Something strange is happening in Washington. A generation of investors and entrepreneurs who built careers championing private capital and intuitively understood the power of market discipline and limited government have joined the Trump administration, taking charge of hundreds of billions of dollars of other people's money. They assure us that they are deploying it strategically, with accountability and a businessperson's rigor.
From Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (who is apparently convinced he can rearrange the American economy through tariffs and industrial policy as if it were a trading desk) to former Commerce official Michael Grimes (who led the IPOs of Meta, Uber, and Airbnb and reportedly spearheaded a federal "venture arm" last year) to President Donald Trump and his proposed U.S. sovereign wealth fund, the rejection of markets is real. And as with all such schemes, these too will damage the economy.
