Should You Bet on American Capitalism?

Yesterday, I wrote a piece exploring my thoughts on the positive market movement we’ve recently seen, and I concluded on an optimistic note, highlighting what (to me) is the most compelling part of the bull thesis: American entrepreneurs will do everything they can to save the economy AND to get the coronavirus under control.

In this short piece, I want to touch on this theme just a little more.

Should You Bet on American Capitalism?

I consume as many podcasts as I can. At 2x speed, naturally.

I listen primarily for information and occasionally for entertainment.

But last night I got something from a podcast I don’t usually get: Hope.

On the Mar. 31 episode of the NPR podcast Planet Money, Karen Duffin and Kenny Malone look at the massive effort in the United States to build more ventilators.

Thousands of companies — literally thousands — located all over the country are coming together in a coordinated effort to do in two weeks what would ordinarily take years.

That’s the power of driven entrepreneurs and dedicated workers. That’s the power of American capitalism.

This might sound weird, but I don’t know if I have ever been prouder to be an American than I was when I listened to that podcast.

What I heard wasn’t the sound of two people talking with that typical NPR-style smugness.

What I heard was an army. An army of everyday citizens rising up to answer the call in their country’s hour of need.

So much attention is focused every day on what the government and the Federal Reserve are going to do to save us.

They can’t save us.

We the people must save ourselves.

And what I heard on that podcast was the sound of salvation: The sound of a country coming together.

We have many reasons to be pessimistic about the future: U.S. coronavirus testing is still inadequate. It’s improving, but it’s not where it needs to be.

Also, too many people are acting as if the coronavirus is a short-term problem. Even after the coronavirus is under control, its aftermath will linger.

And the post-coronavirus economic data coming out of China is discouraging. A V-shaped recovery might be unrealistic.

On top of that, companies receiving loans via the $2 trillion stimulus package won’t be able to boost their share prices with buybacks.

But I have never been more confident that we will eventually rebound. It will likely take years for the U.S. economy to recover — but it will recover.

Whatever challenges come, the industriousness and ingenuity of our entrepreneurs and workers will not allow us to fail.

I’m not a financial advisor, and I don’t suggest that you make any decisions based on anything I say or write … but eventually — I have no idea when — I’m going to get back in the market as fully as I can and bet on American capitalism.