Re: The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget - Buchanan
- From: BeaForoni <BeaForoni@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:50:37 -0700 (PDT)
On Sep 21, 3:29 am, wis...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:30:16 -0700 (PDT), St Georges Day April 23rd
<bbbbbdfgdfgdgd...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The Party’s Over
Buchanan Blog
Patrick J. Buchanan
September 19, 2008
The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our
people’s wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of
one era and the onset of another.
The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The
“Omnipower” and “Indispensable Nation” we heard about in all the
hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.
Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of
market economics, a failure of conservatism.
This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon
Gecko (”Greed Is Good!”) capitalism. What we are witnessing is what
happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and
abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.
A true conservative cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal
responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He
believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred
gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in
living within your means.
Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess — that we
followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk?
“Government must save us!” cries the left, as ever. Yet, who got us
into this mess if not the government — the Fed with its easy money,
Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by
liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken
orgy?
For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save
nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt,
corporate debt — all are at record levels. And with pensions and
savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.
Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners
will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly
fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars.
We are going to have to learn to live again without our means.
The party’s over
Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America
must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain
politically independent.
But this generation decided that was yesterday’s bromide and we must
march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on
one another. American companies morphed into “global companies” and
moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we
began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home:
shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.
As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we
began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad.
At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social
spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to
rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar.
Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will
give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2
percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal
income tax load.
John McCain is going to cut taxes, expand the military, move NATO into
Georgia and Ukraine, confront Russia and force Iran to stop enriching
uranium or “bomb, bomb, bomb,” with Joe Lieberman as wartime
consigliere.
Who are we kidding?
What we are witnessing today is how empires end.
The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its
currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social
Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the
tens of trillions of dollars.
What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like
failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy
itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the
system.
Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy
Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and
heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.
Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to
bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to
nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of
billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages.
They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance
giant sink beneath the waves.
An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of
getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite
plunged the nation. We are just spectators.
What the Greatest Generation handed down to us — the richest, most
powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest
standard of living any nation had ever achieved — the baby boomers,
oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.
http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/09/pjb-the-partys-over/
Regarding Pat Buchanan's prediction of the end of the USA: I want to
say that I am in favor of a benevolent dictator. I think sometimes
greed does get in the way of doing good and our leaders all have all
been greedy men. I will throw my support behind the leader who takes
power, not to accumulate wealth but, to do good for his fellow man.
The Chinese seem to believe their leaders to be benevolent and have
made great economic advances. The Cubans seem to believe their leader
is benevolent and are happy despite their poverty. The Thais revere
their benevolent king and are optimistic.
Here in America we have no respect for our leaders. We argue that our
leaders are devil like in their actions and motivation. The canidate
we support is the one that will enrich us personally the most and the
opposition is reviled. We think nothing of calling our president a
moron and his oppisition are called traitors. Maybe we do need change.
I will vote for Obama for only one reason. He went to Germany and had
the people waving US flags, something that has not been done in a
forign country in a long time. I don't care what the motivation of the
German people was or how the media covered it, it was a positive move,
All the other mud-slinging from both sides is just soiling the
country.
I am not sure what is going to happen in the stock market tomorrow. I
liquidated all my holdings Thursday (missing out on a 4% move) because
my fear for America is greater than my greed.
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Prev by Date: Re: SOCIALISMS AT ITS FINEST
- Next by Date: Re: I swear sometimes
- Previous by thread: I swear sometimes
- Next by thread: Re: The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget - Buchanan
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
Loading
