Posted by
Curt Day on Tuesday, June 09, 2009 1:28:20 PM
I can hear the fight announcer now as he announces from the ring of America's economic fight of the century. In this corner, from the Herbert Hoover administration, is Laissez-Faire. In the other corner, from the George Bush administration, is Borrow-From-Chinese. Now, "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!"
The above scenario is both uninteresting and vitally important. It is uninteresting because both fighters have descended through the depths of the loser's round. Laissez-Faire fought for the Hoover Administration against the newcomer Stock-Market-Crash and was knocked out. Hoover was advised by his chief economic advisor let things go because the market would correct itself. It didn't. The rest is history. But Borrow-From-Chinese lacks a distinguished record as well. Preceding last year's economic collapse was the collapse of the dollar. This was a key reason why gas shot up to over $4.00 per gallon. The question was, why were we borrowing from the Chinese? We did so to pay our military bills. In fact, we had borrowed so much that we paid $200 billion in interest in one year according to Chalmers Johnson. So who would want to watch a couple of bona-fide losers slug it out?
We might want to because regardless of whether or not we place a bet, we stand to lose money. That is because the winner of this fight will control our economy and near future for a while. If Laissez-Faire wins, we know that total economic collapse will result and since we have much less manufacturing than we had in the past, the question becomes do we have the resources to pull ourselves out from the wreckage. The answer is more likely to be no. But if Borrow-From-Chinese wins and we continue and even increase how much we are borrowing from the Chinese and others, our economy is more likely to die from debt.
The first fight ended in a draw. George W. Bush picked Laissez-Faire as champion of Business Regulation Boxing Federation while he picked Borrow-From-Chinese as champion of the Financing Our Military Boxing Federation. But this year's rematch saw the biggest loser's title unified under the fighter Borrow-From-Chinese.
So the question becomes which fighter should one root for when both fighters have shown that they will inflict more pain on the fans than on the other fighter.