The Cleanest Dirty Shirt in the Laundry
“You’re still the one, who can scratch my itch.
Still the one, and I wouldn’t switch.
We’re still having fun, and you’re still the one.
You…are…still the one, that makes me shout.
Still the one, I want to dream about.
We’re still having fun, and you’re still the one.”
There are big problems in America. From massive illegal immigration to inflation to crime to intractable political divisions to corruption in politics and business. It seems we are a hot mess. But the United States does not exist in a vacuum. It is a part of a world that is even more messed up. We are, to use the common colloquialism, the cleanest dirty shirt in the laundry.
Competition matters. The best player in a sport is best because they are better than the people against whom they play. Put that player in another league, and they might be dominant or not good at all. The world is a lot smaller than it used to be and countries compete with one another in many dimensions. Obviously, countries compete militarily in wars, be they “hot” or “cold”. But they also compete in trade, investment, resources, currencies, markets, and even for human talent and engineering. Until Elon Musk colonizes Mars, planet earth is the only league any of us can play in.
When we compare the United States to what we think it should be, or our perception of what it once was, things look pretty bad. But, when compared to the even bigger messes out there around the world, we are in fact the least dirty shirt in the bag. Let’s look at the next five biggest economies in the world for example.
China is laden with tons of debt, terrible demographics, gobs of empty buildings, and unused infrastructure, and is facing a world that no longer wants to buy its products. Because it is a communist country, you cannot see the unrest of the populace because they are jailed or executed for opposing the regime even verbally. The biggest Chinese businesses have always been beholden to the state but now they are directly controlled by it. They have an impressive military, but it has never been tested in a major hot war. As Mike Tyson famously said, you don’t know your plan “until you get punched in the mouth”.
Japan actually has more debt as a percentage of GDP than any other major economy. The U.S. is trying to catch up, but still has aways to go. Japan has terrible demographics, though not as bad as China’s. It has almost no natural resources and has to import much of that. It is still an industrial powerhouse and has not had any meaningful immigration leaving its populace rather homogeneous and therefore more unified. For the first time since World War II, they are spending quite a bit on defense as the threat of a belligerent Chinese neighbor increases.
Everything was looking great in Germany until they decided to go all-in on the nonsensical climate agenda. In less than 10 years, they have crippled their world-leading industrial base by starving it of energy. They also welcomed masses of immigrants who had no interest in being German and who did not fit in culturally. This mistake has had the dual bad impact of creating a destabilizing underclass while reigniting some neo-Nazi feelings amongst native Germans who dislike the “invasion” of their country and its culture. Germany is the only major economy that is already in technical recession. They cannot get industry going without rebuilding an energy infrastructure that will take years or decades to build back. And of course, the Germans are afraid to re-militarize given their history in the last 100 years.
India is getting a lot of good press right now. It is now the most populous country on earth with good demographics. Much of the business and trade that China is losing is looking to India to reestablish itself. They have been quite clever in foreign relations by being “independent” of all the major powers, while still engaging with each where it suits them and opposing said powers when it is in their interest to do so. Their military is decent in size and training. But (there’s always a but), the country has enormous inequality with a vast majority of the population being exceptionally poor while at the top they boast a small cadre of the richest humans on earth. The place is so huge and the differences in the population in language, religion, heritage, and prosperity so wide, that makes it a difficult place to manage and lead to common goals. Just ask the British about that.
And the world’s 5th largest economy, the United Kingdom, probably boasts the second most capable military on earth second only to its ally the United States. Not the biggest, but certainly capable. The UK has the most stable legal structure of any non-English speaking country which makes it a good place for investment. Brexit was clearly the right thing to do. And of course, before it lost out to the dollar after World War II, the pound sterling was the world’s reserve currency. But the UK cannot trade on its heritage forever and there are problems economically, politically, and demographically. The country has made many of the same mistakes as the Germans on immigration and climate, though not as badly. The Tory party has been a mess of late with much internal division which will likely lead to a Labour government being elected later this year. This may happen as people vote for “change”, even though everything the Labour government is proposing to do will make the UK’s problems even worse. They will need Margaret Thatcher 2.0 to come to the rescue as soon as they figure out who that is.
The United States has some enormous natural, geographic, and historical advantages. We have more natural resources than any other country, although the Biden administration is doing their best not to use them. No military anywhere is stronger, although Biden is trying to starve it for funds and turn it into a transgender social program. With two oceans on the east and the west and friendly countries to the north and south, it is less at risk from foreign attack than just about anywhere. The dollar is still the reserve currency, which is a tremendous competitive advantage. The culture of hard work and innovation is not exceeded anywhere and demographics, while declining, are better than most developed countries. America is an “invented” country in that there are not thousands of years of history with a peoples of common genetics. But the American culture has become well defined.
We know America’s problems. We know that the neo-Marxists (Democrats) are literally trying to eliminate every one of those advantages I just described, in order to relegate America to the dustbin of history and replace it with a Godless authoritarian government and leftist culture.
But they have a long way to go. And they have to overcome 250 years of momentum. They will also have to pry this country out of the “cold, dead hands” of people like me. In the meantime, there’s still no place that is better.
Coming up in these writings, and on the podcast “Look Through the Chaos” (which you can find on any podcast platform like Apple, Spotify, Pandora, or iHeart), I will discuss how currencies around the world matter greatly in the context of this missive, and also about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what it is and is not.
Until then, I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
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