'Nixon Shock', Revisited

August 15, 1971 was the date that America's postWW2 international economic hegemony ended officially. President Richard M. Nixon, an avowed disciple of the free-market and also free-trade, announced to the world that the United States was closing the dollar's convertibility to gold that had operated as the international reserve currency at a fixed-rate since the Bretton Woods accords in 1944. Nixon also proclaimed a 90 day wage and price freeze and slapped a 10% surcharge on all imports(another 'tariff avoidance' phrase). Though attempts at devaluation of the Dollar were made thereafter, no international agreement could be attained to reset a fixed rate. Hence, the floating currency exchange that we have now.

All of the Nixon Shock was supposed to be temporary and most of it was. That such a free-marketer such as Nixon would do such a thing in the first place, delves into the complexity of the man. Nixon could be said to be our one -and -only Shakespearean President ; RMN is a multi-act play taking the observer through triumphs, tragedies, and even comedy if one looks for it. Nixon was an introverted intellectual type who couldn't abide intellectuals; he always felt like an outsider of the Eastern Establishment, but at times tried to cozy up to them. Nixon was at heart a conservative, but did liberal things as President and when he was a Senator and Congressman: a Red Baiter who nailed Soviet agent Alger Hiss and talked about the Communist menace - then opened up to Mao's China and pursued detente with the USSR. One of Nixon's favorite Presidents was the 'idealistic' Woodrow Wilson, but he was a perennial pragmatist, Realpolitik was the foreign policy that he pursued. On his infamous tapes one can hear Nixon ranting about "Jews", but no Administration had more Jewish top level officials, and he risked a confrontation with the USSR to bail Israel's tookas out of the '73 Yom Kippur War. Though disappointed and irritated in perceived anti-Americanism of European leaders, he nearly worshipped Charles de Gaulle who was the most anti-American post-WW2 leader in the West and a certified ungrateful son-of-a-bitch. Nixon could play the piano, was an aficionado of Classical Music, a bookworm, but he spoke in terms of Football and identified with the Hardhats and the small-farmers and would often mock and deride arty sophisticated types in Archie Bunker fashion. He was a populist who coined the "Great Silent Majority" phrase, but he set up an 'imperial Presidency' and barricaded himself around a select group of advisers, many of them corrupt DirtBalls like Chuck Colson. Nixon was a hard-charging , go for the jugular,campaigner who disliked shaking hands and did not want to be touched , even by his wife. He was a natural paranoid, but when he trusted someone, it was often the wrong person to confide in; a man from the quiet and somnolent Quaker faith but he made friends with fire- breathing evangelists like Billy Graham, but he did not attend a church and seldom mentioned religion in his speeches. Nixon liked dirty jokes and took an interest in the extramarital affairs of his peers, but no evidence was ever uncovered that he ever had a mistress or even a one-night stand. He liked talking tough in foreign policy and bombed the bejesus out of Hanoi, but was always motivated to build an international order that would guarantee peace, at least between the Big Players of his day. Nixon inherited civil war conditions at the start of his Presidency and spoke of "law and order", yet he flagrantly broke the law and thought that he was entitled to do so.....

One can go on and on psychoanalysing Richard M. Nixon, the enormity of contrasts and contradictions in his policies and his personality. The dialectic of Nixon is transparent in the Shock of August 1971: he had free-marketeers like Arthur Burns on his economic team, yet he opted for the plan of practical Treasury Secretary John Connolly(some say that Connolly &Nixon were soul-mates). The Shock was short-term and was primarily motivated for his re-election; Nixon was not an economic President, and to his credit, he at least admitted that he did not understand a great portion of it(unlike LBJ, Carter, Reagan etc who pretended to understand and didn't). Such a free-thinker on foreign policy(contrary to legend, China, triangular foreign policy was his idea - not Kissinger's), Nixon was like a dutiful schoolboy taking notes from his economic and trade advisers:he'd cram hard for the test and then quickly forget afterwards what he had learned.

