Dear Reader,
You’ve heard someone say some variation of this recently…
“What a crazy time to be alive!” Or, “We live in interesting times”.
But none of those are true. For centuries, times like these have been the rule.
The United States has been in turmoil for much of its history:
- The Revolutionary War
- The Civil War
- The Great Depression,
- The Cold War
- The Vietnam War
- Natural Disaster impacts such as Hurricane Katrina.
It’s a long list of stormy times. And every single one of those heartbreaking events has led to renewed growth and prosperity for the American people.
But there is something unusual about our time: a complete breakdown of some of America’s most critical aspects.
Take infrastructure, for example.
In 2021, the American Society of Civil Engineers released its latest “report card” on United States infrastructure. The overall grade: C-.
One in four bridges that are driven across every day in America is deficient or obsolete.
But that’s nothing compared to other systems that are part of everyday American life. These, among others, are all in shambles:
- The tax code
- Medicaid
- Healthcare
- Education
- Corporate welfare
That list wasn’t just made up. It came from a senior U.S. Senator.
The big problem is that the government has become so flawed and ineffective that the “C-” in each of these areas is on pace to quickly turning into an “F”.
How can America turn back from a certain collision course with absolute catastrophe?
Well, there could be an “enlightened” coup—as we’ve seen slight glimmers over the past two decades.
Or perhaps changes in the way American democracy operates or hold a new constitutional convention to rewrite the rules.
Or maybe create a new, viable third party… the first one in more than a century. I just don’t see any of those happening any time soon.
But here is an option that is viable—one that’s uniquely American— and is most likely.
It’s called a “Sputnik moment.”
Mass Chaos Always Leads to American Prosperity
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1. It was the world’s first man-made satellite.
When the news media greatly exaggerated the danger of the situation, the United States went into shock.
One scientist wrote that the day Sputnik orbited the Earth was the day the U.S. became a “second-rate power.” But in a private meeting, President Eisenhower revealed that he knew the opposite was true.
Russia has “done us a good turn,” said Eisenhower.
Because with that launch, the Soviet Union had thrust the powerful American machine into action. Remarkably…
- NASA was created from the ground up in under a year.
And a decade later, the first men landed on the moon. And they were American astronauts, not Soviet cosmonauts.
Within 20 years, the Soviet Union was gone. And the United States was the undeniable, unassailable world leader in space and the world.
- It’s been the same throughout all of U.S. history. America has waited until its back is up against a wall before acting.
And when it does act, it absolutely crushes whatever problems oppose it.
Right Now, America’s Back is Up Against a Wall
The coronavirus ripping across the nation has already resulted in major tax code changes and bailouts.
It’s disrupted the education system: Home schooling has “exploded” according to the US census through to 2021.
The strength of Medicaid and the healthcare system are about to meet the test of a lifetime.
It might be hard to look past a market experiencing major volatility and uncertainty.
- The Colonial pipeline, the most important petroleum product pipeline in the eastern United States, was hacked for $90 million in bitcoin…
The nation is bombarded by the media to turn on each other, family vs family and neighbor vs neighbor. In one conflict after another…
But the coronavirus has done America a good turn.
Because… this is America’s Sputnik moment.
This is what will force a healthcare overhaul, an education renovation, an economic restructuring. All in the name of not getting beat by a virus and foreign competitors.
This is what will set foreign policy and domestic economy on the path toward another half-century of record-breaking growth and prosperity.
- In short, the fears of these completely normal times will propel the incredible success of the next.
There Will Be No Return to “Business as Normal”
As Thomas Wright from the Brookings Institution wrote:
“The longer the pandemic goes on, the more the world will change.”
For the United States, that means a change in a very good way.
Because when it comes down to it, times like these are what the United States was made for.
We’re going to see massive changes in society… in policy… in politics… and especially in business.
Which is even more good news:
- The more the world changes, the more investment opportunities there are.
You see, investment opportunities arise when there is a difference between value and perception. And when rapid change happens, those differences are all over the place.
It gets even better.
Many changes that were already underway when the pandemic hit is going to be dramatically accelerated.
- The faster the world changes, the greater the investment opportunities are.
We’re Watching History Happen in Real Time… But at 16x Fast Forward Speed…
Huge companies will buy out little ones.
Companies will bring their supply chains home to the United States. Companies head over their heels in debt will quickly fade away.
New sectors are being created now that will takeover the existing titans in the marketplace. And you will have the opportunity to get rock-solid companies at rock-bottom prices.
Eventually, as the director of the NIAID said, “We will get over this, and this will end.”
When that happens, you’ll want to be ready.
Because maybe not today, and maybe not by this summer — but soon, and for the rest of your life, America will rise.
What Comes After the Catastrophe Is What’s Important
Right now, people are claiming that the coronavirus will kill us. If not physically, then economically. But that’s based on their limited insight.
- Yes, the Coronavirus inflicted great pain in the short term. But in the long term, it will propel the United States to historical greatness.
As a private investor, it’s easy to be distracted by the layoffs, the new jobless claims, and the case counts reports by the mass media.
But while everyone else is panicking at the first signs of turmoil, great investors are looking forward. They’re looking past the coronavirus.
They’re planning for a future when the United States will have once again surge far past its competition.
Because time and again, America has fixed its problems without a regularly scheduled revolution.
And America is going to do it again.
Infrastructure, which we’re rapidly finding out is necessary to maintain the integrity of vital supply chains and a calm public, will be one of the first to get an upgrade.
It will be an upgrade that will cost trillions of dollars…
- President Biden proposed a $2 trillion package in his 2021 plan. That’s enough to fix nearly every bridge, road, sewer, and school in the United States.
Now, with interest rates at historical lows, borrowing that amount will be far more attractive.
That massive infrastructure development will need China’s levels of resources to construct: copper, iron, and oil.
You don’t have to look farther than home depot to see the price of lumber rocketing higher. Or the gas pump to see that oil prices are elevated.
Savvy investors are already mapping out which decimated resource stocks they want to pick up for dirt cheap.
- Because those stocks are eventually going to fly higher than they’ve ever been before.
And when the coronavirus is gone and the country has been fixed, it will be America the beautiful—once again.
Regards,
Marin Katusa
