RE REPUBLICANS TO FIGHT OBAMA AGENDA mis en scene cartoon Uncle Sam as Lear

Ironically, he hasn't had much of an agenda.

Obama as Cordelia: 'Nothing, my lord'.

Say what. 'Nothing will come from nothing'.

Lear:

"...our darker purpose...

while we unburden'd,

crawl toward death....

Nothing will come from 'nothing'."

Question for the really eager:

Which is a 'Republican' and which a 'tea party',

girl, if distinguishable, as between Goneril and Regan?

CONSERVATIVING ONE'S WAY OUT OF A PAPER BAG

CANNOT BE DONE.

ALSO, PROGRESSIVING ONE'S WAY OUT OF A PAPER BAG, CANNOT BE DONE.

FURTHER,

COMPROMISING, MIDDLE OF THE ROADING, ONE'S WAY OUT OF A PAPER BAG, CANNOT BE DONE.

AMERICAN 'POLITICS AS USUAL', 'TURNING OUT THE INCUMBENTS', 'KEEPING THE INCUMBENTS', 'FIGHTING OFF THE NEOCONS', 'RAISING THE BANNER OF THE LIBERALS', 'COMPROMISING',

ECONOMICS, ANY WAY YOU TURN IT, SANCTIONS, CARROT OR STICK, EMBARGO, YOU NAME IT, NOW,

WAR, E G WWII,THE GREAT SOLUTION FOR THE DEPRESSION (WORKED A LOT BETTER THAN THE RATHER ANEMIC NEW DEAL),

WAS IN MANY WAYS JUST DUMB PROSPERITY LUCK FOR THE US, WON'T WORK NOW,

NONE OF THIS, NOW, CAN GET US OUT OF THE GATHERING

GLOBALIZATION TRAP

WE HAVE LONG DUG FOR OURSELVES BY OUR SYSTEM.

THIS INTENTIONALLY HOBBLED SYSTEM NEEDED TO BE FIXED BACK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, ALREADY QUITE OUTMODED, AND WAY TOO CUMBERSOME, EVEN BY MID 19TH CENTURY.

BUT TOO MANY KINDS OF DEVELOPMENTS, PLUS BLIND LOYALTY TO OLD OR NEW RITUALS, ESTABLISHED OR ESTABLISHING VESTED SECTIONAL OR CLASS INTERESTS, PREVENTED POLITICAL REFORM, WHAT I WOULD CALL POLITICAL RATIONALIZATIONS, FROM HAPPENING.

NOW IT IS, I THINK, TOO LATE.

See also: Jordan Roy-Byrne, Nov 3, 2010 article........

RE PHILOSOPHERS THROUGH THE LENS NYT EDITORIAL

One might take a look at The Pictorial History of Philosophy, if you can find a copy, by Dagobert Runes. An old book now.

Mis en scene US security umbrella square dance

One might show a number of Asian characters warily circling each other in a boxing ring.

Each has aloft, in one hand, a different umbrella, marked Made in China, Made in Korea, Made In Japan, Made in Taiwan, Made in Russia, Made in Singapore, Made In Malaysia etc.

The other hand has a boxing glove.

The caption:

US Security Umbrellas distributed Laissez Faire

Mis en scene security umbrella cartoon

Why not show Mrs Clinton, as Mary Poppins, descending serenely with umbrella engaged, suitcase in hand, from about 15 feet above the ground. It could be onto numerous contested islands, or onto Japan or South Korea.

No one else is in sight.

Background music Chim Chim Cheree.

The caption above:

US Security Umbrella Engaging

KURIL ISLANDS DISPUTE JAPAN RUSSIA ADDING SPICE TO THE ASIAN DO SI DO mise en scene

Some people think no war on the horizon,

'smooth sailing' all around here.

Although I hope they are right, I am not one of those.

It might be worthwhile to speculate on a cartoon illustrating the US Security Umbrella some of these rascals can hope to expect in the event of rain.

It will have some holes in the umbrella here and there, no doubt, be rather rickety, and probably be held blithely aloft rather askew, by a very Robert Macaire looking Maverick Executive, but wearing the signature smoker. He can be standing on a large rock in the sea marked Kuril.

He will be mumbling something about "only clear blue skies as far as the eye can see; no real need for this old thing anyway!".

None of his companions, of various Asian descriptions, have yet joined him under the umbrella, but large storm clouds are gathered behind him, say, identifiable Mount Fuji in the distance for effect.

RE GLOBALIZATION TRAP: DEFICIT SPENDING TARIFFS DEBT

Some pundits now talk about an Economics Trap, or Liquidity Trap, or other kinds of terms for the same thing.

Economics certainly has been a 'trap' for the unwary.

I would call the current situation a 'Globalization Trap', for a few choice reasons:

1. When you are in a globalization trap, increased government spending tends to find eager foreign sellers (alleged bad fit between labor market and jobs, even new government ones).

Not so many domestic producers hoping to participate.

2. Tariffs don't work so well because of lack of preponderant domestic production, for similar reasons. Why put up high barriers to protect something you no longer have, an industrial base?