Nixon had developed an abiding detestment of wage/price controls when he had briefly served on one of the numerous bureaucratic War Boards in 1942, yet he implemented Wage-Price controls as part of his Shock. Though most only lasted 90 days, it was a glaring contradiction and contributed to inflationary problems in the long term. A 'fiscal conservative', he also claimed that "we are all Keynesians now" just at the time when intentional deficit spending was coming out of fashion, and was one of the biggest reasons that the US experienced spikes in inflation in the late 60s, early 70s. Though he spoke of the virtues of having hard-currency, Nixon took the US Dollar off the gold reserve that was the cornerstone of the Bretton Woods system. In his defense, Nixon didn't have a good decision to make on this point: other nations, because of inflation and the unilateral anti-protectionist policies of previous Presidential administrations, had accumulated surplus Yankee dollars that they did not want to hold indefinitely. The fear that said nations would cash them in for Yankee gold as they were entitled to were genuine. Especially since Nixon's hero, France's Chuck de Gaulle, intentionally& for the sake alone commenced undermining the US Dollar by accumulating gold with France's stockpiled Federal Reserve Notes in the early 1960s(why RMN loved this bastard is to me one of his biggest mysteries, enigma). Though West Germany gave a verbal agreement not to exchange dollars for gold, the danger was there that other nations would begin to panic and Ft. Knox would had been cleaned out in a matter of a few weeks if they did. Nixon had no choice but to close the gold window in this circumstance. It would had been more irresponsible and he would had had a lot more explaining to do if he would had allowed all the gold reserve in the country to flee, I think.

As an economic-nationalist, the 10% import surcharge(tariff) was the only genuinely good part of the Nixon Shock. Thanks to post- WW2 unilateral trade liberalization, the United States , for the first time in a long, long time began running a trade deficit by 1971 - something that was shocking in itself then. Where Nixon went wrong on this is that he only employed it short-term(again) and caved in to protests at the initial Tokyo Round in 1973 - which by then he shifted back to the free-market, free-trade policies of Arthur Burns - a Milton Friedman devotee. Bretton Woods ended on Nixon's watch;instead of taking the US back to it's protectionist roots when the opportunity required it, he left the worst thing about the Bretton Woods edifice in place when he could had easily knocked it off then for good by keeping his tariff in place, raising it if need be, and telling the whiners and sob sisters at the Tokyo Round to take a hike if they didn't like it. He could have nipped globalism in the bud then and we wouldn't have protectionist ranters and ravers at blogs like 'Left-Federalist' today. America would perhaps not be in the mess that we are now in trade if Nixon would had thought in the long -run in August of '71 instead of chiefly fretting about his up-coming re-election.

Nixon was a patriot but he neglected the economic and trade side of patriotism and shown gross irresponsibility in this department - to me this dwarfs Watergate and letting Kissinger talk him into prolonging the Vietnam conflict, giving the green light for the Chilean coup in '73...

In closing, Nixon was a character who had huge potential to have been both a benevolent human being and a great President, but he let his dichotomous personality, the inner demons of his dark side - 'Tricky Dick' - over-ride the noble qualities that the man had. Like a lot of organically brilliant men, he often did very stupid things and never could find the synthesis between the Idealist Nixon and the Practical Nixon.

Dr. Ravi Batra Responds(and so I retort)

This email reply from Ravi Batra was received today by me:

"I have abandoned my old stance about competitive protectionism for two reasons. First, the U.S trade dependence has sharply increased since 1993, when The Myth of Free Trade' appeared. Our trade deficit is also much higher.So competitive protectionism should be useful in the long run;but in the short run it could destroy the U.S and world economy and bring discredit to the idea, which will be then discarded. Secondly, while working with some politicians I discovered that no kind of protectionist has any chance of adoption in today's world. That's why I thought of the export exchange rate plan presented in my latest books. This way the workers would get higher wages and growth would improve. My first interest is removing poverty through practical plans, and that's why I moved away from outright protectionism."

Et tu, Ravi?

In another time and place I would had been flattered getting an email from a reputable economist, but this one was - though expected - a kick in the groin. Batra was once one of my contemporary heroes.Ordinarily a email response deserves another in kind. But I dragged my readers into this controversy with Dr. Batra's flip-flop on tariffs, so I will deconstruct my would-be counter response in draft here:

Batra was correct that the trade deficit and dependence on foreign imports has increased since the appearance of his magnum opus. But to me, this should be the reason why we need protectionism NOW more than ever than in the dawn of the NAFTA era. A simple analogy is that when one is in a fight for his life with bully, the time is crucial to shout out 'Hey Rube!' and ask for further protection against a deadly enemy.

