"Is There a Way Forward?"

The photo: An approaching storm, as seen from our window at the Oyster Point Hotel in Red Bank a couple of weeks ago. But the sun shone the next day. Some will say I am Panglossian in my optimism, but I do believe the U.S. has the ability to self-correct. In his 2021 letter to shareholders, Warren Buffet wrote: “Despite some severe interruptions, our country’s economic progress has been breathtaking. Our unwavering conclusion: Never bet against America.” To which I add, Amen.

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Is There a Way Forward?”

August 26, 2026

 

“The free access which many young people have to romanticize novels and

plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth.”

                                                                                                                    Reverend Enos Hitchcock (1744-1803)

                                                                                                                     Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, 1790

 

Each generation is concerned for the next. Ours is no different. I worry. But should I? For a country at the peak of its economic and military powers, and still a beacon of freedom for the oppressed and the aspirant around the world, the mood of Americans, at least as expressed by some commentators and some in the media, is bleak. On the other hand, foreign visitors to the World Cup appeared to have seen something in America that we natives have missed: they lauded the size of the country, the spirit of its people and their generosity; they praised its abundance – what is available in the stores and the size of its homes and cars; and they noted the freedom of its people. Who is right?

 

While I remain a long-term optimist, I worry. Is classical liberalism disappearing into socialism on the left and isolationism on the right? Ad hominem attacks have replaced reasoned debate. Self-righteous prigs on the left assume all Republicans to be racists, homophobes, and misogynists, while smug conservatives suppose all Democrats to be Communists and to lack an appreciation of our history.

 

Most immediately, we face a fiscal crisis. Federal debt recently crossed $40 trillion. As a percent of GDP (121.5% at the end of 2025), it is higher than it was at the end of World War II (119.1%). Entitlement spending in 1960 represented about 25% of the federal budget – roughly the same as defense. Today it is close to 60%, while defense spending has declined to 12 percent. Rising deficits have ballooned interests costs from about 9% of the budget in 1960 to 14% today. We are on an unsustainable path, unaddressed by either political party. Despite Treasury Secretary Bessent’s decision to double the size of long-dated bond buybacks, bond vigilantes will step in if politicians continue to avoid the problem.[1]

 

There are other concerns: Will autonomous robots surpass human intelligence and be used for nefarious purposes? Studies from Harvard and Stanford indicate that public school student performance has declined for over a decade. Those studies are supported by declining performance of U.S. students on PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests. While major crime figures show a decline, there has been a surge in anti-Semitic incidences. Ethical standards are said to have “evolved,” whatever that means. Church attendance has been declining for decades, and today the average teenager spends five hours a day on social media, versus nine to twelve minutes a day reading books for personal interest.  Much of mainstream media lauds the harvesting of eggs but is silent on the benefits of motherhood. According to a March 2026 Pew Research survey only 47% of American see their fellow Americans as morally good.  

 

While stock markets have surged – 62% of Americans are invested in the stock market either directly or indirectly – I worry that a decade of low interest rates have inflated leveraged personal balance sheets. A growing percentage of individuals are involved in speculative pursuits: Approximately 25% have been involved in legal sports betting, about 20% have purchased cryptocurrencies, and 15% have put money into prediction markets, a market that exploded in 2024. Sounds like gambling to me. Falling tech stock prices and excess leverage abetted the July collapse of Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Fund, as assets fell from $45 billion to $10 billion in a month. Was that a harbinger of things to come?

 

Politics have devolved into the “MAGA” right and the Socialist-progressive left. Politicians are cantankerous. Mr. Trump tells us what a fantastic job he has done, while far-left Democrats promise tuition-free college, making the rich pay their “fair share,” expanding the Supreme Court, and opening our borders.

 

Party interests soar above national unity, even as we celebrate 250 years of democracy and freedom. Why? And is there a way forward? One is reminded of William Butler Yeats’ 1920 poem, “The Second Coming:”

 

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

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The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

 

But we have been in tough straits before: On December 20, 1860 South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union; they were followed by ten more states. Seventeen years later, and after the deaths of three quarters of a million soldiers, the Union was, finally, fully reunified. The stock market crash of October 1929 led to a depression that lasted for more than ten years, to the start of World War II. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, our financial markets were in turmoil: stocks fell 50%; the yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond rose from 5.6% in 1968 to 15.6% in 1981; inflation peaked at 15% in March 1980. In late August 1990, after Iraq had invaded Kuwait, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher admonished President George H.W. Bush with advice that would be good for our leaders today: “Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.”

