Fun Returns to the Press: A Rising Star Announces a New 1929 Crash in the Times | The American Spectator

As a conservative columnist and lover of humor pieces, I’ve felt orphaned ever since Paul Krugman deprived us of his failed prophecies in The New York Times. I now approach the papers each day without enthusiasm, trapped in melancholy, and hardly ever find an article stupid or reckless enough to make me laugh. But I persist in my search, and lately I’ve discovered a rising star. Yes, there’s still hope. This is the second time a piece by William A. Birdthistle has managed to brighten my day. The man, who served as director of the Division of Investment Management at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 2021 to 2024, doesn’t seem particularly thrilled about Donald Trump being president.

In December 2024, in his article “How Private Funds Could Hurt Americans Under Trump,” he announced the end of the world. But since the apocalypse failed to arrive, now, a year later, he’s raising the stakes — prophesying in the Times nothing less than a new 1929 crash: “Trump Is Pushing Us Toward a Crash. It Could Be 1929 All Over Again.” Well done. The important thing in life is to play hardball. A worthy heir to Krugman’s fallible forecasts. Let the fun begin, folks!

Context: Birdthistle didn’t care for Trump’s Great Gatsby-style Halloween party. Perhaps he would have preferred a theme inspired by The Godfather, Police Academy, or even Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth — the true starting point for fake AI videos. The author suggests that the revelry symbolizes our age’s decadence and financial excess, although seeing a bunch of rich and powerful men partying simply means… there’s a bunch of rich and powerful men partying. I imagine Birdthistle believes the wealthy shouldn’t have fun so as not to offend those who aren’t as wealthy, but that would be as reasonable as asking the poor not to be sad, because that would upset those who have everything.

In a truly acrobatic performance, the author tries to grab the reader’s attention by comparing today’s speculative boom with the 1920s before the 1929 crash. It’s surprising that someone who held his position for three years would hate everything related to abundance, prosperity, and investment so much. He also criticizes Trump’s deregulation, claiming that millions of citizens could face major losses due to what he calls “risky and opaque investments” (is there anything riskier or more opaque than the Biden Administration’s “renewable energy” and electric car investments that nobody wanted?). He concludes by saying that prosperous markets are built on regulation and that Trump ignores the historical lessons that prevented past collapses.

If we’re going to talk about historical lessons, regulation, and past collapses, one place comes to mind where there’s all the regulation in the world, a daily history lesson, and a permanent collapse: Cuba. The formula for total regulation was also tried in the Soviet Union — and I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but I seem to recall no one was in a position to throw a grand Halloween party during the Soviet bloodbath, or any kind of party that wasn’t to glorify the dictator. Perhaps it’s not Trump who needs to review the historical lessons.

It must be dreadful to have devoted so many years to the study of economics, law, and politics — and brilliantly so, judging by the academic accolades and honors Birdthistle proudly lists — only to end up writing in The New York Times that a new 1929 crash looms over the United States because Trump threw a Halloween party. I suspect there’s something missing in this whole story: Mr. President, perhaps you should have invited Birdthistle to the party. I’m sure he would have shown up dressed as a 1960s coal miner.

READ MORE from Itxu Díaz:

Mamdani: The Miracle Hair-Growth Salesman Who Claims to Have Found the Master Formula

Friends, Lovers, and Everything in Between

Bloody Zombies No Longer Shock Our Streets