Livin’ the US Economy Benjamin Button style
Based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” was made into a feature length film that was nominated for 13 Academy Awards. Benjamin lives his life in reverse – born as an 84-year-old man, dying as an infant – as the calendar advances. A recent report on our economic prospects over the next 30 years has me wishing I could live out my years like Benjamin Button. Only, I would wish that the calendar would go in reverse as I got older. Sort of a double reverse.
The report from Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) projects the US in third place as measured in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) by mid-21st Century. Six of the seven fastest-growing emerging economies today would be among the seven largest in the world by this measure. Vietnam, Bangladesh and India would be the fastest growing during the intervening timeframe. PWC, of course, is among the Big-4 global accounting firms. Being business oriented, they recommend global companies invest in creating supply chains to serve those markets. Since WWII, the US has relied on positive Foreign Direct Investment to maintain dollar strength and offset our negative trade balance. If that flow were to reverse, we slip down the slope to less prosperous lifestyles.
Moreover, Americans would have to adjust their world view. Our economic power enables our military power. The combination of the two enables us to influence world events and create a buffer between us and foreign adversaries. We are protected not only by the two oceans but also by military alliances with NATO, Israel, Japan, Australia and the Philippines.
It would be better to go back in time.
If I were born today and could live my life as time went backwards, I would be oblivious to the slow growth economy of the 2010’s. My parents might be awash in credit card, mortgage and auto loan debt. But I’d be a kid. What the heck would I know about it? We would go through the reverse bursting of the Internet bubble, cashing in our tech stocks just in time to pay my college tuition which would be about half what one might pay today.
I would get my first job during the booming 90’s benefiting from the Reagan and Clinton tax cuts and the peace dividend from the end of the Cold War. In the 80’s I would buy my first house – a huge house supported by the two incomes my wife and I would earn. I would go to Vegas and bet the longshot L.A. Dodgers to win the ’88 World Series behind Kirk Gibson’s walk-off home run in Game 1. Our middle-class lifestyle would include two new vehicles every three or four years, one of which would be a minivan to cart the kids around with all our stuff. And, there would be plenty of stuff because I would be entering my peak earning years and spending money like I planned to die tomorrow.
I would enter middle-age during the sluggish, high inflation 70’s and would buy a townhouse when the kids went off to college. I would trade in my VW Beetle for a Buick LeSabre as gas dropped below a half a buck per gallon. I would bet on Secretariat to win the Triple Crown while trying to remember whether the Steelers beat the spread when they won four Super Bowls in six years. I would invest in big oil companies knowing they would get richer as a result of the oil crisis.
In the 60’s, I would grumble about all those hippies protesting on campus while I adjusted the rabbit ears on my TV so I could watch Neal Armstrong plant the first human footprints on the moon. My Vegas bet would be on Broadway Joe to take the Jets to Super Bowl victory over my hero Johnny Unitas. My car would be lower, longer and wider with a massive V8 engine under the hood, all the better to get a quick start at red lights. I would buy skinny ties and pocket protectors to prevent my ball point pen from ruining my dress shirts. I would know that the JFK tax cuts would be reversed and worry about the impact of higher taxes on my lifestyle. I would invest in blue chip stocks as insurance against my smaller net salary – GM, AT&T, GE and IBM.
I would be secure in retirement and maintain my middle-class status while living in a 1,000 sq. ft. home and sharing one car with my wife because that’s what middle-class meant in the 1950’s. There would be no smartphones or flat screens to distract me and no credit card debt to undermine my financial security.
Benjamin Button lived to the age of 84. Were I to live that long in reverse time, I would witness the devastation of WWII and the holocaust and pass on to my reward during the Great Depression. But I would have lived during the American Century, the most prosperous time in our history… a time when children of immigrants could transcend their socio-economic status… a time when our leaders enacted bold legislation… a time during which the United States set a standard by which other countries were measured.