Competitive protectionism would "destroy the U.S. and world economy" in the short term, according to Batra. Huh? We are already sunk here! Did protectionism get us in the economic trade morass that we are up to our eyeballs in?? No! Protectionist economics built the United States into a industrial dynamo and ignored the snickers of doom from the British-Manchester Free Traders in the 19th Century.And how would the USA by returning to its natural protectionism "destroy the world economy"? Japan, China, most of the other Asian Tigers are highly protectionist economies, they are integral in the international economy yet they thrive(mainly on our backs). As written ad nauseum here, there is no place else in the Solar System that Asia can market their exports at high volume than in the USA. Contrary to what most economists will tell you, they need us much more than we need them. America is addicted to debt, Asia requires a neomercantilist exporting edifice to thrive and survive. They will pay the tariff kicking and screaming. Just close the Treasury Bond window to foreign investment and announce that we are responsible for our own debts for now on - via earmarks from tariff revenue. Time to pull this monkey off our backs

Batra claims that there are no politicians that would accept a protectionist trade format. It demonstrates what kind of politicians that he has been talking to by this statement. Actually, Dr. Batra has abandoned protectionism when now more politicians are swinging near economic-nationalism and the Free Traders are going on the defensive; we don't have them by their balls - yet - but the movement, the winds of economic trade change, is growing. Feature that Dr. Batra likes patting himself on the back for all the economic predictions that he claims to have made that came true. He has certainly missed the boat on this one!

As written in the previous post, Batra's "export exchange rate plan" is lifted primarily from the Bretton Woods system where it tried to maintain an international balance of trade via similar fixed- rate pegging of the US Dollar, which operated as the international reserve currency backed a certain percentage of gold from Ft. Knox (this plan was implemented over the objections of Keynes that was the brain-child of Harry Dexter White - revealed post-mortem to have been a Soviet agent, btw). Oh yeah...Bretton Woods worked as long as Europe and Japan were busy reconstructing their devastated economic infrastructure in the 50s, and they rode the US Dollar to do it. For it's time and purpose, I agree that Bretton Woods was the right thing to do. Yet, in hindsight, Bretton Woods should had been abandoned as early as 1958 when Western Europe and Japan were back on their feet and beginning to export in large volumes. The time was then to adopt bilateral reciprocal protectionism, but the unilateral Free Trade dogma had claimed such a stranglehold on both Parties by the 1960s. Instead, the U.S. waited until the 'Nixon Shock' of 1971 to come to terms that Bretton Woods was detrimental to our national economy;Nixon only employed temporary measures that made the economy appear robust to guarantee his re-election in 1972. This is my main beef with Richard M. Nixon - not Watergate or prolonging the Vietnam War(another story for another post).

Batra doesn't write that fixed-rate export pricing of the US dollar only worked as long as the USA had undisputed international economic hegemony;it's proven that it's not feasible for a balance of trade between robust economies. Neither does Batra use Bretton Woods as reference point for his plan(does he want the reader to believe that he dreamed it up himself?. I'm not a professional economist like he is, but I know more than the usual about economic history. He sounds a wee bit like Lyndon LaRouche with this 'fixed-rate' obsession.).

Dr. Batra avoids details on how his exchange rate plan will solidify "high wages" for industrial workers in the USA. Batra is also for high corporate taxes without loopholes for the predator Overclass. How and why will the American affluent invest in hard capital in the domestic USA with his plan? There is no reason for them to do so. Even if Batra's plan somehow created a trade balance, he ignores that we are a post-industrial economy with dwindling high wage industries left! Nobody benefits from it accept the exporters into the United States, though they don't get as much as before.

Via his religious devotion to the Hindu neo-humanist guru, PR Sarkar, Batra's #1 aim is to eradicate global poverty; in his quest(noble, yes) he ignores the fact that one has to firstly mind the store, and he has now embraced TINA wholeheartedly. Frankly, he's a goddamn sell-out! And that honestly pained me to write this.

Hopefully, in years to come, Ravi Batra will wistfully look over all his published books and come upon 'Myth of Free Trade' and utter - "I had it right then."

