and also what is likely to be the worst in the next 40. 3 major policy errors, and we refuse to learn anything from them. They really stand out in my opinion, 3 that sum up a whole lot 1. Initiating free trade with China 2. Lack of reform, and expansion, of entitlements. 3. Involvement in the Middle East 4th might be the housing market debacle, but that just doesn't have the far reaching consequences of the top 3. Liberals and demographics will make sure 2 kills us, the projections are dreadful. 1 seems irreversible without serious damage. 3 will end badly and we will not have enough power to do anything about it, we should never have tried.
Do you honestly think that we would have been able to maintain our posture of deliberatly trying to economically and politically isolate the largest nation on earth? We did major reform of entitlements in the 1990's. The people who yelled and screamed for it, pretend it never happened. Involvement in the Middle East? As long as the US was stuck on the oil tit, and remained economically dependent on the stable flow of relatively cheap imported oil, involvement in teh Middle East was inevitable. Deliberatly starting an unprovoked and unnecessary war there in 2003 was a fools errant, and it was bungled by truly arrogant fools. Of course then there's the little problem of Isreal.
Free trade with nations that have equal material standards is a good thing, free trade with China has subjected our workers to wage compression. I can think of no good reason why we MUST trade with them. Are you talking about welfare reform with Clinton? that has been reversed and wasn't that big anyway. Is there something I am missing? Gulf War I - don't do that and we have no 9/11, no Gulf II, no Afghanistan. Just what the hell did we gain from Gulf I, a stronger Iran?
Should have added doing nothing about illegal immigration in the 80s, when it was an acknowledged problem.
When we took capitalism out of the American box for free trade, that alone killed us. That alone is responsible for 2 & 3. Capitalists cannot compete with Socialists and Communists. We knew that almost immediately after NAFTA when a US broom sold for ten times what a Mexico broom sold for and run broom makers out of business. The broom makers looked to entitlements and to get us out of NAFTA and Globalism. Seems we need a National union to have the power to ward off Corporations. Conservatives hate unions, so.......continue with weak individuals, unorganized grasping at straws, wait until you are destroyed and completely bled dry by corporations. Imagine, cons even hate American workers making a living wage. lol
We compete extremely well with the welfare states of western Europe. American workers are more productive than Chinese but the Communists treat their workers like crap, paying them only 10% of American wages. That was their edge, cost, not productivity. Communists have no respect for intellectual property since they don't believe in property rights. They steal everything they can, they are very good at that. They have stolen most every bit of technology we have since Bill Clinton knocked down barriers to tech trade. Now we have no edge there, and they still pay their workers crappy wages. We have one edge, energy. We can locate manufacturing by cheaper energy. Unions destroy productivity, that is well known. Public employee unions are busy destroying city and state budgets as well. Unions are a problem, not a solution. - - - Updated - - - not proven as causal to the housing problem
Point 1: Do you shop at Walmart? Have you seen where the stuff comes? If you close free trade with China companies will just go else where. Closed off countries don't work, look at Cuba and North Korea. Point 2: Good luck with cutting SS and Medicare. Increased spending and lowering taxes doesn't work. When your income goes done in your household do you go out and spend more? No, neither should the government Point 3: Iraq War. Enough said.
that's why I said its too late, too much interconnectedness now. Closed off communism won't work, closed off capitalism seems fine. 1945-1960, with the rest of the world was in ashes, we did pretty good by ourselves (well us and Canada) in spite of the Unions and Keynesianism. You can see inflation adjusted wages in the lower quintiles start to stagnate just as Japan started kicking into high gear, although the increasing dependence on foreign oil probably played a big role as well as inflation. Entitlements will be cut in a virtual way since real cuts are politically impossible. The decline of the dollar will make them worth less over time. We have learned nothing so get ready for Gulf III. Almost went into Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are turd sandwiches. Obama will be more than tempted to 'fix' them, look out.
