America's Superpower Status Coming to an End

Newsmax.com ^ | 3/1/05 | Paul Craig Roberts

[beyond the sea]

The U.S. economy is headed toward crisis, and the political leadership of the country – if it can be called leadership – is preoccupied with nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.

The U.S. economy is failing. The afflictions are serious. They could be fatal even if diagnosed and treated. America is losing the purchasing power of its currency and its ability to create middle-class jobs. Story Continues Below

The dollar's sharp decline and projections of continuing trade and budgetary red ink are undermining the dollar's role as reserve currency. A number of central banks have announced that they will be diversifying their currency holdings and will not be buying dollars at the same rate as in the past. This will put more pressure on the dollar. At some point, the flight will begin. Instead of buying fewer dollars, central banks will sell dollars, hoping to get out before the dollar hits bottom.

Suddenly, the advantage of being the reserve currency becomes a nightmare, as the world's accumulations of dollars are brought to market. An enormous supply and weak demand mean a very low exchange rate for the once almighty U.S. dollar.

Overnight, those cheap goods in Wal-Mart, which are the no-think economist's facile justification for Wal-Mart's decimation of communities, small businesses and employment, shoot up in price.

[iconoclast]

Excellent, are you sure you're not Rush?

Rush (high school diploma'd DJ) over Roberts for economic enlightenment!

Sorry folks, gotta leave for a while .... can't see the screen for my tears.

[JasonC]

Our physical strength today is based entirely on our technical advantage in minituarized circuits and the software and mathematical theory of smart devices. You can have all the steel you want and you get scrap metal, when you face brains.

No we do not remotely depend on other countries being enlightened. When they sell us something without asking much of anything in return, we say "yes". If they later want to "cut us off", we will just say "OK" and do it ourselves again. We don't need the continued existence for fifty years of rusting industrial plants to make things two years from now. We put up entire steel mills in a couple of months whenever the prices and costs involved make it profitable - and refuse to do so when they don't. That is adaptation. It is not adaptation to keep lots of people working on useless projects because they did them once and someday somebody might need to do them again. Japan thinks that way, forces investment in heavy industry, and as a result - although they work at least as hard, about as smart, and save far more than we do - their economy has not grown for fifteen years.

Why? Because they refuse to exit sectors they are no longer the best in the world at, and instead cling to them stubbornly, hoping that someday they will be important again and will thus vindicate all their past guesses and plans. They refuse to adapt. And so they do not grow, because growth does not come from making things that weigh more, it comes from providing what people want when they want it efficiently, from adaptation. Including admitting own's mistakes, exiting failures, letting others do for you the things they can do more cheaply so you can do something more important, etc.

[Grampa Dave]

Here is the reality that this Scott Ritter, hate America type is not telling his readers:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1353310/posts?page=28#28

Confidence in EU economy plunges
EUObserver ^


Posted on 03/01/2005 5:44:33 AM PST by Alex Marko


BRUSSELS - Brussels has reported a significant fall in business and consumer confidence in the EU economy, with a better picture in the UK and new member states.

The monthly economic sentiment indicator, based on assessments and expectations by businesses and consumers and published on Monday (28 February), showed a fall in February across all sectors.

Industrial confidence showed the biggest decrease in confidence, followed by the services and the retail sectors. Consumer confidence remained stable.

The gloomy picture is mainly due to the pessimism shared among businesses and consumers over the present and forthcoming economic situation in Europe. Consumers also have pessimistic expectations about their savings and future unemployment situation.

The figures are bleaker for the eurozone - the 12 countries that share the euro currency - than for the rest of the EU, mainly due to a stronger performance by the UK and several new member states. Poland in particular stood out with the highest level of economic confidence ever.

The sharpest decline in confidence was monitored in Germany, Spain and Italy.

Germany saw a dramatic fall, particularly as the previous survey showed the most optimistic sentiment for almost four years.

The grim picture in the biggest European economy is to be reinforced by statistics on unemployment to be released later today.

According to German media, they will show that German unemployment shot up to 5.2 million in February, its highest level in 73 years.

And this follows recent figures showing that unemployment in France has topped the psychologically significant ten percent mark.

[Stentor]

If it makes people feel better to post insults

I don't feel the need to insult you other than to ask you if you know Howard Ruff or any of the hundred other Crashies who have been "early".

[KC_Conspirator]

Many high paying GS jobs are at stake based on how well the various agencies have run the country, not to mention political careers.

About zero. I work in the industry.

I understand that nowadays employers don't worry about any of this because they laws are not enforced. One of the ways to really affect illegal immigration would be to go after the employers for breaking labor laws and tax evasion. However, they own both parties in DC.