Ravi Batra: Romancing TINA

As I've commented over at 'The Economic Nationalist' site, Dr. Ravi Batra's , "The Myth of Free Trade", stands alongside Buchanan's "The Great Betrayal" as premier texts in the contemporary protectionist movement with me. I have read "The Myth of Free Trade" more than once and have copious notes in the margins such as "hurray!" and whatnot. Ravi Batra's program is domestic competitive protectionism and expends a great deal of time in all of his texts tearing the theological laissez-fairist's arguments apart quite convincingly.

But something happened to Batra from the publication of The Myth (1994) to the 21st Century and it is disappointing.

Though Batra's last two books - "Greenspan's Fraud"; "The New Golden Age" - maintain his basic economic doctrine as in The Myth of Free Trade, he no longer supports a tariff-based trade system though he remains a staunch critic of the current abortion that some call 'Free Trade'. On page 180 of The Myth, Batra writes in no uncertain terms - "Tariffs are the best way of granting protection. They are simple and easy to administer and also produce ample revenue for governments strapped by budget deficits". Then Batra writes in total contradiction to this above in 'The New Golden Age' - "These are the days of globalization, and the whole world is interlinked by trade. Tariffs would start a trade war, and immediately impoverish everybody. Besides, they are not permitted by the World Trade Organization, to which our nation is committed." (page 204).

Batra now proposes of pegging the dollar to the Yuan & Yen for a fixed-rate export price where somehow in the process(he is hardly clear) the trade deficit gets bottomed out with no inflationary costs, and China and Japan is buying Yankee made products as much as we here are buying theirs. What he doesn't write is that Chinese consumers can't afford imports anyway and neither do they want them, neither will their government ever un-protect itself(why should they?), and neither will the Japanese. We are a post-industrial country with little to export overseas anyway largely because of globalism. Without protective tariffs to earmark funds therof for re- industrialization, how can it export goods now? We have almost zero electronics , textiles to export, and our big ,huge SUVs and trucks - few humans outside the United States want them, and can't afford them if they do. Asians and Europeans like small vehicles and they have to buy small. Besides, the engineering quality of US Autos leave something to be desired for the past three decades.
Even if Batra's currency manipulation arguably 'worked', where are the US export industries?? He has an answer - raise corporate taxes. I am privy to this, but raising taxes on the Overclass alone will not get them away from high speculative financial wheeling and dealing and turn them back into the captains of industry as they used to be. Raising taxes on the Ueber-wealthy alone will only make them save a bit more of their own money, and they most likely will not use it to invest in hard capital. With tariffs and public encouragement from the revenue accumulated from them, it sends a message to the Overclass :'invest in hard industries again and we will protect you'. A high tax on the upper 10% or so should be in a sense, voluntary: "invest in hard capital or pay". To me this is a good bargain given that we all know how the wealthy would rather throw money into the ocean rather than to use it to pay taxes. But to Batra, high taxes alone will get them more economically responsible, and that is just balderdash.

Batra contradicts himself when he wrote in "The Myth" that inflationary spikes from tariffs are largely fear-mongering from the free-traders given that in the 19th Century when we had steep tariffs, prices remained relatively stable; America's biggest rises in inflation came the same year that it officially went to Free Trade, 1973. Dr. Batra spent practically an entire chapter in his "The Myth of Free Trade" documenting that high volumes of international trade naturally expends fossil fuels and increases pollution, and admonishes nations to be as regional as possible in trade for this obvious environmental reason. Tariffs, he believed then, were ecologically sound because they would have a reduction in global trade(tell that to Al Gore who is both a Free Trader and an ecological mandarin) and better jump- start countries to localize their own industries. He forgot all of this in his latest book and has joined the hand-ringers and those who think that they can manipulate currency exchanges to get balanced trade. Batra needs to remember that that is what the Bretton Woods post WW2 system attempted to do, and it crashed in on the USA in the late 60s and we have this mess now just because of an entire generation of tariff-phobic economists and the dimwit politicians who listen to them. Batra also seems to have co-opted 'comparative advantage' as well - he should know better!