3. Increasing government spending means government borrowing from the very lenders whose trade is fed on globalist regimes like ours.

4. Can't raise interest rates, because that ultimately raises cost of borrowing and growth even more.

5. QE or QE2: 'everybody's doing it. So this will be no solution, in a globalized fiat currency world.

Thus, a GLOBALIZATION TRAP.

CONTRARY TO OTHER KINDS OF 'TRAPS', YOU CAN'T 'ECONOMICS' YOUR WAY OUT IT.

RE CHINA'S FAST RISE LEADS NEIGHBORS TO JOIN FORCES cartoon mise en scene

What a ridiculous gloss over a ludicrous economic and diplomatic past this article is.

See prior posts re fattening things up, square dance cartoon, etc.

It might be worthwhile to pose Mahbubani waltzing around a ballroom floor with say a large Chinese sumo wrestler, singing the praises of the Asian Century.

Mrs. Clinton might be also out there, cavorting with a japanese partner.

The caption above might read

"Civilized behavior"

She might be requesting of her partner

'A Singapore Sling Please'

Re Macro

My professor of macro at BU GSM, Phil Friedman, a good teacher of a bad course, still actually teaches, at GGU, Ageno School of Business.

Who knew?

RE MAHBUBANI: THE IRRESISTIBLE SHIFT

An example,

what has been happening in broad daylight, going on for decades now,

while Americans expanded Asian trade,

went to their sports fan sporting events,

fought debilitating and diverting little wars, Korea to Viet Nam to Afghanistan,

and agonized over arcane domestic ethical issues.

Americans frittered away their advantages.

THEME VIDEO FOR THE WEEK

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON

This is dated a few years, but hey.

Interestingly, Ang Lee also directed Emma Thompson's

version of Sense And Sensibility, what.

Thurston Robert Macaire Howell p 16

This was from around 06:

"Yet, it turns out that even the magnitude of the threat driving cold war military spending and trade concessions may have been exaggerated.[1]

American policy makers have compartmentalized decisions on foreign and military policy from trade, industry, urban economics, and the general welfare, and have subordinated the latter to the former, because of weaknesses in our system which require or allow such compartmentalization, on which foreigners and multinationals have been able to game.[2]

Is it now too late, for our cities, industries, and safety, for Americans to see that social, economic, and military strength hang together?[3] Is it too late to adopt producerism rather than consumerism? To promote a middle class, the general welfare, to adopt a 21^ST Century version of the American System?"[4]

---

[1] T. Gervasi, The Myth of Soviet Military Supremacy, Harper & Row, 1986.

[2] See: Johnson, Japan: Who Governs?, p. 106:”’If Japan told Washington it would no longer sell computer chips to the United States, the Pentagon would be totally helpless….Japan now has a decisive technological advantage.’” Bobbitt, Shield, p. 702. When Congress has had to make trade-related sausage, it has usually been foreign sausage.

[3] Peter Paret, Understanding War, Essays On Clausewitz and the History of Military Power, “The New Military History”, Princeton, 1992, p. 209.

[4] Or perhaps it is time for Francis Fukuyama’s, The End Of History And The Last Man(?) Free Press, 1992. (If the last man had had nationality, religion, economics, and politics, what would they have been: German, Protestant, British System, Whig?)

See also: Our Posthuman Future, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002. “… capitalist liberal democratic institutions have been successful because they are grounded in assumptions about human nature that are far more realistic than those of their competitors.” Our Posthuman Future, p. 106. See however Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation Of History, and Johnson, Japan: Who Governs; Miti, for an antidote to Fukuyama.

RE DAVID SHAMBAUGH CHINA EXPERT

It's uncanny how he physically resembles, somewhat, the fictional British diplomat, who tried to defect to China, via Greece, in the "It's Up To The Lady' episode of Secret Agent, the early 60s television series.

Just a coincidence......I wonder if Shambaugh ever even heard of the program?

RE DIVIDED WE FALL KRUGMAN NYT EDITORIAL

Re be afraid, he is right.

"Fragmented from the beginning, we long since have fallen"

might be a better way to put it.

Re, "When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, the U.S. economy had strong fundamentals", unfortunately he has date and terminology wrong.

The last time the US had a 'strong,' but declining, 'domestic economy' (the only one that counts when it hits the fan) was in the early 70s.

Civilizational Advantage was already shifting at that point, say around the time of the Nixon Shock.

The USA intentionally did not have a strong government, then or before or now.

RE KRUGMAN ON FRIEDMAN ON JAPAN JAMES GRANT CHINA AND THINGS BEYOND COMPETITION

Printing more money, a monetarist device ends up as a species of government corruption. Banks are not necessarily under control of this device.

Fiat money itself enables misconduct.

Economists tend to see their postulates as applicable across the board of all countries. All countries behave according to these immutable globalizing laws.

It is useful to find examples of behavior inconsistent with these postulates, 'globalizers' who nevertheless do not share rare earths, or (perhaps even now or in the near future) gold or silver, if they can help it.

