Daniel Henninger, in the Wall St. Journal, thinks the US must return to its roots:
So this is a taste of what it will be like when the American superpower starts shrinking. Enjoying it yet?
After the humiliation of the United States losing its AAA credit rating; after watching the American stock market descend into chaos; after living for two years in a $15 trillion economy unable to grow beyond 2%, with unemployment rates rarely experienced in the U.S., Americans have their first whiff of inhabiting an empire in decline.
You could divide the country between those who think that it wouldn’t be the worst thing for the U.S. to enter the long, falling autumn of its life, as has Western Europe; and those who refuse to go down, who’d do whatever they must to hold the world’s No. 1 ranking…
Going back at least to the Clinton presidency, Democratic policy analysts have promoted, as a middle way, various Western European “mixed-economy” models for the U.S.—generous national systems for health and welfare, with the economy kept going by tax-supported “investments” (spending) in infrastructure, education, research and the like. This of course is what Barack Obama has sought from day one.
The Democratic argument has been that the country could maintain its remarkable economic success while performing all these social goals, though with cutbacks in defense spending…
A central attribute of our exceptionalism has been flexibility. U.S. economic success is a story of adaptive, efficient responses to history’s headwinds and speed-bumps—until now. A national infrastructure bank would be the opposite of that tradition. It’d be too big and too slow. The Obama health-care plan, run through the 46-year-old turbines of Medicare, is wholly at odds with the needs now of a huge, complex country.
Washington is not America, and so optimism is possible. Out in the country, some states are showing with their public-pension reforms that government flexibility in the face of economic crisis is possible. A Washington able to recognize the immediate needs of the downgraded superpower would lift every identifiable burden from the states and the private economy…
As for the UK:
George F. Will: British state spending is ‘morbidly obese’
The generations that settled and built North America are not of the ilk that are running things now. Another decade of navel gazing and introspection will simply keep the vested interests in power for another decade. My simple premise is that you have to be a ‘producer’ and not a consumer. When you take more out than you put in ultimately it = decay.
You know what propels this post superpower apathy in America? It’s the daft idea of the loopy left who think the Russkis and Chicoms will hoin hands with a disarmed weak America ans sit around the camp fire singing Kum Bye Ah.
God help us all if US global military superiority crumbles with their economy. The vultures circle waiting for any sign of western weakness.
Canada is in bad shape as well. And it all stems from TOO much Government at all 3 levels. Federal, Provincial and Municipal. Total Debt of Ontario is over 320B, Quebec over 400B, Total of all Provincial Debt 1 Trillion. Total of all Federal Debt 3.5 Trillion. Total of all taxpayers about 15M. Total amount of Rules, Laws and Regulations in Canada is over 500,000 PAGES a stack of paper around 10 stories high, you cannot reach the top page even with an extension ladder. Taxes now consume more of the average Canadian Family Budget than Food, Clothing and Housing Combined. The annual cost of Immigration is 24B each year, more than it costs to appease Quebec, payoff the Natives and Fund the military each year. Corporate welfare is in the Billions, Multicult and Heritage Billions, CBC Billions spent, Official Bi-Lingualism 700B spent and result one Unilingual Rascist French Province. UN more Billions spent, No Property Rights, the list go on and on. Municipal Taxes being used for Foreign Aid programs, instead of roads and infastructure, endless legacy projects for egomaniacal politcians at all levels. A complete destruction of the Taxpayers in Canada from all 3 levels of Government. Meanwhile the TaxSlugs “Keep Rowing at the Oars of the Slave Ship Canada…..Keep Believing in the ToothFairy even after all your teeth are gone..
@RFB
Very good point’s
Dems will always be stupid.
The problem is with alleged Cons who to one degree or another nod their head and think “you have a point there, I think I’ll implement that.”
Politicians of all stripes in the face of this disaster will continue to pander to voters with idiotic vote-buying schemes because their number one allegiance is getting the party elected, and to hell with the country.
Every politician has and will continue to sell out their constituency for the sake of electoral success.
We see in Vancouver the same spontaneous rioting as is currently paralyzing London. As has been covered elsewhere, these riots are the direct and predictable result of liberal/socialist policy. Best SDA quote so far, “give a man a fish… and soon they’ll be rioting for more fish.”
Toronto is likewise one good provocation away from burnt cars in the road.
