Pat Buchanan's Review of the Decade

[SicEmBaylor]

Here is Pat's Decade in Review. It's truly a fantastic article and I agree with every word said.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=35018


About the first decade of what was to be the Second American Century, the pessimists have been proven right.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the United States began the century producing 32 percent of the world's gross domestic product. We ended the decade producing 24 percent. No nation in modern history, save for the late Soviet Union, has seen so precipitous a decline in relative power in a single decade.

The United States began the century with a budget surplus. We ended with a deficit of 10 percent of gross domestic product, which will be repeated in 2010. Where the economy was at full employment in 2000, 10 percent of the labor force is out of work today and another 7 percent is underemployed or has given up looking for a job.


Between one-fourth and one-third of all U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared in 10 years, the fruits of a free-trade ideology that has proven anything but free for this country. Our future is being outsourced -- to China.

While the median income of American families was stagnant, the national debt doubled.

The dollar lost half its value against the euro. Once the most self-sufficient republic in history, which produced 96 percent of all it consumed, the U.S.A. is almost as dependent on foreign nations today for manufactured goods, and the loans to pay for them, as we were in the early years of the republic.

What the British were to us then, China is today.

Beijing holds the mortgage and grows impatient as we endlessly borrow on equity and refuse to begin paying it down. The possibility exists of an eventual run on the dollar or even a U.S. debt default.

Who did this to us? We did it to ourselves.

We sold ourselves a lot of snake oil about the Global Economy, interdependence, free trade and "it doesn't make any difference where goods are produced." The George W. Bush Republicans ran up the deficit with tax cuts, two wars and a splurge in social spending to rival the guns-and-butter of the Great Society.

Abandoning its role as the fellow who comes and takes away the punch bowl when the party's getting good, the Fed kept the money flowing fast and free, creating the tech bubble that burst in Y2K and the stock and housing bubble that burst at decade's end.

To pull us back from the cliff's edge, over which we were headed a year ago, the Fed doubled the money supply, while the administration ran up deficit spending to the highest level since World War II.

Unlike World War II, however, there is no end in sight to these deficits.

The stock market, which flat-lined over the decade, had to surge 50 percent in 2009 to retrieve the worst losses since the Depression.

Everyone, it seems, except for Washington bureaucrats and Wall Street, for whom the bonuses never seem to stop, has been hammered by the sinking home values and shrinking portfolios.

After Sept. 11, the nation was united behind a president as it had not been since Pearl Harbor. But instead of focusing on the enemies who did this to us, we took Osama bin Laden's bait and plunged into a war in Iraq that bled and divided us, alienated Europe and the Arab world, and destroyed the Republican Party's reputation as the reliable custodian of national security and foreign policy.

The party paid -- with the loss of both houses in 2006 and the presidency in 2008 -- but the nation has not stopped paying.

With nearly 200,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and another 30,000 more on the way, al-Qaida is now in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa, while the huge U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq serves as its recruiting poster.

Again, it is not a malevolent fate that has done this to us. We did it to ourselves. We believed all that hubristic blather about our being the "greatest empire since Rome," the "indispensable nation" and "unipolar power" advancing to "benevolent global hegemony" in a series of "cakewalk" wars to "end tyranny in our world."

After a decade of self-delusion and self-indulgence, we must stop deceiving ourselves. As Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, the "can-do" nation that won World War II in Europe and the Pacific in less than four years, that put a man on the moon in the same decade JFK said we would, is history.

We have a government that cannot balance its books, defend its borders or win its wars. And what is it now doing? Drafting another entitlement program as we are informed that the Social Security and Medicare trust funds have unfunded liabilities in the trillions.

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the question is not whether we will preside over the creation of a New World Order, but whether America's decline is irreversible.

[SicEmBaylor]

I'm going to find it highly amusing when the first person comes on here and tries to blame a decade's worth of mess on a President who has been in office not even a full year.

