The hostile takeover of America Incorporated
The following is a guest post and opinion of Adrian Brink, Founder of Namada.
The United States is no longer a nation, it is the world’s wealthiest conglomerate, and it is in the midst of a leveraged buyout. Donald Trump’s second term agenda is reading like a private equity playbook, treating the public sector like a balance sheet to strip, flip, and relist. Trump knows the importance of narratives in politics, and this is his gambit to see his party stays in control, with a potentially very bullish mid- to long-term outcome for the American economy and the crypto industry.
Trump has acquired the company by winning the election. Now, he is focused on delivering on his most vocal campaign promises as it relates to American culture and society in the short term, while economically resetting for the midterms. With the idea in mind of making America’s balance sheet look as attractive as possible, he is doing all that he can to gut it, making a big gamble on what these economic policies could mean for American citizens and the nation’s allies.
The Private Equity Playbook: Purging Leadership and Slashing Costs
His first act of business was to purge senior leadership, from the Justice Department to the Pentagon, mirroring PE firms emptying C-suite executives and replacing them with loyalists. With the help of one of the world’s most prolific billionaire’s, Elon Musk, DOGE is working on cutting costs, starting with the elimination of over 60,000 federal jobs.
This isn’t just for austerity; its operational streamlining for a leaner, more financially attractive America Inc.
Tariffs are Trump’s preferred – and unsurprisingly controversial – revenue tool to try and bring wealth into the conglomerate. They are easy to implement without the time-consuming process of Congressional approval and, more importantly, they are low-cost since they don’t require an expansion of the IRS. Crucially, tariffs are not distortive of the real economy like other forms of taxes are. Politically, he can frame them as an America First policy that will bring money into the country from the nations that he frames as unfair business partners rather than geopolitical allies.
It is a great move from an optic perspective, as long as those viewing the move accept the risks for international relations and the consumer burden of expensive imports. It is shaping up so that in the next year, we will continue to see aggressive cost rationalization by the current administration.
This will include the continued shuttering of “unprofitable” and inefficient business departments: climate programs, education grants, diversity initiatives, and other social spending programs. Ultimately all these efforts are an attempt to maintain revenue while reducing cost, to clean up the conglomerate for the real show, Trump’s relisting of America to the market.
The IPO of America Inc.
The IPO phase is where we are going to see the real results of the administration’s efforts, whether they will be successful or wildly off target, only time will tell. In order to re-list America by the midterms in 2026, the administration desperately needs better metrics. Right now, this may seem impossible given the tremendous market slide that has taken place in the wake of the election.
But, the leaders of this hostile takeover may have some tricks up their sleeves for inflating top-line revenue numbers by turning the money printer back on. The potential for deficit-funded tax cuts and helicopter money in the form of a direct stimulus check is already being floated around. Plus, if the administration is successful in forcing the hand of the Federal Reserve, a nicely timed rate cut, despite still rising inflation, would fuel an incredibly bullish rally across everything from stocks and real estate to crypto and perhaps even NFTs and memecoins.
Engineering a Market Rally to Sell America’s Comeback
Midterm voters will be offered a prospectus of prosperity. Their bank accounts will be surging, along with property values and political sentiment. GDP growth will be inflated by deficit spending and unemployment figures will be suppressed by the influx of work in the gig economy that we see during times of high spending and the potential reclassification of employment statistics.
I expect Trump will turn on the money printer around Q3/Q4, and as inflation goes up, he’ll deploy helicopter money to offset its effects and redistribute the cash. Ultimately this is just a different, and easier, way to administer taxes. Rather than redistributing the proceeds through government spending, you just redistribute it through direct handouts. Another major benefit of this strategy is that the inflation will reduce the nominal debt burden substantially.
The private equity strategy in short: gut spending now for the next nine months, then turn on the money printer, tolerate high inflation for 12 months while asset prices soar and you massively shrink the nominal debt burden. It’s a risky one, especially in terms of political fallout and international relations in the short term, but long term it could pay dividends massively for the American economy. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, particularly for the crypto industry, given the push to make America the center of crypto innovation and the focus on stablecoins as the key to ongoing US dollar dominance. Despite the risk and potential second order effects of this hostile takeover of America Inc, it may very well be the catalyst for crypto adoption the industry has been hoping for.
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