TALE/SPEECH FOR AMERIKA

Traditionen tro, var der ved Borgmesterfrokosten en tale for Amerika. I år blev det Deborah Lorenzen, CEO for Lorenzen Advisors, bosiddende i Aalborg, der leverede en fremragende tale om optimisme; et godt valgt emne for den tid, vi nu lever i.

Deborah Lorenzen er amerikaner og bor i Danmark med sin danske mand og børn, og hun beskriver sig selv på LinkedIn sådan:

“Experienced international executive and board chair with a strong track record in business transformation, digitalization, and cultural renewal. Over 30 years in leadership roles at State Street Global Advisors and BNY Mellon, across the U.S. and Europe. Based in Denmark, I focus on helping mid-sized companies strengthen governance, scale operations, and leverage new technology to drive growth and resilience. My board experience spans financial services, technology integration, and organizational culture — areas critical for companies navigating growth, internationalization, and professionalization. I bring a balanced, Nordic, and international approach to leadership — transparent, values-driven, and focused on long-term impact.”

Læs gerne om Deborahs danske rødder og interessante synspunkter i hendes tale nedenfor:

“””””

Thank you Quynh, Niels, and the Danish American Club, for the opportunity to speak for America today.

I am the wretched refuse of your teeming shores. I’m back. Today I’d like to talk about The American Dream, this belief that anyone, regardless of their background or social class, who your father was or where you came from, can achieve success through hard work, determination, and initiative. Remember that, anyone can, but not everyone will.

It is said that a pessimist is the one who can see all the problems. And an optimist sees all of the problems, but knows it can get worse. In that way, my grandfather was an optimist. He was the American Dream, that for him, things could get better.

He was born to a Danish family in Hjerpsted, in 1896. Being born in Germany he was conscripted with his brother in the first war and sent to France. He came home 4 years later, alone.

Hjerpsted is a hardscrabble place where the small trees grow sideways from the wind off the north sea, and dinner for him was fishhead soup because the fish themselves could be sold for money. When he voted to move the border south of Hjerpsted in 1920 he got Danish citizenship and a passport, but no work, so he used his passport to emigrate to California. He was chasing the American dream.

He arrived with nothing except a contact name to a fake cousin, and a certification that he was a smith, which he was not, but he had heard that skill could get him in the door. It worked. By the time the great depression came a few years later he had bought his first piece of land and a few cows to walk on it, a feat he could not have accomplished in
the old country, as he called it. He had found and married Ingeborg and had two sons.

He was optimistic in the chaos of the great depression. He knew it could be worse. America is a land of optimists.

In the early 1930’s during the height of the depression, my grandfather came into the kitchen in the middle of the day, called his sons, and sliced off the thickest slices of bread the boys could remember seeing. Then he slathered them with pork fat and sprinkled salt on top. He packed them up and told the boys to follow him. At the end of the driveway was an old jalopy. In it was a family, fresh from Oklahoma. In the back seat the children were starving. Not hungry, starving, and the bread was for them. My father never forgot those children. That was part of his America. When things went bad for him, throughout his life, he knew it could be worse. But things kept getting better.

Since that time America has seen tremendous growth, the Marshall plan, Mccarthyism, the rise of Hollywood, Watergate, 1970s hyperinflation, 1980s hair, Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall, global dominance of geopolitical softpower. Meanwhile my father sent four children to college, a feat he never accomplished himself. He believed in the
American Dream.

Today, on the eve of our 250th anniversary for my somewhat confusing, chaotic, optimistic, innovative, messed up, beautiful, strange nation, let me try to articulate how I, we, can stand at this particular inflection point and still be optimistic. How we can still believe in the American Dream.

With a career in financial services I spend a lot of time looking at economic data, market impacts, and strategic risks. Lately it is hard not to run around saying “the sky is falling, the sky is falling”! Is the American Dream in trouble?

If we look at the fundamentals, we can clearly see cracks. Let’s take 3 – Inflation, Interest Rates & the US equity markets.

● Inflation in the US at 4.2% at end of May

○ While the price of eggs specifically has fallen, volatile global
energy prices, sticky housing markets and supply-chain disruptions are causing spikes in commodity prices. The pain points of gas, food, electricity and medical costs are hitting average Americans especially especially hard.

○ JP Morgan notes the high risk of negative growth – why don’t they say losses? – is raising unemployment rates. The ECB has already taken
action to counter inflationary pressures, while the Fed has
yet to move. Opening the strait of Hormuz will help, when it happens,
but there is a lotyet to come before the energy markets stabilize.