I wrote Dr. Batra a cordial email, asking if he could explain his turn-around on tariffs. Even better yet, I gave him the addy to 'Left-Federalist' to comment here on the subject if he would be so kind to instruct those who read this blog, better clarify his position. I still am gaga on his plan of 'competitive domestic protectionism', but I can't conceive of it manifesting without the implementation of tariffs - something that he was once a believer in too. Plus, Batra's surrender to the global trade entanglements is quite a letdown since I have recommended him to fellow economic-nationalists before. The Myth of Free Trade remains in its present hierarchy with me, but I cannot think otherwise that Dr. Batra has become another economic -Laodicean. He is not the first economist to change his position(s),but usually when economists do so, they go into detail why they have done so(such as when John Maynard Keynes wrote his long, "The End of Laissez-Faire", explicitly explaining why he rejected Free Trade after being one of its typically British proponents). Batra neither goes into detail for his change on tariffs, and neither does he mention in his latest books that he once was a tariff-advocate. A novice reader of Batra would get confused quite soon if he/she read 'The Myth of Free Trade' after reading his latest two books.

Ravi Batra owes his readers and fans an explanation.

Where Have You Gone, Michael Lind?

Changed the template of the blog for more cheerful colors, I guess, though there isn't much to be gleeful over concerning the subject matters that 'Left-Federalist' hammers at times redundantly. Also uploaded at 'Blogs &Websites' is a link to the liberal think-tank, Economic Policy Institute, founded by Bob Kuttner. Currently in the middle of reading one of his books - "The End of Laissez-Faire" -where the author adopts an economic nationalist/protectionist viewpoint, but demonstrates as well that this has to be international, and protectionism has to be the international order in today's world.
My thoughts exactly and always were.

In the process of uploading the 'Economic Policy Institute', I decided to purge, if you will, 'The New America Foundation' from said Blogs&Websites. The reason being is that this think-tank is dull, and does not take a stance that I like on globalization - the folks there are wishy-washy and seem to try to pose as such enlightened, intelligent folks that they are opaque in their policies. Though I still like Michael Lind, one of the founders of the above think-tank, I believe that he has become lukewarm on his Hamiltonian, 'Radical Centrist', civic nationalism that was his zeal in his writings in the late 1990s. And I don't gel with Lind's foreign policy very well, and his latest books on it were not well researched unlike his earlier texts such as his one on Abraham Lincoln. Lind has accepted the 'reality' of NAFTA, which is something that is a antithesis that cannot be reconciled into a synthesis with his civic nationalism: no one can label themselves a 'nationalist' and be for Free Trade or be an apologist of entangling trade blocs that are inimical to the national interest and the national economy. I'm sorry...one cannot have laissez-faire and protect the Republic too; extreme laissez-faire - as designed by Ricardo, Say and Cobden - is by design hostile to a soveriegn nation/state. Adam Smith himself is not the boogeyman: Smith was actually a moderate capitalist who believed that when Free Trade was detrimental to a country, retaliatory tariffs should be imposed to correct the problem; Smith wrote that government had a dirgist duty to step in on public education, aid to the poor, and also maintain high wages with the laboring sector. Smith himself was not totally sold on his own 'hidden-hand of the Market", but I have digressed here(imagine that).

The problem with Lind is that he has changed his political stance so much in his life that he has yet to experience a political-animal wholeness , a Ground, maybe. Nevertheless, his excellent - "Hamilton's Republic: Readings in the American democratic-nationalist Tradition" remains one of my 'bibles', essential to my own political worldview, as expounded here at this little blog. Though I've always been partial to Alexander Hamilton as my favorite thinker of the triumvirate of the Founding Fathers, Lind reconfirmed my own Hamiltonianism, gave me a substantial amount of idealistic vigor. The earlier Michael Lind, at least, remains in place though I've deleted his think-tank from my recommended links at Left-Federalist.

If I Were Voting for a GOPer Presidential Candidate.....