[85Sooner]

NO question that all representatives are responsible for this mess. Both sides, but they are there only because the American public voted these monkeys into office because they were too busy with their fun little lives to pay attention and get educated and participate in electing true representatives and telling the "parties" to go screw themselves. I cannot blame a full decades worth on Obama but I will say that when Pelosi et al, took power in 2006 we have seen a dramatic decline. I disagreed with all the spending of the pubs and Bushes reluctance to veto the spending.



Heres another interesting one.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704254604574614540488450188.html

[Veritas]

All sad, all true.

[soonerscuba]

I'm going to find it highly amusing when the first person comes on here and tries to blame a decade's worth of mess on a President who has been in office not even a full year.What about a Speaker of the House that's been in for 3? Because that totally happened and has to be the reason. Also using the Emperor's New Clothes as political metaphor is like using Little Red Ridinghood as a narrative on talking wolf-human relations.

[Veritas]

This was the decade that the Republican party finished its transmogrification into the Democratic party of yesteryear and started pissing down the backs of true conservatives.

The second half of that is that it's the decade that the Democratic party finished its own transmogrification into an odd flavor of Fabian socialism.

[King Barry's Back]

First, much of the "decline" of the United States can be blamed on nothing more serious than a cyclical economic downturn.

This will be reversed, maybe in another year, maybe two, or maybe three. But it will be.

And Pat's always whining about manufacturing jobs. "Losing" manufacturing jobs is neither good nor bad. That is determined by the reason the jobs moved.

I suspect that as we look back from the future, we'll see that some of the declines in manufacturing were good, some were bad for us, and most didn't really matter much.

Much of the rest of the piece was pretty much on track. I could go on on this, but I am not in the mood.

Maybe later.

[BermudaSooner]

The US was destined to lose $40 per hour plus benefits manufacturing jobs no matter who was in office--and to paraphrase King Barry a bit--that might not be such a bad thing.

Further, blaming the decade on just those in power during the decade may not be completely accurate as well. The recent world economic troubles can trace much of its genesis to Clinton and Barney Frank.

Further, blaming "tax cuts for the rich" for deficits is ridiculous. Not cutting spending where we should is the issue. Allowing those that pay most of the taxes in the US to keep more of their money (which in turn spawns growth) just makes sense. Consider the growth rate without the Bush tax cuts.

Does the last decade concern me?--most definitely yes. Is the answer more government? Abso-f'in-lutely not.

[soonerscuba]

Sorry Sic'em, it appears the standard "blame Dims (lulz)!" crowd that has made this board almost unbearable is not going to buy Buchanan's argument that reckless Fed policy and a changing global environment have led to a bad decade. Really, pretty much everybody who views their home as an investment, holds credit card debt, and values cheap goods and services more than American craftsmanship is to blame far more than any president, individual member of Congress or any other boogeyman. I think the failure lies with the American people for being dumb enough to believe that debt doesn't have real work consequences and that cheap lettuce isn't actually cheap in the end.

Or would it be easier to just say it's Bush's fault?

[Veritas]

I can't believe I'm saying this but... ^^^ THIS

I agreed with cuba. Mark it down. :)

[StoopTroup]

SicEm....

What about the punctuation? Do you believe all of that too? :D

[StoopTroup]

This was the decade that the Republican party finished its transmogrification into the Democratic party of yesteryear and started pissing down the backs of true conservatives.

The second half of that is that it's the decade that the Democratic party finished its own transmogrification into an odd flavor of Fabian socialism.

I had to look that word up. Very nice V!

Should we have a big word of the Day with a requirement that it was used properly in a sentence thread? :D

[jdsooner]

The invasion of Iraq was a colossal mistake. Cheney deserves a lot of the blame for that. Bush's biggest mistake was choosing Cheney as Vice. His second biggest mistake was listening to the neo-cons.

[SanJoaquinSooner]

Well let's see - in 1997 a 42 inch plasma TV from Sears cost over $10,000. If protectionist Buchanan had his ways with trade policy, they wouldn't be much cheaper today.