Maybe that is the greatest good for the greatest number of Chinese, a new economic mercantilist theme.

Perhaps this is another economics counterexample:

James Grant, an astute economic thinker, publisher, and pundit, who used to show up on Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street Week, was apparently surprised, according to his comments in a recent video, when his group tried to 'value invest' in Japan, some years ago.

The Japanese have supposedly been working on products or materials for which there can be no 'competition'. That is an impossibility almost for the economists; the closest analogy may be the 'natural monopoly' I guess.

Theme music for this new item, 'Can't Touch This'.

RE EXCHANGE RATE WARS INTEREST RATE WARS TRADE WARS AND JUST PLAIN WARS TO COME

Economists everywhere are advising their patrons to devalue their currencies, in order to better wage the trade wars at hand.

They never talk much really about better, more, substantial ways to improve their countries absolute positions, by import substitutions, by subsidies and other measures, which might benefit their working classes rather than their monopolists rather than 'export substituting' their working classes to Asia.

Mere currency wars play into the hands of developing countries, which want to see closer currency values anyway rather than rich nation currencies versus poor nation currencies. Maybe some bright economist out there can correct this skewed notion.

There was a time when strong currencies tied to a determinable hard asset, could not be touched by weak currencies, and trading was a tertiary activity in that regard.

Another implication, not drawn by pundits in NYT, although both articles are there today, is that these developing nations are sucking investors' money out of the developed world, and its domestic businesses, and into their higher growth economies, by raising their interest rates while those elsewhere are at or below zero.

The other day, foreign regulators were warned about financial shenanigans in China, and perhaps India, blithely glossing over the other implications of this ongoing trend in huge investments by but away from the developed world.

Filling the Gap Between Farm and Fair Trade

Re Filling the Gap Between Farm and Fair Trade Editorial:

Americans need, or soon will need, a domestic version of this kind of reagriculturalization.

RE THE GLOBALIZATION PANDER AGAIN NYT FRIEDMAN

Friedman in NYT today has some good criticisms.

Unfortunately, this accusation, of a Republican plank, while truly a plank, is not a good criticism of them, any more than it would be a good criticism of Democrats with similar views:

"Let’s oppose the free-trade system that made us rich."

The reason is that this system did not make 'us' rich.

He also does not appreciate his call for greater regulations of subjects he favors, and the repudiation of government regulation implicit in his globalism. it is a species of hypocricy.

re rattling the saber of war before an election

Unfortunately, this is one of the old tricks of weak regimes like ours.

There is no stronger method for bringing the electorate behind some ill advised adventure than this,

while the day to day lazy fare politics have lead in the obvious direction, actually building toward such a confrontation, for decades, through multiple administrations, in any event.

It is sad to see such a system grind on (only seemingly) interminably.

RE TAKING HARDER STANCE TOWARD CHINA EDITORIAL NYT G20 AMERICA SHOULD HAVE SMELLED THE COFFEE 50 YEARS AGO NO EMBARGO NO CURRENCY OPTIONS OPEN

"This administration came in with one dominant idea: make China a global partner in facing global challenges,” said David Shambaugh, director of the China policy program at George Washington University. “China failed to step up and play that role. Now, they realize they’re dealing with an increasingly narrow-minded, self-interested, truculent, hyper-nationalist and powerful country.”

In 2010, 2010, they realize the're dealing with.........

Ridiculous, really. Anyone with just a smidgen of history can see what a truly pathetic situation this is, and will be.

The US off shored most if its bric a brac and much other manufacturing over there, to its 'strategic' partner.

What could make anyone think that other Asian spaghetti republics would be closer to the US? Only a delusional diplomatic mind set.

And when one reads such as:

'this administration came in with one dominant idea............................'

it says something about the simplicity, paucity, and narrowness, of ideas at the diplomatic and political top.

Hello: guess what America also is:

'a narrow-minded, self-interested, truculent, hyper-nationalist and powerful country'.

All that Cobdenist peace loving free trade development, throughout Asia, is now coming home to roost.

Who do you think their new economic and military rival will be; might it be their favorite erstwhile peaceful trading partner?

Wonder how that happened, not enough open markets for them? Not enough technology transfer, or joint projects? Not enuf lazy fare?

What is a 'harder stance', imposing 'sanctions', e.g. say reducing the ENORMOUS trade deficit with China by, say .5%?

Embargo? How do you embargo your major source of goods?

Another good question:

How do you slap the hand that is feeding you?

What military options are open to a country which has blithely placed its manufacturing sources in the home of its new enemy?

See some prior posts re fattening things up, Trading Places, Trading American Interests, Japan Who Governs, Thurston Robert Macaire Howell, lazy fare, laissez faire, CIVILIZATIONAL ADVANTAGE, and various cartoon mises en scene, etc.

Things may be heating up, as I had poetically taken a wild guess, along with Rumpole, ..........no birds,

No vember.

In geopolitical, civilizational, terms, which I have used before, which even many Americans can kindof understand,

'Game Over'.