Mitt Romney: 1/2 Billionaire, Cult Member ....Free Traitor -

Old Mitt took his plastic-looking self down to South Florida to woo voters of Latino descent. To the Americans of Cuban ancestry, he vowed on a Banana Republic never to meet that demon Fidel Castro, and neither will he meet with his brother Raul if the American people totally lapse into full blown insanity and elect him come November 2008(well, they already did so by electing BushII at least once). Mitt cheerfully chatted up the Venezuelan Americans and proclaimed that Free Trade is the solution to all of South American ills, and blamed protectionist Democrats for stalling on further trade sell-offs. Mitt's speechwriters forgot to inform him that nobody in Latin America except the plutocratic Hildagos wants Yanqui lassiez-faire, especially after what they seen NAFTA do to Mexico. What we are getting in Romney is a handsomer,more polished version of the Shrub. Mitt, by his affiliation with the now acceptable cult, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, will have two Bibles to beat instead of Bush's one - The Book of Mormon ( I'm certain that Governor Romney assures Southern Baptists that both of his Bibles are in the King James Version). Because he's a Latter-Day Saint, Romney is a teetotaler like Bush is, and he doesn't even drink coffee.Romney's wife is already a 'babe', so we do not have fret him scoring a knob -job in the Oval Office from an overweight intern. What a real moral guy to take the country down into the North American Union and annul the Constitution! Joseph Smith is looking down from a UFO somewhere and is mighty proud...

No, the prospect of electing a Mormon President does not compare to the 1960 controversy of electing a Roman Catholic one(everyone knows now, and knew somewhat then, that the Kennedys weren't particularly pious RC's anyway and could care less what the Man in the Funny Hat in the Vatican said; the true Kennedy Religion is Birds&Booze).Not even close. But, I would not like Romney even if he had a Jeffersonian view of religion(one of the few things that I dig about Marse Tom):he's a flip-flopper beyond what John Kerry flipped on, he's an avowed Economic Predator(Mitt promises to do to Washington what he did to the corporations that he previously served as CEO of: downsizing the labor force, bust any hint of 'union', and maximize profits for himself and his rich shareholders...wow!) and of course, he's a Free Trader globalist BarfBag. Yet, throwing Mormon into his make-up, he kind of scares me.

I hope that Romney stays in the race a long time, since he is such good fodder to poke fun of. It would be great if he loses his fortune in his quest to wrest the GOP nomination and comes up empty,also. More seriously now, I do think that his religion should be an issue: would Americans feel safe and secure having a Scientologist, Jehovah's Witness or a Moonie on the nuclear button? How about a Hari Krishna? To me, Mormons aren't all that much out of step with the panache of these other named cults. In synopsis, they're annoying and friggin' nuts! The prospect of being trapped in a crowded elevator with Islamic fundamentalists isn't so bad if my only other choice were a group of Mormon missionaries; at least the Islamic ones would probably put me out of my misery by someone ultimately blowing themselves up in the elevator(joke). Listening to a Mormon missionary is like having the hands tied with Rap playing on headphones non-stop....if I were in combat and captured by the Enemy, they wouldn't have to resort to physical torture to get me spilling the beans: within 10 minutes of listening to a Mormon with his conversion con - I'd be telling the interrogators things that the CIA, Edgar Casey and Nostradamus never dreamed of.

Kansas's very own, Senator Sam Brownback, doesn't seem like too much of a bad deal when Romney is in focus. And that's BAD. Real bad. However, unlike Kennedy, Brownback is a convert RC and has all the zeal of Opus Dei; don't be surprised if Brownback announces that Mel Gibson would be his running mate if he gets the Religious Right on his bandwagon in the GOP primaries. The only good thing about President Brownback would be that we could get him out of Kansas, but I wouldn't wish that on my fellow Americans in the other 49 states. If Brownback is more Catholic than the Ave Maria prayer itself, at least he could adopt the Distributist economics in his platform that many traditionalist RCs have instead of the standard gaga on laissez-faire capitalism that he spews - I might vote for him as DogCatcher if he did...

Rudy Giuliani - he says that Democrats are 'stupid', and previously thought that he could pick an issues fight with Dr. Ron Paul(who's 'stupid' now?). I keep waiting for Rudy to get a new comb-over and start mealy-mouthin' about the GOP's favorite theme of Family Values - when he has been married and divorced more times than Zsa Zsa Gabor and Frank Sinatra combined. Watch Rudy make a play for the Religious Right by picking Ted Haggard as his Vice-President...

Tom Tancredo - "I'm against illegal immigration!!!"(we know, Tom...we know...anything else??)

