This is more of the same obfuscation.
He only goes back to the financial tip of the iceberg of how the US and the West got itself into this downward spiral, and then only blames the Republicans for this very late tragedy.
As anyone studying it seriously can tell, our really irreversible political and economic problems began right after WW II, and were related to longstanding structural weaknesses in the US political system itself, rather than being brought on mainly by Cold War commitments.
Even way back in 1971, people like Raymond Vernon were already, though rather equivocally, sounding an alarm about how things had been going, even in the early and mid 60s, Sovereignty At Bay.
And I have to confess I am not a fan of many of Vernon's pronouncements there;
especially those touting the overarching importance and scarcity of a ( David Brooks ian ) (meritocratic) elite among US top management, in connection with foreign owned subsidiaries, versus the significance of loss of workers' jobs through offshoring jobs, see eg page 188 189.
Cf my remarks today on Brooks' article today re a meritocratic elite:
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2973239501462830480#editor/target=post;postID=411378701496799648
and the reference in another post to Randall Collins' The Credential Society.
One could also cite Michael Lewis' recent baccalaureate address at Princeton, also referred to here recently.
Mainly only the cognoscenti knew anything was already badly amiss even then in 1971.
Never mind much later financial crises.
It was always, always, a systemic and structural problem of American governance, commerce, and international policy, already apparent to the upper echelons back then (1971), but nothing ever was done about it.
Accommodations were made to big business, the rank and file American workers' welfare was sacrificed in the name of open markets and Cold War ideology.
The rise of the MNCs, as against the several nation states, was viewed, even against the warnings of people like Vernon, as a good and necessary stage in a globalization process that would unify Europe and defeat communism. That was the story.
The situation all now face, a world created by the West in which the West is no longer dominant, has really very little actually to do with the mere recent financial instability icing on the cake of global conflict to come.
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