And I wonder how many of you who post here who are fully employed in the service sector would prefer a manufacturing job?

How many MBA students do you know are salivating over going into manufacturing? It's the bottom of the barrel of choices.

When countries become affluent, the proportion of service jobs increases and the proportion of manufacturing jobs decreases. It's happening in China too.

If we pay $20/hour for U.S. workers to make brooms when a billion workers elsewhere are willing doing it for $2/hour and can do it just as efficiently, how many brooms will the company be able to export? The $18/hour difference is a welfare-like subsidy when the job is "protected."

[tommieharris91]

If we pay $20/hour for U.S. workers to make brooms when a billion workers elsewhere are willing doing it for $2/hour and can do it just as efficiently, how many brooms will the company be able to export? The $18/hour difference is a welfare-like subsidy when the job is "protected."

Juan and scuba are conservatives now? :confused:

[SicEmBaylor]

Well let's see - in 1997 a 42 inch plasma TV from Sears cost over $10,000. If protectionist Buchanan had his ways with trade policy, they wouldn't be much cheaper today.


And I wonder how many of you who post here who are fully employed in the service sector would prefer a manufacturing job?

Probably not many, but the unemployed ones probably would. In any case, opposing free-trade doesn't automatically mean that one favors the levy of massive tarriffs and subsidies. My problem isn't with free-trade -- it's with free-trade agreements. There's a big difference. Signing free-trade agreements limits our economic options and is a threat to our sovereignty. We should be able to apply targeted tariffs when needed and should be used sparingly and hopefully for a limited time.


If we pay $20/hour for U.S. workers to make brooms when a billion workers elsewhere are willing doing it for $2/hour and can do it just as efficiently, how many brooms will the company be able to export? The $18/hour difference is a welfare-like subsidy when the job is "protected."

This is exactly the problem. Are we really willing as a nation to strip away virtually all of our industrial and manufacturing capacity? I know I'm not.

[SicEmBaylor]

Further, blaming "tax cuts for the rich" for deficits is ridiculous. Not cutting spending where we should is the issue. Allowing those that pay most of the taxes in the US to keep more of their money (which in turn spawns growth) just makes sense. Consider the growth rate without the Bush tax cuts.

Buchanan never blamed "tax cuts for the rich" he blamed the tax cuts in general. Buchanan doesn't have a problem with tax cuts so long as they're made in a fiscally responsible manner by cutting spending along with taxes. The tax cuts are a quick fix not a long-term economic solution...at least not without massive cuts in spending.

By the way, Barry Goldwater (another true conservative) believed the exact same thing. When JFK proposed his across the board tax cuts (similar to Bush's), he opposed them because they weren't coupled with comparable cuts in Federal spending.

If you cut a dollar of taxes you should cut at least 2 dollars in spending.

[C&CDean]

What strikes me the most about this thread is that the folks who are yapping/talking/arguing are the folks who don't work (in the biblical sense) like Sicem et.al.

It's all quite simple. Work. Feed your family. All the other bull**** will line out - or not. The world has plenty of loudmouth bull**** artists. Especially the ones who've never worked a day in their lives.

[C&CDean]

Oh yeah, I completely forgot - people who bitch about paying taxes - but never really have ever payed taxes really chap my ***...

[SicEmBaylor]

Now, that's the sort of folksy-wisdom that can fix any economic mess. "Just work!"

[C&CDean]

Young Baylor ninja,

Trust me. Work your mother****ing lilly white *** off. Well, you know, after you graduate in 2019.

Seriously, hard work will set you free.

[Frozen Sooner]

Seriously, hard work will set you free.

Hmm. That sounds suspiciously familiar...

Oh. Right:

http://chalk.richmond.edu/education/projects/webquests/holocaust/images/arbeit_macht_frei.jpg

[SanJoaquinSooner]

Juan and scuba are conservatives now? :confused:


Not conservative, just consistently pro-freedom:

free movement of goods, services, labor, capital, and political speech. :)

[C&CDean]

Hmm. That sounds suspiciously familiar...