On the one hand, this is a freakin’ disaster. On the other hand, we have the silver lining that every new burnt car is a bunch more votes for the “no free fish” side of the equation.
Less government, less regulation, more freedom with MORE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. If you f- up, Big Brother does not rain money on you to make it all better.
And before the Davenports and trolls of the SDA universe get all in a huff, yes it would be nice if it was unwound gracefully (but inexorably) over ten years or so, to keep the idiots from cutting their little fingers on Reality(TM).
“give a man a fish… and soon they’ll be rioting for more fish.”
Priceless..but I did stay…(never mind)
LOL phantom
The Phantom wrote:
“Toronto is likewise one good provocation away from burnt cars in the road.”
Hey they already did that during the G8/G20 summit. Burning police cars. In the streets. In Canada.
Interesting to note my grandson who was 2 1/2 years old at the time, while observing the Toronto riot on TV, commented: “They should stop doing that. That’s bad.”
Noel
RFB at August 11, 2011 10:49 AM.
Dead on.
And….here’s another happy thought:
Everybody’s per-capita debt is carried by one segment of society: the private sector.
We pay the debt for: the elderly, the young, the un-employed, the disabled and… the public sector.
So, the poor putz in Ontario who has the misfortune to work in the private sector, in addition to shouldering his own $32,000 debt load (fed, prov, and mun. debt) will have to pay everyone else’s.
I don’t know what percentage of Ontario’s overall population works in the private sector, But I’m guessing it’s around 1/3. So you can multiply your $32,000 by three.
“Hey they already did that during the G8/G20 summit. Burning police cars. In the streets. In Canada.”
No way. G-20 was a gentleman’s agreement between the cops and the unions, pantomime for the TV. Vancouver was an actual riot. Toronto hasn’t had a real riot yet.
Yet.
And another happy thought going forward:
Even if Obamugabe is tossed in 2012 and Republicans retake the Senate, there is the
small matter of a huge bureaucracy armed with massive regulations and staffed with
recently hired left wing extremists in league with thuggish union bosses chomping at
the bit to get assorted general strikes under way to cause chaos. This sets the stage
in the US for alternating unstable regimes of soft conservatives and hard left socialists
which did so much to destroy Europe’s post WW2 viability. When investors and
entrepreneurs can’t see long term stability, all except the crony capitalists starve
for long term capital.
We in Canada will likely see the official or unofficial merger of the NDP-Bloc
coalitionists with the remaining Liberal remnants and look forward to our own version.
.
The US military will necessarily diminish as our national debt approaches $20 trillion, especially when the interest rate required to borrow more goes up. Interest costs will eat into every part of the budget, and it will happen fairly soon. I will laugh as the socialist welfare state crumbles, but it will not be pretty to watch.
“Even if Obamugabe is tossed in 2012 and Republicans retake the Senate, there is the
small matter of a huge bureaucracy armed with massive regulations…”
Dude, did you know that the US Dept. of Education has a SWAT team? They do. Semi-auto Benelli shotguns, very nice body armor, etc.
“…Dude, did you know that the US Dept. of Education has a SWAT team? They do. Semi-auto Benelli shotguns, very nice body armor, etc.
Posted by: The Phantom at August 11, 2011 9:15 PM
Toronto District School Board going to have one soon, too.
SWAT: Sharia, Wahabi, And Taliban.
RFB Aug 11th 1:49am
Some sobering information on your statistics. I was drawn to it because of an article in the Nation Post by Father Raymond J. de Souza. Thursday 1lth page A12. Titled. Canada’s Success story can’t be copied. First line is “Arn’t we fabulous? The usual slap at our American neighbours in certain ways (yawn). The article goes on with much praise of Paul Martin and one would find it hard to disagree.
What is surprising is that your figures of 320 billion for Ontario debt (hope I got that right) are confirmed on another website as 317 billion.
What I have trouble in finding is the cost theservice of that debt. What we in Northern Ontario could do with some of that interest money (chuckle).
Surely it must be well over 25 billion per year. I admit as a ordinary working Joe, now retired, I may be prone to get the wrong picture. This is that we too should have to “bite the bullet”.
Watching out for Standard and Poors, the same people who frightened Bob Rae and his NDP years ago.
Correction.
National Post Thursday 11th page A12.