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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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One big issue is the privatization benefits - higher returns - is likely false for a large economy like the US. The problem is changing a massive amount of money from government bonds to equity risks would change all market pricing. The equity risks premium is maybe 3% a year now.

The government would need to sell trillions in debt to transition and then you would have trillions in cash flowing into investments. Equity premium would shrink. Government would face some significant negatives of higher financing costs. I don’t think this program would scale well.

A small country like say Norway can do things like a sovereign wealth fund and capture equity risks premium as $1.1 trillion isn’t enough to vastly change market pricing. The US would change every price in the markets. China is likely at that size too.