Charls Krauthammer says that we have a choice to make. The problem is that the country is being run by people who think that such a decline is a “progressive” value, and not only favor, it but are doing everything possible to hasten it, in their goal to level the field and reduce us all to Eurosocialists.
[Update a while later]
Related, but disturbing thoughts from David Solway:
…is there a chance that America will emerge approximately intact after the 2012 election, send Obama packing back to Chicago where he belongs, and gradually recover the strength, dignity, and economic vitality it has forfeited to a charlatan? Might the 2010 congressional elections apply the brakes and at least slow down the nation’s careening descent — what Roger Kimball calls a dégringolade — into impoverishment, stasis, and political and military weakness? Maybe. Maybe not.
Obama reminds me of a Star Wars Imperial Walker, wreaking havoc and devastation with every step, but one who may not be brought down by ordinary Americans who understand the danger he represents. The fear is that Obama has amassed so much power, aided by a Pravda-esque media and backed by a like-minded political clientele among left-wing voters and significant minorities, that he may be invulnerable. But, unfortunately, his country is not.
I think that the Republic will ultimately prevail, but the immediate future looks very ugly.
You have a long way to go. You are not Eurosocialist until you get a President without an election! USSR come-back or what!
A little off topic (but not too much). I suggest that from now on that we call the mainstream media the legacy media, as it is a far more appropriate description.
Considering how poorly the Left is doing at the polls in Europe these days, I expect the American Left will aim for Europe but we’ll cross paths as they’re going in the other direction. Even the demographic picture is changing as France and Iceland show Europe how to grow a native population while only immigration is holding us to in the growth column.
I think it’s interesting how, before Obama’s election, there were a lot of pro-Obama posters in the pro-freedom blogosphere, all promoting a party line of denial. Obama wasn’t a socalist; “we” (i.e., “progressives”) aren’t socialists; etc. Their numbers seem to have reduced greatly now that “Il Dufe” has won.
Charles K has got a point. Certainly Obama has spent a lot of speeches talking about how undesirable American global dominance and leadership (politically, militarily, and economically) in the world is, and how inappropriate American alliances are (and his dismissive behavior toward our strongest allies and international organizations like NATO) , and his actions and proposals (strongly supported by the left) are to correct that. Europe less deliberately choose to leave the worlds center stage. Even western values (democracy, freedom, etc) are not highly supported in Washington, and White House advisers and congressmen openly praise dictators like Castro and Chaves and their suppression of the free press.
These paths do leed us off the world stage, and its not like China is going to champion human rights and freedom around the world.
I looked at the Intrade betting market for the 2010 midterm elections. It doesn’t look promising though volume is low. Basically, the Democrats have roughly a 55-65% chance of keeping the House and 85-90% chance of keeping the Senate according to those markets.
Munch, munch, munch…
Still like reading a re-run of the Daily Kos circa 2002/3/4/5 etc…
Your republic survived what the Bush government threw at it, barely, it hopefully will survive the cure.
Considering how poorly the Left is doing at the polls in Europe these days
Well, they’re doing badly compared to a European right which is… well, pretty left compared to you guys. Even the British Tories are probably to the left of most of the Democrat party, including your president.
Bush didn’t set-out to destroy the health care system. In fact, until 9/12/01 he had no idea what he was going to do with his tenure. With the powerful analytic tool of hindsight, mere custodial leadership looks great today.
However, while BO has been abroad selling America short, he’s left GWB’s military mostly in tact (much to the consternation of the moonbats) so we may survive yet, at least another 13 months…
“Your republic survived what the Bush government threw at it, barely, it hopefully will survive the cure.”
Statism is a cure for what ails the republic the way strychnine is a cure for cancer. It will end the cancer, but . . . .
“Basically, the Democrats have roughly a 55-65% chance of keeping the House and 85-90% chance of keeping the Senate according to those markets”
Conidering there are only 1/3rd of Senators up for election and the Dems have a 10 seat majority, Keeping the Senate is a given but it will be a greatly reduced margin.
I think they will keep the House too but it will be by a razor-thin margin.
One so thin the Republicans can block anything they want to but one where the Dems are still technically in charge. This will be the donkeys worst possible outcome because Obama will not have a Republican House to run against in 12 like Clinton did in 96.
Who weakened America? A response to Krauthammer’s essay (linked in the main post):
http://www.realclearworld.com/blog/2009/10/who_weakened_america.html
The problem with that argument Bill is you are offering the Bubonic Plague as a cure for a Cold.
The former is far more recoverable than the latter.
Surpluses fueled by the tech and housing bubbles, latter (at least) being a global phenomenon. The economic crisis pattern is unfortunately dominated more by generational dynamics than by ideology.
I say, “unfortunate,” because one cannot simply vanquish it by having the correct policies — they are important to be sure, but insufficient because austere financial rules and good common-sense give way to incompetence and greed (in this case, boomers and Xers) in successive generations until the collapse forces people to rebuild from the ruins, including practical principles which allow people to prosper (until *their* grandchildren overthrow them as the cycle repeats.)
This article elicited the following thought: Obama is acting like a modern Democrat with his own citizens, but a modern Republican with the rest of the world. He in uncompromising with Americans, forcing them to move to the left. But he is a pussy with anyone not American, forcing himself to move in any direction they want. It should be obvious to the casual, even retarded, observer that his foreign policy is D.O.A., since it’s exactly the same policy the Republicans used to lose the United States to him and his cronies…
By every measure, American power declined substantially under a Democratically controlled Congress. The economy had recovered from 9/11/01 and was improving. Voters did complain about spending politicians, and then Democrats took over in 2007 and showed us what spending could look like. From that point, the US economy began its dive.
