Monday, April 1, 2013

A Quondam Reaganite, Now a Cassandra

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/sundown-in-america.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
 
This assessment is reasonably accurate overall, but a bit too pessimistic medium-term. He implies virtually no jobs will be created in the next ten years because so few were created in the last ten. Given the nature of the recent job losses, their concentration in certain sectors unlikely to be knocked so hard again, I think the CBO estimate of 16 million new jobs in the next ten years is only moderately optimistic. Stockman also overestimates the damage done by money printing, in whatever esoteric form it occurs. It does economic damage. But, not of an apocalyptic nature in such a situation as ours. Inflation results. Financial bubbles consequent upon inflationary policies produce investment climates with significant amounts of uneconomic investment--which hinders economic growth. But all of these missteps are matters of degree.
The structure of our political economy, however, generates a long-term trajectory that is catastrophic: inflationism, welfare statism, militarism, open immigration,  the manifold delusions of political correctness and the arbitrary restraints it imposes upon thought and action,  a trade policy that causes the loss of strategic industries,  a trade policy that causes the loss of strategic industries, crony capitalism (especially for the benefit of Wall Street). All but the last two of these are natural outgrowths of a political philosophy grounded in cultural Marxism--crony capitalism simply represents corruption, whereas our trade policy derives from a combination of this more insidious form of Marxism and simple elite corruption. The scale of this corruption is unexampled, and it may be argued that the Cathedral's determination to debase the currency is inextricably linked to this cronyism, that the two are even symbiotic. The cronies, after all, just do the Cathedral's bidding for the benefit of both.
A few headwinds, here unmentioned, are out of our control. China and the high growth states will drive up resource prices, and we will pay those higher prices. Sustaining reasonable employment levels in face of increasing automation, leaving aside trade policy, makes for a challenge, particularly given the political implications of the disproportionate incapacities and pathologies of American blacks, Indians, and, to a lesser degree, mestizos. And these are the growth demographics, also coddled, excused, and enabled by the PC ideology.
The solutions he proffers, excising most of the democratic political elements that remain in Washington, would scarcely cure our elite of cultural Marxism, the largest problem--the problem which, if not cured within the next generation will make an end of Western civilization. Requiring a balanced budget is foolish, counterproductive, and practically infeasible. Theoretically, though, his reforms would at least reduce corruption. Yet, ignoring cultural Marxism in favor of an anti-corruption crusade is like giving water to comfort and strengthen a man who was just shot in the gut, but ignoring the wound that threatens his life.

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