Headed in the wrong direction, and fast
Thomas Corcoran in the Financial Post wonders what’s up with the banana-republic-like America of the chart above, whose currently out-of-control entitlements the President is aggressively seeking to expand:
As an aghast world — from China to Chicago and Chihuahua — watches, the circus-like U.S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. The multi-ringed spectacle raises a disturbing question in many minds: Is this the end of America?…
there are daily disasters and new indicators of political breakdown. All developments are not disasters in themselves. The AIG bonus firestorm is a diversion from real issues, but it puts the ghastly political classes who make U.S. law on display for what they are: ageing self-serving demagogues who have spent decades warping the U.S. political system for their own ends. We see the system up close, law-making that is riddled with slapdash, incompetence and gamesmanship.
One test of whether we are witnessing the end of America is how many more times Americans put up with congressional show trials of individual business people and their employees, slandering and vilifying them for their actions and motives. And for how long will they tolerate a President who berates business and corporations as dens of crime and malfeasance? If the majority of Americans come to accept the caricatures of business as true, then America is closer to the end of its life as a global leader, as a champion of markets and individualism.
Isn’t it nice that the President’s community-organizing political allies are mobbing private homes carrying signs that say, “Capitalism is organized crime.” As Peter Robinson might have said, Hasta la victoria siempre!
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:47 am
If the majority of Americans come to accept the caricatures of business as true, then America is closer to the end of its life as a global leader, as a champion of markets and individualism.
Ditto if the transnationalists succeed in brainwashing us that patriotism is provincial ignorance if not outright evil.
One begins to read that the country’s AAA credit rating could come into question. One begins to read about options on US default. The tectonic equilibrium is stirring wrt to the dollar’s position as the world reserve currency.
I can readily imagine the Chinese coldly preparing a financial, economic and political decapitation strike: a nonmilitary Pearl Harbor. Whether we would have the means or will to respond with ‘righteous might’ is increasingly doubtful.
Like the financial crisis, America’s demotion from world leadership could come sooner, move faster, and be bigger than most people think. (That is, if present trends continue. In the 1970s our future also appeared bleak.)