WHAT WOULD JACKSON DO? (Guest: Marvin Barth)

Barth says he expected Kevin Warsh to be selected Fed chair because of his hawkishness and fit with Trump’s priorities, including voter concerns about inflation and federal spending. Warsh had criticized the Fed’s balance-sheet expansion, but Barth says he later held off on a rate hike and voted with the doves, possibly to build committee consensus for his longer-term goals; monetary policy decisions remain a committee matter.

Barth links Andrew Jackson’s opposition to centralized finance—including his veto of the Second Bank’s recharter—to a strong view of presidential authority. He also describes Jackson’s informal “kitchen cabinet” and patronage system, which he says treated corruption as acceptable when it aligned officeholders with voters.

Barth argues that replacing Republican lawmakers with less popular or more extreme loyalists could make seats such as North Carolina and Texas more competitive, while his review of polling and marginal districts leaves open the possibility Republicans could still hold both chambers. He separately predicts that, if Trump wins, elected officials who owe their seats to him could make him unusually powerful as a lame-duck president.

Barth says a Democratic-controlled House and Senate could mount a major anti-AI push, threatening an investment theme he considers an important equity-market driver. He also says the U.S. investment boom extends beyond AI, with AI adding to it.

Barth describes North Asian industrialized economies and Latin America as aligning with the U.S., while arguing that Europe lacks resources and aligned partners. He also cites European energy costs at roughly five to seven times U.S. or Chinese levels and warns that weak growth, difficult debt dynamics, and political fragmentation could leave Europe vulnerable to a crisis.