[SJackson]

Could there possibly be a connection between your obsession with "the Joooooos" and your rabid support of the Bush administration?...Thank you. I knew that if I laid that one out, I'd smoke someone out. "Reconnaissance by fire" strikes again...Sincerely,...Most Learned Bagel-Snarfing Neoconservative Elder of Zion #5

We try to keep the connection between Jews and the Republican Party a secret, that's what all those Dem votes and donations are for. But some folk see right through it! :>)

[William Terrell]

Our physical strength today is based entirely on our technical advantage in minituarized circuits and the software and mathematical theory of smart devices.

Yes? Who is tooled up to actually make the devices that use that technical "advantage". Who is increasingly writing that software?

You can have all the steel you want and you get scrap metal, when you face brains.

People need physical devices to survive in the material world. All the brains in the world can be here thinking up physical devices, but if they are made elsewhere, with no production capability here, we have a potential problem that is not likely to get any better.

If they later want to "cut us off", we will just say "OK" and do it ourselves again.

Do you understand how long it would take to retool for vanished industries, like the sewing and fabric industries, or the plethora of other industries no longer here, or just barely here? When we have been denied the materials they produce until we can make them again?

And the financing, when we have a huge debt owned by other countries? Just tool up these industries in a heartbeat? Only when they are just disappearing, not when they, and the infrastructure and skills, are gone. And that just takes a few years.

But why? Why do that? Why not just make all we need in this country and sell to ourselves. We did that for much of our history and did right well at it. Give me a justification for large global trade, besides the unproven "peace among trading partners" notion.

[SeaBiscuit]

"Paul Craig Roberts is a self-contained self-parody.

I wonder if he actually believes this crap, or if he is just deliberately using sensationalism to sell books/columns/speeches to deluded lefties."

I think your right, check this out:

" The American Century Is Over
by Paul Craig Roberts, Antiwar.com

November 8, 2004 | On Nov. 2, Americans blew their only chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of the world.

The entire world is stunned by the Bush administration's abandonment of a half century of U.S. diplomacy in favor of misguided, unilateralist, "preemptive" naked aggression on totally false pretenses against Iraq. America's allies are amazed at the ignorance manifested by the Bush administration. They are resentful of Bush's "in-your-eye" attitude toward friends who warned Bush against leading America into a quagmire and giving Osama bin Laden the war he wanted.

The world was waiting hopefully for the sensible American people to rectify the ill-advised actions of a rogue neoconservative administration. Instead, Americans placed the stamp of approval on the least justifiable military action since Hitler invaded Poland.

In the eyes of the world, Bush's reelection is proof that Ariel Sharon's neoconservative allies in the Bush administration speak for America after all.

The world's sympathy for America that followed the Sept. 11 attacks has been squandered. If the U.S. suffers terrorist attacks in the future, the world will say that America invited the attacks and got what it asked for.

Europeans and Asians will never be able to comprehend that Bush was reelected because Americans were voting against homosexual marriage and abortion.

The world is simply unable to believe that Americans, so enamored of family values, would vote to send their sons, fathers, husbands, and brothers to unprovoked war unless Americans valued empire and control over oil as more important than their family members.

The crude propagandistic Republican campaign against John Kerry is shocking to Europeans. The childishness of American conservatives scares them.

America's French friends, seeking to save America from making the same mistakes that France made in the past, advised Bush not to rush into an Iraqi invasion. American conservatives instantly and blindly perceived French words of wisdom as proof that France was in the "against us" camp. Conservatives announced a boycott of French fries. Everything French was denigrated for no other reason than the French tried to warn us.

Conservatives quickly produced a "revisionist" book, Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America's Disastrous Relationship with France, "proving" that France has always been America's worst enemy.

America's European allies cannot differentiate the immaturity of American conservatives from the ignorance of the National Socialists.

As hearts harden and minds close against America, Americans will have to go it alone.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq has proved to be a disaster — exactly as the French and everyone with a mere modicum of sense said in advance. Eight of ten U.S. divisions are tied down by a few thousand insurgents.

U.S. troops do not control towns, cities, roads, or even the fortified Green Zone.

The American impulse is to smash cities, thus killing women and children and destroying the homes and livelihoods of noncombatants, while the insurgents regroup elsewhere. The top American generals, who were ridiculed by the Secretary of Defense and his deluded neoconservative deputy for forthrightly stating that occupation of Iraq would require a larger army than was available, stand vindicated.

The price of the Bush administration's delusion is 10,000 dead and maimed American troops — more than three times the casualties caused by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Bush's declared policy of "continuing to the end" will swell this number and bring back the draft.