Oh. Right:

http://chalk.richmond.edu/education/projects/webquests/holocaust/images/arbeit_macht_frei.jpg

So what are you saying Mike?

[Frozen Sooner]

So what are you saying Mike?

Just thought it was an odd choice of words is all.

Trust me, I know you're not a Nazi. You'd never polish your boots that much. :D

[C&CDean]

Dude, I've had relatives killed by the nazis.

My choice of words came outta my pointed head, not a history book. You need to quit going to school and get a ****ing job.

[SicEmBaylor]

To be honest, I love school. I'd spend my entire life in academia if I could.

[C&CDean]

See Froze? You and Sicem are =.

How sad is that?

[Frozen Sooner]

Dude, I've had relatives killed by the nazis.

My choice of words came outta my pointed head, not a history book. You need to quit going to school and get a ****ing job.

Dude, I've had relatives who killed Nazis and relatives who fled Germany to escape the Nazis.

My apologies for offending you.

And seriously the get a job crack is weak. Worked since I was 14 and only quit working right now because the school won't let me hold a job in the first year.

[Veritas]

Seriously, hard work will set you free.
That and a operating set of testes.

[C&CDean]

Touche.

Except that the "work will set you free" thing seriously did come outta the head. And it is true. Tonight I split and loaded a couple ricks of wood. For a paltry $55 a rick. And you know what? I feel great. Something about working hard in 20-something degrees. It's invigorating and rejuvenating.

Hell man, I'm proud of you for telling the bank man to kiss your *** and starting up law school - and you ain't even my kid. Now I must add that there's far too many lawyers in the world but if it's your dream, rock on.

[Frozen Sooner]

Touche.

Except that the "work will set you free" thing seriously did come outta the head. And it is true. Tonight I split and loaded a couple ricks of wood. For a paltry $55 a rick. And you know what? I feel great. Something about working hard in 20-something degrees. It's invigorating and rejuvenating.

Hell man, I'm proud of you for telling the bank man to kiss your *** and starting up law school - and you ain't even my kid. Now I must add that there's far too many lawyers in the world but if it's your dream, rock on.

We're good, bro. :D The goal isn't to be one of "those" lawyers, you know?

And yes, working hard for a living is one of life's joys-particularly if you like your work. I didn't anymore.

Plus, what's a thread about Pat Buchanan without a Nazi reference? ;)

[SicEmBaylor]

He's not pro-Nazi, he's just not as anti-nazi as a lot of anti-nazi radicals are.

I will say this about the Nazis, I admire their commitment to opposing communism.

[PDXsooner]

not always in agreement with buchanan, but hard to disagree with him here. he represents the conservative ideology i can respect. unlike the traveling circus sideshow known as the republican party.

[Frozen Sooner]

PDX, the problem is that anyone can come in after a crash and say "See, if you'd just listened to me then this problem and that problem wouldn't have happened." Buchanan presents a compelling story of why, if we'd been ultra-protectionist, we wouldn't be in the current mess. The von Misesians have a compelling argument that the problem was too much regulation and barriers to trade, not too little. The Keynesians have their own argument about underregulation being the problem (see any of Krugman's articles the last couple of years.) The monetarists have even adjusted their models to try to explain what they were doing wrong (see Posner's A Failure of Capitalism or anything coming out of Greenspan's mouth since about mid 2008.)

Distrust of anyone carrying what purports to be a simple economic solution is the key.

[soonerscuba]

That and a operating set of testes.Is it being prepared to do the right thing, no matter the cost?