● Interest rates: The fed funds rate is at 3.5% and prime at 6.75% which puts the 30 year fixed mortgage at around 6.5%, more than double the lows during the pandemic. – the era of cheap money is over.

○ Commercial Real Estate. Distressed office building sales are accelerating in 2026 as post-pandemic leases finally expire. In Chicago , for example, a vacant landmark from the late 1800s recently sold for $4 million, a 90% discount off its $68 million sale price ten years ago. There are lots more like that one.

○ In family housing: Higher interest rates have also stagnated the market, since people sitting with a 30 year fixed mortgage at 3% are loath to give that up for a new home at double the rate. The Census Bureau shows both single family housing starts, and completions, are down YTD, and multi-family homes are forecast to decline around 5%. This, when the Federal Reserve noted in May a structural shortage of 1-4 million homes. We have a shortfall but nobody is building.

● Last, lets turn to the Equity Market:

○ Index funds own 20% of the available shares in the US stock market, and the index funds themselves are ultimately owned by consumers through pension funds. While it takes a brilliant mind to get a fund to track the market exactly, the funds themselves don’t think before they buy – if it is in the market it is in the index. Indexes are considered safer since they are a buy on the broad market, rather than an individual stock.

That safety is being challenged right now. For example, Nasdaq usually
waits 12 months before including newly issued companies in the index.
For the recent SpaceX IPO, the year has been waived down to 15 days.
That means Nasdaq index funds will begin buying SpaceX shares on
Monday. Due to lockups, only about 4% of the shares are publicly
available now, so while the indexes will be forced to buy in on Monday,
there isn’t much stock around, causing volatility and likely driving up the
price due to demand, rather than any valuation. The Chief Economist at
Apollo, Torsten Slok , another Dane, noted recently that “Prices are
increasingly set by mechanical flows rather than by anyone judging what
companies are actually worth.”

My personal belief is that this kind of market shenanigans, where powerful wall street players – those who control the Nasdaq – bend the rules to favor holders of locked up SpaceX stock, e.g., powerful wall street players, will make a nice book for Michael Lewis in a few years time.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!*

What does all this mean for the American Dream? Can things get better?
Well, egg prices are down! The Knicks won the series!

No, seriously. That vacant landmark which sold at a 90% discount? Bought on them cheap, it is now being re-envisioned as a vertical urban farm, alongside a health research center, a rooftop garden, and a portion of the building into student and senior housing. The new owners are optimistic they can build a whole new hub of innovation.

That Trillion dollar IPO which is roiling the financial markets, was issued by a South African immigrant who became a naturalized citizen first in 2002. He is optimistic about making it to Mars in the 2030’s. In fact, immigrants cofounded nearly 60% of America’s unicorns – billion-dollar startups. For some people, things are definitely getting better!

The American Dream, this belief that anyone can achieve success through hard work, says that anyone can. It doesn’t say that everyone will. This innovation, renovation, this constant chaos and turnover is part of our DNA. It also has sharp edges and often leaves a mess. And we only like to talk about the winners.

At the same time my grandmother Ingeborg’s family was emigrating from Southern Jutland, Jacob Riis, another Dane, was taking pictures of the slums of New York, showing us all how the other half lives. Today there are homeless encampments bordering Silicon Valley as the haves and have nots pretend not to see each other.

The question we must continue to ask ourselves is not if the American Dream is still alive, but if we indeed want it to be, or if so, to what extent. Maybe it is time for a new dream, one with universal housing and healthcare, and state supported higher education. Traits that might lead a country to be named both the happiest country in the world, and the best country for women. Wait, that is the other speech…

Perhaps we can be optimistic enough to believe that when the current market inevitably falls off the cliff, the need will be so great and so visible that we come together as a nation to form the next New Deal. And that the new New Deal will yet again propel America, and Americans, forward into even greater success over the next 250 years.
Perhaps.

In the meantime, I’ll stay optimistic.

Please join me in raising a glass to my flag. To my country. With all our hopes and dreams, our opportunities and imperfections. My confusing, chaotic, optimistic, innovative, messed up, beautiful, strange nation, the United States of America.

“”””””

*The expression “The sky is falling” originates from a European folktale, Chicken Little. In the story, someone is hit on the head by a falling acorn, and believes the sky is falling and runs around warning, “The sky is falling!”. The idiom is generally used as fearmongering.