Pat Buchanan : America's Hollow Prosperity

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | 02/15/2006 | Patrick Buchanan

[Final Authority]

I read you loud and clear but do you know or do you understand why trade deficits are alleged to not be an indication of an economy in trouble?

It was written several years ago if I can remember correctly that when we experience a trade deficit we get goods from abroad and all they get is pieces of paper, which they in turn have to return to us for something of value, so in the end it is a wash. Then lately, I read that a deficit of trade is actually good for our economy because all the pieces of paper foreigners have is invested in means of production and property in the USA (ostensibly because if we had goods and services they wanted there would not be a deficit to begin with) raising the value of our property (making us rich) and increasing our productivity (reducing the need for labor units and jobs).

I couldn't help but think when I read this about the banker who lent nearly everybody in town money to buy a house. He had cash and he invested in property. It is like he was using his cash to invest in the national debt (as do foreign institutions using excess dollars earned in trade). Although house owners had home to live in the banker got rich and was able to build a golf course, buy vacation property, etc., while the home owner paid down his debt.

Home owners who were able to buy without debt do much better as it is better to be on the ownership side of investment or on the loaner side of investment than on the interest paying side.

When we as a nation support our consumption through the demand of investment from without and are required to pay interest on consumption we are at a disadvantage, no matter what is said to disabuse one of the facts.

[wireman]

Can you disprove this statement?

Can you prove it? Just because two "economists" and a couple of wing-nut columnists write it doesn't mean it's the truth either.

I'm sure you remember that old adage regarding statistics.

[mr_hammer]

No matter what you say Hedge ole boy or how you back it up. To many have bought into the hijacked theology of free trade. Lest they forget that 450 of 900 points Ricardo made concerning free trade the IMMOBILITY of capital and technology was a must! You never hear that though.

[Paul Ross]

Freetraders arguments are OVERWHELMING !

LOL! Yes, the do lack variety, and originality, not to mention persuasiveness!

[Jack Black]

All the way to post 13 to get one that isn't a jibe at Pat or his stands on the WOT. Good for you for getting to the issue.

[CWOJackson]

pat agrees with Hamas:

"Having plunged us into an unnecessary war, Bush now confronts the real possibility of strategic defeat and a failed presidency. His victory in Iraq, like the wars of Wilson and FDR, has turned to ashes in our mouths. And like Truman's war in Korea and Kennedy's war in Vietnam, Bush's war has left America divided and her people regretting he ever led us in. But unlike the world wars, Korea and Vietnam, Bush cannot claim the enemy attacked us and we had no choice. Iraq is Bush's war. Isolationists had nothing to do with it. To a man and woman, they opposed it."

"Now, with an army bogged down in Afghanistan and another slowly exiting Iraq, and no end in sight to either, Bush seeks to counter critics who warned him not to go in by associating them with the demonized and supposedly discredited patriots of the America First movement of 1940-41."

[Thorin]

>>>>I guess you missed pat's recent screed where he was whining about the poor "innocent woman and children" we killed in Pakistan.

A complete mischaracterization: Pat wrote that the Pakis didn't like us because we had killed women and children there.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the topic of this Buchanan column, which you seem incapable of understanding or discussing rationally.

[CWOJackson]

Actually pat made a long and lengthy article about how we had killed innocent women and children and never once mentioned that the bad guys had been the target...and that we had taken out the target.

[Paul Ross]

The march toward tyranny continues.

All pursuant the Chinese Communist government intervention.

[markedman]

Let's see:

No one is watching our southern border, and very few seem to care; as evidenced by most of the flat-world-flat-head responses.

Military hardware components are frequently made outside the us. That makes a lot of sense; to someone.

Dubai just purchased the management rights to all of the US' major ports, which they bought from the Brits. See the page 19 blurb for the story.

Free trade is not free and will ultimately cost the US its future. Economically unpatriotic? You bet!

Right on Pat.

[Paul Ross]

They'll spend the money eventually, and it will return to us.

Whistling in the dark....

[Jack Black]

They are spending the money. On factories, machines, infrastructure, oil, other commodities and new buildings. Most of which are NOT in the USA.

How are we all going to be rich if we don't have high paying jobs? What high paying jobs will we have if everything of value is made elsewhere.

All the people saying "Pat is an idiot" are dodging the question completely. OK, we heard you!!! You don't like Pat! Great. He's not my top choice for a golf partner.

But I don't see real answers to the questions he poses. NAFTA was not passed with Al Gore aruguing "by passing this the Mexican economy will collapse, the south western USA will be overrun by illegals, and millions of high paying jobs will leave America never to return".

Did he? NO!

[KenmcG414]

To think I once supported this jerk!!. Reminds one of Barry Goldwater who went liberal toward the end.

[Richard Kimball]

Well, also, much of our employment now is government makework that doesn't produce anything. If there are actually 1.1 million new government jobs, the underlying employment is simply reducing the efficiency of the overall machine by taking money from the people generating products and giving it to people regulating people generating products.

Also, the they're taking the deficit dollars and investing them here argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, except in the case of say, Toyota, that is building automobile plants here now, and then exporting the cars out of the US. If we've got a trade deficit with China, and they're using those funds to buy stock in say, Exxon, aren't we really just selling a tangible assest for a consumable (kind of like trading our car for a trip to Disneyworld)? (just an example, not to be confused with actual stock purchases).

[CWOJackson]

You should check out everything he's written in the last two months over at the World Net Daily website: they all have one common theme...they are anti-Bush. Or course we're expected to believe this article is accurate and doesn't push his personal agenda.

[ex-snook]

Pat agrees with Bush. Bush SOTU "I will ask Congress for $350 million to support Palestinian political, economic, and security reforms. The goal of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace, is within reach -- and America will help them achieve that goal. (Applause.)"

P.S. The topic of Pat's column is trade.

[Jack Black]

Your mincing words. The "FT" in NAFTA stands for Free Trade. Yes, it is not some internationalist-libertarian wet dream policy. No, it is not a restrictive mercantilist high-tarrif, industry protecting policy like we had for many years, which Buchanan has suggested for more than a decade we go back to.

Mincing words isn't making a point.

[MeanWestTexan]

"Yeah, like, who cares?"

People whose understanding of economic and monetary systems peaked circa 1600.

It's leakage of an expanding economy, not net loss, people.

They need to go crack a macro-economics book written in this century.

[CWOJackson]

You mean the way pat demands we keep funding Hamas?

[Paul Ross]

National security and patent protection are separate and important issues.

But both require, GASP!, government action to enforce.

Can't have any of THAT apparently.