The world is amazed that Americans do not care that they have been deceived, lied to, and incompetently led and that Americans have chosen to continue along this path.

Bush's reelection has ended forever respect for America. New and unflattering sobriquets for Americans are emerging. The American century is over."

This guy is flakey.

[Bogie]

Dear ARC, I don't blindly support President Bush. In fact, even though I am a distant cousin of his, I voted for Kerry because I believe the invasion of Iraq was the wrong thing to do. And, there are probably people all over the world, who will not buy American products, because of the perception that America is becoming a bully, not to unlike what Rome was to ancient world. At this point in history, one can only assume that this is a very serious problem.

However, United States is one of the leading producers of feedgrains. Only 17 percent of China can be farmed. Today, the Chinese people are eating well because they have access to American feedgrains for their livestock. The Chinese can purchase from Canada, or they can purchase from Argentina. They will purchase from United States because they get a better deal.

We have to be very cautious in making sure that our technological products are of high-quality and are of the nature that makes them desirable.

I believe an effort is now being made, by the Bush administration, to deal with the horrible aftermath of the mistake of invading Iraq. I don't know if they are going to be successful. To a certain extent, the permanent damage has already been done. Nevertheless, United States is capable of producing many desirable products, and probably will be selling them internationally at prices that the people of the world can afford. If not, then it truly is the end of the Empire.

[Bogie]

P.S. Maybe the end of the Empire isn't such a dead thing. A lot of life could be breathed into the American society and the American economy, by getting back to the objectives of the founding fathers.

[Bogie]

P.P.S. Back in the 1980s the dollar lost 50 percent of its value in one year. That was under Ronald Reagan.

[Bogie]

Well yeah, that's why we buy gold. Right?

[SeaBiscuit]

More:

A Party Without Virtue

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERT

"After listening to his inaugural speech, anyone who thinks President Bush and his handlers are sane needs to visit a psychiatrist. The hubris-filled megalomaniac in the Oval Office has promised the world war without end.

`````

Led by Bush, the Republican Party now stands for detainment without trial and war without end. It is a party destructive of all virtue and a great threat to life and liberty on earth."

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01252005.html

"If present U.S. trade and investment trends continue, "the United States will be a Third World country in 20 years." That is the pessimistic prediction of Paul Craig Roberts, an economist who has abandoned the free-trade theory that he once propounded.."

[Bogie]

Everything you said it is true. However, there is a downside to this as well. There is already an increase in Nazi activity in Germany. It has gotten to the point where the Germany authorities, despite all other prohibitions on such activities since the second world war, are now dealing with population numbers that make it impossible to control. Part of this is because of the American invasion of Iraq. They smelled blood. Part of the problem has to do with unemployment. Yes, it's a problem for the Europeans. But, it could be a problem for the rest of the world as well.

[ARCADIA]

The problem with global free trade economics is that it requires well regulated functioning markets, and that is a condition which simply does not exist on a global level. You may make money on the arbitrage; but, you also undermine the well functioning of the free market economy. Too many are defending the rhetoric while ignoring the subtance of free trade.

[Southack]

"What domestic things would that be?"

Homes. Cars from GM and Ford. Aircraft from Boeing, Raytheon, Cessna, Piper, Mooney, Gulfstream, Lear, etc. Boats. Computers from Dell. Chips from TI, Motorola, Intel, AMD, IBM, etc. Software from MicroSoft, Oracle, and thousands of other vendors. Lumber. Food. Concrete. Steel. Aluminum. Coal. Military hardware.

It's all made in America. You just don't see it at your local Wal-Mart.

[ARCADIA]

It's all made in America.

What is the foreign content in those products today, compared to what it was 20,30, or 40 years ago?

[chemainus]

It is our courage to say no to the events you describe and hold the academe' feet to the fire that is important. Get active! Write here, to regents, governors and refuse contribution requests with a note why. We can make a difference. Academe' is a situation of The Emperor's New Clothyes...look up the fable....all posturing and paid for by the taxpayer....until a little girl in the crowd said.,..The Emperor Has NO Clothes.... all fake...look up the fable, it is so appropo'

[chemainus]

There is far more Made in America in a Toyota than in a Ford GM or Chrysler

[G.Mason]

" Are we to take your opinion above that of such a renowned writer and author like Paul Craig Roberts?"

Renown to whom?

"You should post your biography next to that of Paul Craig Roberts and let us decide which one of you has more "credence", as in the words of Howlin."

That "biography" of Roberts you posted earlier is worldy hogwash.

As many here, I am not one of the worldy elitists, but am an American.

The French and Europians may well sleep with Roberts, and he with them.

I am, and will remain a nationalist and to myself be true.