President Bush enters office with a budget surplus
I can’t believe Bill still thinks BS like this will work. First, Titus correctly points out that the “great economy” of the late 90’s was a bubble that burst as President Bush took office. The local stock market high was 4/21/00, just prior to Judge Jackson’s ruling that Microsoft was a monopoly, and it was understood the Democrats would attack US success.
Second, if budget surplus is a good thing, and I think it is, how does one explain President Obama and the Democratically controlled Congress. Those entities certainly didn’t work on getting budget surplus. They quadrupled the deficit.
Third, the Democrats in the early 1990s ran on a platform that trying to obtain budget surpluses by reduced government spending would destroy the economy. The people didn’t buy it then anymore than they are buying that BS now. The Republicans ran on cutting spending to balance the budget, and so they won the Congress. Even with a President that said it couldn’t be done in 10 years, the Republican Congress did it 5 years.
So Bill, try using a mirror if you want to fool someone. Your moronic statements don’t work here.
Boom and bust cycles in the market are hardly anything new. Most reasonable people saw this one coming. We reduced staff requirements by using information technology, offshored many of the remaining jobs. The very nature of software means it is quite expensive to develop but cheap to replicate and maintain. As the market consolidated companies imploded. So there were more jobs at the beggining of the Internet services cycle which fell off a cliff afterwards.
At the same time people thinking they are entitled to everything without actually doing anything grow deeper into debt.
Large productivity gains were achieved however and the people presently unemployed will eventually find some other activity and the cycle will begin again. Probably in the energy sector.
I view current American global dominance as unsustainable. (This is not the same as saying it is undesirable.) I expect the dollar to decline radically and much of what the government currently does, including maintaining a military at the current level, will become too difficult to continue. I expect this will also lead to termination of US government manned space activities.
Obama is president while this is happening, but it’s not primarily his doing (although his spending and borrowing will accelerate the inevitable.) We’re going to be spending the next generation or two rebuilding the nation’s credit in international markets. This will involve a lot less consumption and a lot more export of goods and services — made with now-cheaper US labor — to pay down the debts.
> Paul Says:
> October 13th, 2009 at 8:29 am
>
> I view current American global dominance as unsustainable.
> (This is not the same as saying it is undesirable.)
Agree. Were just to small a fraction of the world, adn the world is more adn more becoming first world industrial. When it was just Europe, us adn a couple Asian countries – our being 1/4th the world economy, adn nearly half themilitary, was a natural. With 2-3 billion folks in India adn China joining the party – harder.
We can still retain a possition as one of the top nations due to our technical, scientific and political prowess. But its not like were working to retain that at the moment.
>= I expect the dollar to decline radically ==
This was not nessisary, but unsound fical policies are driving that.
>== and much of what the government currently does, including
> maintaining a military at the current level, will become too difficult
> to continue.
Don’t follow the mil part – but bug ticket items in the budget (welfare, SS, debt repayment) are just unsustainable. The mils a lot smaller – and probably has to be expanded given the likely expanded needs.
> I expect this will also lead to termination of US government manned space activities.
NASA isn’t a big ticket item, so economics isn’t a factor – but its also become nothing but a pork program doing retro tech programs. That can’t be retained. To maintain our top industries like aerospace, we need gov developing cutting edge tech. Something NASA has been loath to do. So the current NASA is expensive and embasasingly backward. A symbol of gov waste that must be trimmed to streamline the gov.
> Obama is president while this is happening, but it’s not primarily
> his doing (although his spending and borrowing will accelerate
> the inevitable.)
He didn’t start the decline – but thebulk of his efforts as pres have been to accelerate US decline on all frounts (Industrial, Mil, economic, international political, etc).
> We’re going to be spending the next generation or two rebuilding
> the nation’s credit in international markets. ==
The fear internationally is that Obamas stated intent to start a hyperinflation that stop it as it starts the economy going, won’t work any better for us then it did for any other nation that tried it. That the folowing hyperinflatyion will trash the value of the dollar like it did after Carter. So out debts (in dollars) will be easy to pay with worthless dollars.
It will also take a gen por two to rebuild our industrial adn scientific stregths. The current anti industry, anti tech, anti science, green/nature economy, fling doesn’t cut it if you want to stay a world power, with a strong export economy. If we don’t do that well be the worlds cheap food producer in decline.
housing bubbles, latter (at least) being a global phenomenon.
Nope, not really – the countries worst hit were the US, Ireland and UK with a few local outliers. Several countries didn’t really see a property boom at all, Germany for example. China has and is having a boomette – but given an average loan to property ration of 50%, it’s not anywhere near as dangerous.
Part of the problem, apart from essentially free money so people could unlock equity, was a need for people to develop a mindset of spending over saving so they could sustain economic growth even when it couldn’t be afforded.
That’s before we look at the shocking wealth redistribution we’ve seen happening since the 50s.
Nope, not really – the countries worst hit were the US, Ireland and UK with a few local outliers.
Most large banks seem to have had their hand in the till.
That’s before we look at the shocking wealth redistribution we’ve seen happening since the 50s.
That’s not shocking at all. But rather a natural and obvious consequence of regressive taxation and regulation. How high are your taxes on gasoline again? How high are your VATs? And why do you expect the little guy to thrive when it takes a pallet load of paperwork to do anything significant in many parts of the world?
While I am not convinced the current administration(s) have gone about things in the best way (hindsight, etc.), I am convinced that there is more than just self-promotional politics going on here. I do not necessarily believe everything I hear as ‘all there is’.
It is possible to take a wrong turn, ending up on the wrong path, but that doesn’t mean we’re doomed. My vote is for repeated attempts at finding our way together rather than sitting down in finger-pointing helplessness, waiting for the storm to overtake us.