 

From the first immigrants, America was blessed, geographically, and with a diverse population without aristocratic antecedents. Our government was founded by men schooled in the enlightenment by those like John Locke, Montesquieu, John-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume. It was a land that allowed for experimentation in government – not one founded on military might, royalty, or the church – but one composed, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, “of, by and for the people.”

 

As for the question that makes up the title of this essay, yes, I am sure there is a way forward. I have faith in the American people. That I cannot chart its course does not mean it is not there. I believe common sense, which has dictated America’s passage through history will prevail. Good men and women will emerge to lead the way. Course corrections will be necessary, but answers will be found. That is not to say there will not be shoals or rough seas; for I am sure there will be. But a way forward will be found. Clouds will dissipate, and the sun will shine. 

 

 

 

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[1] An excellent op-ed on this subject was posted by Stanley Druckenmiller in the August 25, 2026 issue of The Wall Street Journal.

"Whatever Happened to American Cars?"

 On Thursday we returned from a couple of weeks on the north Jersey coast, a place where my wife has been going since she was born, and where we have been going for over sixty years. Originally, we spent two months, and I commuted by train; then it was for a month, and I was able to take the fast-ferry from the Highlands. Now, instead of renting a house, we spend two weeks in a hotel. During our time there, we were visited by two of our children, their spouses, and nine of our ten grandchildren. The tenth was being whisked off by her parents to her freshman year at LSU.

 

It was good to get away, and healthy for me to be away from spending too much time on my computer. In general, I find the political news dismal, so take pleasure in writing of everyday events, though I did work on this essay. The photo depicts sunrise over the Navesink from our hotel room.

 

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I have been asked: From where do ideas for these essays emanate? This one was easy – walking across the parking lot. The difficulty is writing something interesting, while limiting myself to six or seven hundred words.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Whatever Happened to American Cars?”

August 22, 2026

 

“He who sees a single white crow thinks all crows are white.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Proverb[1]

 

Recently, walking past the upper parking lot nearest the C-door entrance to Essex Meadows – the door we use – I noticed that of the thirteen parking spots twelve were occupied by foreign cars. The observation kindled my curiosity: Is our parking lot reflective of the auto industry? How has the auto industry changed over the years? What does this say about America’s economy?

 

The answer to the first question is yes, partially. It is true that in 1957 when I got my driving license imported cars represented a small fraction of total cars sold in the U.S. – about four percent, according to Google’s AI. Today, about 40% of cars sold in the U.S. are built or assembled overseas. Of the twenty-five top-selling models sold in the U.S. in 2025, twelve were American brands, ten were Japanese, two South Korean, and one from the Netherlands, the Stellantis-built Dodge Ram. Incidentally, all but four of those twenty-five were SUVs and pick-up trucks. 

 

As for the second question: Yes, the industry has changed. In the August 15-16, 2026 issue of The Wall Street Journal, Christopher Otts wrote: “Three of the five best-selling vehicle lines in the U.S. last year were trucks.” Of the ten best-selling vehicles in 2025, five were pick-up trucks (three of them American models), three were SUVs, and two were sedans, the Tesla Y and the Toyota Camry. Despite gasoline’s high price, Americans love affair with big engines is undiminished.

 

And America’s economy has changed. People keep their cars longer. (The average passenger car on the road today is almost three times as old as it was sixty years ago. ) And today’s membership in the UAW is roughly a third of what it was in 1960, despite U.S. auto production being twice what it was sixty years ago. Globalization has provided efficiencies and savings in terms of sourcing raw materials, offering supply chains and providing labor savings. In terms of revenues, manufacturing has been replaced by the financial, retail and healthcare sectors. Nothing better demonstrates our dynamic economy than the composition of the Dow Jones Industrial Averages (DJIA). I became a stockbroker in 1967. Only one company (Procter & Gamble) is still among the thirty companies that comprised that Index fifty-nine years ago.

 

But whatever happened to American cars? Since the end of World War II, some manufacturers are gone – including Packard, Studebaker, Hudson, Kaiser-Frazer and American Motors. Chrysler was purchased by Stellantis. But new companies have appeared – including Tesla, Rivian and Lucid Motors. And GM and Ford have done well. Ford’s revenues in 1960 were $6.8 billion in. Last year they recorded $187 billion in sales. Over the same time, General Motors sales have risen from $12.7 billion to $185 billion. Expect change to continue.

