[George W. Bush]

Simply because no one has a better form of government, no one can compete in the long run.

They cannot win against us. But we can lose it if we are fiscally irresponsible. Only we can destroy our superpower status and economy. And we've gone some distance already toward doing that.

I hope we can avoid a severe recession or even a full depression. The signs are pretty bad. Even the S&L meltdown and bailout in the first Bush administration didn't compare to the current situation. In many economic measures and in our currency, we are back at the levels of the Jimmuh Carter administration. And Bernanke is running the presses at the Fed at full speed.

Notice those price rises, not just for oil but for the Chinese goods at Walmart? It's all a direct result of these irresponsible policies. Normally, Republicans would expect that only a Democrat administration could perform so badly. But we've let this happen on our watch, perhaps a more irresponsible performance by a president than even Harding's prior to the Great Depression.

And nothing about invading Iraq, however you regard the merits of it, can ever justify what has been done to the domestic economy and the dangers posed to the retirement of the Boomers and the economic prospects of the younger generation.

[Bastiat_Fan]

I do think we are heading for a bit of a rough patch soon, but underneath everything, our fundamentals are sound. We’ll pull out, we haven’t done anything REALLY stupid like pass a huge tarriff bill like Smoot-Hawley (at least not yet). But in the long run, no one can compete with capitalists. Its just a fact of life.