[SicEmBaylor]

PDX, the problem is that anyone can come in after a crash and say "See, if you'd just listened to me then this problem and that problem wouldn't have happened." Buchanan presents a compelling story of why, if we'd been ultra-protectionist, we wouldn't be in the current mess. The von Misesians have a compelling argument that the problem was too much regulation and barriers to trade, not too little. The Keynesians have their own argument about underregulation being the problem (see any of Krugman's articles the last couple of years.) The monetarists have even adjusted their models to try to explain what they were doing wrong (see Posner's A Failure of Capitalism or anything coming out of Greenspan's mouth since about mid 2008.)

Distrust of anyone carrying what purports to be a simple economic solution is the key.

I can agree with all that.

Economics has always seemed to be an intensely complex web of overlapping and interconnecting monetary interests. If you tweak it at one end, it can collapse on the other and what works as a solution at one point won't work at every point.

That's why I don't like free-trade agreements. It's not necessarily the free-trade that I don't like, it limits our options.

[Frozen Sooner]

Something interesting coming out of all of this is there's a newfound respect for empiricists in economics vs. theorists. There's some pretty intense number crunching going on now that the computing power to do so is cheap enough for individual grad students to get their hands on it.

Classes around here that touch on economics are always a lot of fun. The University of Alabama Econ department seems like it was mostly Keynesian, Auburn is heavily von Misesan (for obvious reasons) and UAH was behaviorist. A lot of the time, the professor will be a monetarist. You get a lot of arguments running around in circles on those issues.

There's also a guy who runs around the law school a bit who has a JD from George Mason and is working on his PhD in Economics from Alabama. He worked at the Cato Institute for a few years after getting his JD, so he's always a bunch of fun to talk to. It's interesting how he kind of gets annoyed with the von Misesans-you get the feeling he thinks they're naive.

[SanJoaquinSooner]

ttt

[SanJoaquinSooner]

A decline in the manufacturing sector’s share of the total economy speaks to the relative growth of other sectors of the economy, but says nothing about the change in U.S. manufacturing output or value-added.

According to data from the 2009 Economic Report of the President, as gathered and reported by George Mason University Economics Professor Don Boudreaux, since 1987 real U.S. manufacturing output has increased by 81 percent – hardly a sign of manufacturing decline.

The facts – as reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis – demonstrate that real manufacturing value-added reached a record high level in 2007 (the last year for which final data are available). Notwithstanding the recent recession that has affected all sectors of the economy, U.S. manufacturing has been thriving in recent years.

Second, if the United States doesn’t “make things anymore,” then nobody does. According to data from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, U.S. factories are the world’s most prolific, accounting for 25 percent of global manufacturing value-added. By comparison, Chinese factories account for 10.6 percent.

An example is the ipod. It was designed in the U.S. for which Apple gets $80 off the top of the selling price. And while it is assembled in China, many component parts are made in the U.S. or Japan. There is more value added from the U.S. than from China.

Everyone’s favorite story about shopping in retail establishments is that it’s impossible to find anything labeled “Made in the USA.” But that’s because, increasingly, U.S. manufacturing produces sophisticated components, such as airplane parts, not consumer goods.

-- Edited from The Cato Institute

American manufacturing is by no means in decline.

[yermom]

tell that to the people that used to be making airplane and car parts ;)

[tommieharris91]

A decline in the manufacturing sector’s share of the total economy speaks to the relative growth of other sectors of the economy, but says nothing about the change in U.S. manufacturing output or value-added.

According to data from the 2009 Economic Report of the President, as gathered and reported by George Mason University Economics Professor Don Boudreaux, since 1987 real U.S. manufacturing output has increased by 81 percent – hardly a sign of manufacturing decline.

The facts – as reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis – demonstrate that real manufacturing value-added reached a record high level in 2007 (the last year for which final data are available). Notwithstanding the recent recession that has affected all sectors of the economy, U.S. manufacturing has been thriving in recent years.

Second, if the United States doesn’t “make things anymore,” then nobody does. According to data from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, U.S. factories are the world’s most prolific, accounting for 25 percent of global manufacturing value-added. By comparison, Chinese factories account for 10.6 percent.