 

In The Will to Believe, William James showed the risk of drawing a generalization from the observance of a single piece of evidence. Those dozen foreign cars reflect a robust economic landscape that offers consumers more choices. So long as American men and women are free to innovate, our grandchildren will witness, and partake in, an economy we cannot even imagine. The change in auto options is only part of an evolving economic landscape. My observation in the parking lot at Essex Meadows does not prove the death of the American car; it is, though, indicative of a dynamic free-market economy. 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] The epigraph comes from a William James’ 1897 essay titled “What Psychical Research has Accomplished.” The passage actually reads: “If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn’t seek to show no crows are; it is enough to prove one single crow to be white.”

"1929," Andrew Ross Sorkin

 As in his 2009 book, Too Big to Fail, Andrew Ross Sorkin is a compelling writer. The 1929 stock market crash is a fascinating subject, and a reader of this book might want to also read Frederick Lewis Allen’s compelling (but informal) story of the 1920s, Only Yesterday, which was published in 1931 and traces the rise of 1920s prosperity following World War I and the sharp recession of 1920-21. Like Sorkin, Allen a former editor of Harper’s Magazine, was a journalist and writer.

 

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On A separate matter, I wonder, is the author of “The Art of the Deal” being “suckered” by the Iranians? And, if so, is he more likely to react with anger, not sense?

 

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

1929, Andrew Ross Sorkin

August 2, 2026

 

“Ultimately, the story of 1929 is not about rates or regulation,

nor about the cleverness of short sellers or the failure of bankers.

It is about something far more enduring: human nature.”

                                                                                                                Andrew Ross Sorkin

                                                                                                                1929

 

Human nature is more interesting than a litany of numbers and facts. Certainly, the latter are important, but what makes Sorkin’s book readable is his description of many of those involved, what they thought and how they acted: bankers like Charles Mitchell, chairman of National City and Thomas Lamont, partner of J.P. Morgan; speculators like Jesse Livermore and William Durant; business leaders like John Jakob Raskob, executive at DuPont and General Motors; New York Stock Exchange members like Michael Meehan and Richard Whitney; politicians like New York Governor Al Smith, and Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt; and investigators like Ferdinand Pecora and Arsène Pujo.

 

The stock market crash of 1929 has long fascinated us – the decline of the Dow Jones Industrial Averages, from a high of 381.17 on September 3, 1929 to a low of 41.22 on July 8, 1932. Unemployment that reached 25% in 1933 and still stood at 20% in 1937. And an economic depression that, despite government relief programs, dragged on until massive defense spending pulled the economy upward as the war in Europe began in 1938.

 

Andrew Sorkin has read deeply (though selectively[1]) – histories, letters and diaries – and he largely answers questions as to who were the key players and what happened. However, I felt other questions were left unanswered. Why did a market in which only three percent of Americans owned stock decline so far and for so long? Why did it cause such a long-lasting depression? Why, despite multiple government relief programs, did recovery only take place with the onset of World War II?  He does provide some answers for causes of the crash: generous margins (speculators were able to buy shares by putting up only 10% of a stock’s value until mid-1929); secret agreements among wealthy investors to pool funds in order to run up stock prices and then dump them on an unsuspecting public; combined commercial banks and investment banks caused conflicts of interest; and the closure of about 9,000 small banks (roughly a third of all banks). 

 

The stock market has experienced worse days than “Black Tuesday,” when the Averages declined 11.7 percent – Monday, October 19, 1987 when the DJIA fell 22.6% (‘portfolio insurance’), and Covid-inspired March 16, 2020, when the Averages dropped 12.9 percent.

 

But the 1929 crash was the start of a three-year decline that saw the market fall by 90%, and which led to a Depression lasting nine years. In turn, the Depression led to the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933, the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. Sorkin’s tale is an informative read.

 

 

1 Curiously, his bibliography, which covers eight pages, does not include, as Amity Shlaes noted in a recent National Review article, Milton Friedman’s and Anna Schwartz’, A Monetary History of the United States; Michael Bordo’s, The Defining Moment; David Kennedy’s, Freedom from Fear; or Glen Jeansonne’s, The Life of Herbert Hoover: Fighting Quaker 1928-1933.

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[1] Curiously, his bibliography, which covers eight pages, does not include, as Amity Shlaes noted in a recent National Review article, Milton Friedman’s and Anna Schwartz’, A Monetary History of the United States; Michael Bordo’s, The Defining Moment; David Kennedy’s, Freedom from Fear; or Glen Jeansonne’s, The Life of Herbert Hoover: Fighting Quaker 1928-1933.