Apes Together Strong

Jane Goodall, who died last week, showed that even chimpanzees form into tribes and go to war with each other. War seems to be in our primate DNA.

Source: Getty Images

Tuesday, October 21^st, 2025

Bill Bonner, from Claverack, New York

Where have we got to?

In the patterns of history is bad news. Americans have never been more heavily invested in the stock market. And the stock market has never been higher. CBS:

More working-class Americans investing in the stock market, survey finds

A new survey conducted by the BlackRock Foundation and Commonwealth found that 54% of Americans living on low-to-moderate incomes, between $30,000 and $80,000 a year, are putting some of their money in the stock market.

The working class is famously late to the party. But the Big Man is planning on driving stocks higher…with lower interest rates.

We know where this will lead, where it always leads — more debt, more inflation…and huge losses for the working class, when stocks inevitably retreat. So why go there? Why repeat the mistakes of the past? Simplified answer: the ruling class is not the same as the working class.

The best example of one of these ‘mistakes’ is war. One generation goes to war…and regrets it. A few decades later, a new generation is ready to repeat the ‘mistake.’ Napoleon was firmly defeated in 1815 — by the British and the Prussians. Fifty-five years later, the French were ready to have another go at the Germans. They lost again. So, 45 years on…they marched on the Rhine again. (With even worse results…they lost an estimated 1.5 million soldiers…and then, with US assistance, proclaimed victory.)

The US, too, followed the pattern. America’s War Between the States came about half a century after the war of 1812…followed by US entry into WWI some 49 years later. WWII came on quickly for the US, with barely 23 years separating it from WWI.

Our generation was lucky. If we survived the Vietnam war (which most of us did) the many other wars the US conducted were small fry, unlikely to get us hurt. Even the Iraq war, 30 years after Vietnam, produced relatively few US casualties. But now, another half-a-century has passed since the last US helicopter left the US embassy roof in Saigon, and Americans seem eager for the sound of cannon and the smell of gunpowder. And now they have a ‘Department of War’ to help them get it.

What to make of it?

We saw yesterday that war may be a special case. Jane Goodall, who died last week, showed that even chimpanzees form into tribes and go to war with each other. War seems to be in our primate DNA.

We compared it yesterday to slavery, now very much out of style. But large-scale slavery was a financial phenomenon. When it ceased to pay, it was dropped. War, on the other hand, has been a bad investment for hundreds of years. It hasn’t stopped people from wanting to do it. And our guess is that more war is coming…soon.

Trade wars, on the other hand, can’t be in our DNA. They didn’t come along until recently. Same with debt, inflation, policy creep and the other ‘mistakes’ we see happening. Voluntary trade — using your surplus output to get the surpluses of others — is the source of civilized wealth. Making it more difficult, more expensive, or more subject to presidential whim, is clearly a mistake.

Even the Trump Team seems to realize this. They announce tough tariffs…but then quietly back off. The Wall Street Journal:

The Trump administration is quietly watering down some of the tariffs that underpin the president’s signature economic policy.

President Trump in recent weeks has exempted dozens of products from his so-called reciprocal tariffs and offered to carve out hundreds more goods from farm products to airplane parts when countries strike trade deals with the U.S.

The offer to exempt more products from tariffs reflects a growing sentiment among administration officials that the U.S. should lower levies on goods that it doesn’t domestically produce, say people familiar with administration planning. That notion “has been emerging over time” within the administration, said Everett Eissenstat, deputy director of the National Economic Council in Trump’s first term. “There is definitely that recognition.”

The move comes ahead of a Supreme Court hearing in early November on the reciprocal tariffs—a case that could force the administration to pay back many of the levies if it loses in court.

What is hard-wired in us all is the desire to get ahead of our neighbors…to be better, faster, richer, smarter, more attractive…more cultivated. And the only one of those things that is easily quantifiable is the one measured in money.

There are two ways to get richer than others. One is to earn more honestly by providing others with more and better goods and services. That is the opportunity that a free society provides.

Some people, though, find it easier to get control of government and use it to make themselves richer. They can do this by giving themselves rich perks. The New York Times:

Coast Guard Buys Two Private Jets for Noem, Costing $172 Million

Or, they can trade stocks on insider information. This phenomenon is so well known that several services offer to track Congressional trades for investors. Motley Fool:

These ETFs Track Congressional Stock Trades for Democrats and Republicans.

Or…and here’s our insight for today…they can impose ‘mistakes’ that make the working class poorer. The insiders don’t really care about absolute wealth. What they care about is relative wealth. And they can achieve that by actually getting richer themselves…or by making others poorer.

So. There is your answer. Why would the feds want to rehearse the errors of the past? Because they make ‘The People’ poorer, leaving themselves richer in comparison. Stifling trade…inflating prices…adding regulations…increasing debt…going to war…

These ‘misguided’ policies may not make sense for ‘the working class,’ but they pay off for the people who control them.

More to come…

Regards,

Bill Bonner