to the reason why the United States, as well as the other 180-plus portfolios around the globe exist and who these portfolios are truly managed for.
It is unfortunate that Mr Biden cannot be transparent about the needs of the “mother country” class. In my opinion, this class has inherited the ability to create and act on a vision that spawned the political economy Americans live in today. That vision is one where capital is allowed to seek out an opportunity vacuum and morph into the going concern necessary for bringing that opportunity to fruition.
Included in that vision is the need for skillful portfolio managers that design and implement policy actions that create a playing field for traders to compete with each other in the Game of Capital, with the objective being he who has the most coin at the end of the day wins. And the “mother country” class has an interest in Mr Biden managing the portfolio well.
And there is always another candidate vying for the job….