An example is the ipod. It was designed in the U.S. for which Apple gets $80 off the top of the selling price. And while it is assembled in China, many component parts are made in the U.S. or Japan. There is more value added from the U.S. than from China.

Everyone’s favorite story about shopping in retail establishments is that it’s impossible to find anything labeled “Made in the USA.” But that’s because, increasingly, U.S. manufacturing produces sophisticated components, such as airplane parts, not consumer goods.

-- Edited from The Cato Institute

American manufacturing is by no means in decline.

I'm a tad skeptical. I can pretty much guarantee manufacturing output fell in 2009. I'm not so sure about 2008 though.

At the same time, you'd be hard-pressed to find a country where manufacturing output increased in 2009.

[Veritas]

Is it being prepared to do the right thing, no matter the cost?
I've found it to be so.

[BermudaSooner]

Oh yeah, I completely forgot - people who bitch about paying taxes - but never really have ever payed taxes really chap my ***...

Dude, not sure if you are referring to me here or not, but I pay a frigan lot of tax. When I worked full time in Bermuda, I worked next to Canadians, Brits, other Euros, who paid absolutely nothing back to their home country. I paid regular US tax--even though I wasn't living there or getting any (or very little) of the "benefit."

By the way--the only 2 countries to tax their expats--the US and Iraq.

When I hire people in Bermuda, I purposely don't hire Americans because I would have to pay much more due to the tax situation. You know how much that sucks--turning down Americans for jobs because they are Americans.

[jdsooner]

Touche.

Except that the "work will set you free" thing seriously did come outta the head. And it is true. Tonight I split and loaded a couple ricks of wood. For a paltry $55 a rick. And you know what? I feel great. Something about working hard in 20-something degrees. It's invigorating and rejuvenating.

Hell man, I'm proud of you for telling the bank man to kiss your *** and starting up law school - and you ain't even my kid. Now I must add that there's far too many lawyers in the world but if it's your dream, rock on.

I guess loading wood makes you an expert on foreign policy and everything else in the world!:rolleyes:

[soonerscuba]

Dude, not sure if you are referring to me here or not, but I pay a frigan lot of tax. When I worked full time in Bermuda, I worked next to Canadians, Brits, other Euros, who paid absolutely nothing back to their home country. I paid regular US tax--even though I wasn't living there or getting any (or very little) of the "benefit."

By the way--the only 2 countries to tax their expats--the US and Iraq.

When I hire people in Bermuda, I purposely don't hire Americans because I would have to pay much more due to the tax situation. You know how much that sucks--turning down Americans for jobs because they are Americans.Um, boiling down expatriates taxes to other countries don't levy them is a gross oversimplification. The US has tax treaties with a lot of countries and most are exchanges with provision that US citizens either don't pay taxes in their jurisdiction or are given credits to a certain amount. Also, it won't immune you from a host of other taxes like property, VAT, etc. The theory behind this is that American workers abroad serve as ambassadors of a productive nation, it's simply good policy and allows us to target countries in which an American presence would be of value to the US homeland. Moral of the story is that it's common for American to not actually pay any US taxes except when you start to get into higher income brackets, then it usually gets complicated via spouses, deductions, etc.

[LosAngelesSooner]

Dude, not sure if you are referring to me here or not, but I pay a frigan lot of tax. When I worked full time in Bermuda, I worked next to Canadians, Brits, other Euros, who paid absolutely nothing back to their home country. I paid regular US tax--even though I wasn't living there or getting any (or very little) of the "benefit."

By the way--the only 2 countries to tax their expats--the US and Iraq.

When I hire people in Bermuda, I purposely don't hire Americans because I would have to pay much more due to the tax situation. You know how much that sucks--turning down Americans for jobs because they are Americans.
What are you talking about? When you work outside of the US, you get all your foreign taxes paid back in your tax returns if you're paying full taxes for that other country. I pay NZ taxes as well as US right now and I get ALL my NZ taxes back. Every single cent.