I just returned from driving down the Oregon coast to CA, then over to Phoenix....I was amazed at the number of west bound, railway container trains holding on sidings, waiting for east bound trains...not a few but dozens of trains...the thought occurred to me, the Chinese, are feedings us “candyâ€, and we are becoming addicted, to cheap foreign made products, much the same as cheap oil.....
“borrowing $2 billion a day from foreign nations to maintain her standard of living and to sustain the American Imperium.”
BS. Congress has been living beyond it’s means, not Americans. The balance of American savings accounts has nothing to do with the strength of the dollar.
- Real GDP grew at a strong 3.9 percent in the third quarter of 2007. The economy has now experienced six years of uninterrupted growth, averaging 2.8 percent a year since 2001.
- Real after-tax per capita personal income has risen by 12.7 percent – an average of over $3,800 per person – since President Bush took office.
- Real wages rose 1.2 percent over the 12 months that ended in September. This rise is faster than the average rate during the 1990s.
- Since the first quarter of 2001, productivity growth has averaged 2.6 percent per year. This growth is well above average productivity growth in the 1990s, 1980s, and 1970s.
- The deficit today is at 1.2 percent of GDP, well below the 40-year average. Economic growth contributed to a 6.7 percent rise in tax receipts in FY 2007, following an increase of 11.8 percent in FY 2006.
We are getting ready to repeat the economic fallout and eventual, but slow, recovery of the Vietnam war years.
The similarities are striking - skyrocketing energy costs, precious metal prices rising precipitously, huge jumps in food prices.
The current low inflation rate published by the federal government is laughably inaccurate as anyone who has to purchase energy and food can see.
Keeping interest rates artificially low masks the true impact of this spending and only postpones the recovery.
Even America cannot spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of borrowed money on a multi-year war without any economic repercussions.
We did it in the Vietnam era and it took years after the war ended for the economy to recover and we are doing it again.
this is not criticism or argument about the war it is just an observation of the economic impact of overspending without any corresponding belt tightening on the home front.
I think Europe for the most part has “Great Depression” numbers in the area of unemployment.
Hard to believe their currency and that of Canada deserves to rise.
Guess part of that is in not having a military budget.
Anyone care to look at what the USD did under Reagan? And as that dollar fell, what happened to our economy and stock market?
.
The only thing Buchanan’s ever nailed was... um... Never mind. Let’s not go there.
But in any event, a weaker dollar simply means that we can’t afford to buy foreign made doodads. Since we’ll still want the doodads, someone will get the bright idea to make them right here in the US of A instead of in China. Thus more Americans will be able to get jobs fit for Chinese peasants.
OK... That came out wrong; but, you get the picture.
The Chinese, whose currency is tied to the dollar, and Japan will continue, as long as they can, to keep their currencies low against the dollar. For the Asians think long term, and their goals are strategic.
BINGO
Asians “get” that what’s important is NOT who consumes the apples, but who owns the orchard—Buchanan
The few who were well positioned are getting rich.
Maybe we need a windfall tax /sarc
BUMP
from 2004:
Goodbye, Dollar - and Empire
The American Conservative | November 2004 | Pitchfork Pat Buchanan
Posted on 11/13/2004 2:40:59 PM EST by RedOhio
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1279227/posts
Thanks for post. Buchanan is right again.
One by one the bubbles are bursting - housing, stocks, oil, investment bankers, unbalanced trade, deregulation, nation building, now the dollar and in the wings inflation.
Is ANYTHING better in the last 8 years? The neocon globalists, who possessed Bush’s post election mind, have done a better job in destroying the country than any foreign effort could.
Forget about McCain, another Kristol neocon brainwash. McCain = Obama = next stop 2012. God Bless America.