Duncan Hunter - I rather like Duncan because he is against NAFTA and tries to make protectionism a theme with the GOP contenders, but to no avail. He needs to tone-down his John Wayne act and stop mentioning 'Reagan' in every sentence, however.....

Mike Huckabee - I can't take a man seriously with a surname like that.

Thompson - he' a poorer actor than Reagan was. Get out of here!

Ron Paul - confess that I warm a bit more to his campaign daily. It is refreshing to hear an avowed Libertarian warn the country about the "corporate fascism" of globalism. Paul seems to be a constitutionalist first and a Libertarian second ; maybe he is dropping a cue that he can be 'turned' to the economic -nationalist cause?? He is definitely the most intelligent out of the GOP contenders, and seems to be a man of integrity and honesty with minimum spin - rare in a public servant these days. Paul puts America over the Free Market theology it seems, and this is what the Republic direly needs. However, I don't like his starry-eyed cadre that trolls around message boards with their 'VOTE RON PAUL!' tags. Ron needs to dress them down on this personality cult that they've created....

John McCain - *The Mummy*. The Mummy had his best shot in 2000 but he made the mistake of telling the Bible Beating theocrats that they were 'intolerant'. The truth did not put the Mummy into the White House, let alone set him free. The Mummy needs to retire to his tomb and sleep another 2000 years or so, and maybe the GOP will like him then....

The Verdict: Ron Paul or Duncan Hunter. Hunter or Paul...Paul Hunter..Hunting Paul....... and I am not at all enthusiastic on any of these two guys, but they are the best that the GOP has at the moment. One may ask why pick Ron Paul when he is a disciple of predator-economics? Well, except for maybe Hunter, all the other GOPers are as well, and Paul has demonstrated himself to be flexible and thoughtful - he has his own mind. Again, Paul is a man of dignity & can work with the other side of the aisle, and he cares more for the Republic than he does ideology. Though he himself is religious and is against abortion, Dr. Paul believes in the 'wall of seperation between church/state. That's the constitiutional American Way.

The fact is that I am not at all crazy about the Democrat's front runners, Hillary and Obama;though the Democrats have moved closer to protectionism than the GOP has, their contenders for the Top Job leaves a lot to be desired as well. One thing that we do not need is another Clinton in the White House of any gender, and Obama is all show, no substance, thus far. I think that he's an airhead who thinks that he can get by just because he is handsome and has charisma. Hillary has adopted a centrist line and occasionally drops remarks about the plight of the Blue Collar Joe as well as the Middle Class, Obama has yet to be heard,and I trust neither one of those two. Hillary shouldn't be dragging her hubby around since Bill is the biggest Free Traitor President of the 20th Century.
John Edward's imitation of Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 campaign is getting beyond annoying; him trying to garner the sympathy vote because his Better Half has breast cancer is bottom-feeder politics as is befitting the Ambulance Chaser that he is. I like the Midget - Kucinich - but he is not on the radar even with the Far Left of the DLC.... I wish that the Dems adopt his economic and trade platform however.

What I'm afraid of is that I will be forced to throw a 'protest ballot' in November of '08 as I did in the previous two Presidential elections(Nader, both times). Before I expire my mortal coif, I would like to witness a Presidential election that both the GOPer and the Democrat are competent and both reflect my core issues more. Some say that we haven't had an election like that, with two outstanding candidates from both the Big Two, since '68 or even as far back as '60...so maybe that is a pipedream of mine.

Feeling Caulfieldesque today...

If you are but a semi-illiterate biped dwelling in a place called the USA presently, you can saunter out your front door and not be smacked in the face by Harry Potter. Harry Potter this, Harry Potter that; Copernicus had it all wrong: the sun of our solar system personally revolves around what that Brit, RK Rowling, has burning -off on her printer.
Witness the lines at bookstores last weekend: it put me in mind of the cattle waiting at the trough for grandpa to fill on the old farm. One may protest - "well, at least they're reading." Looked into a Harry Potter book once and it's just another ersatz Tolkien/Fantasy genre written primarily for children. A goddamn kid's book. It's the adults that are getting all gaga on it. Harry Potter is a classic example on books that shouldn't be read. Just another recycled empty, pseudo-medieval magical stuff one can get just as easily by reading the one before it. I thought CS Lewis and Tolkien had already done this; just as it has been stated that Western Philosophy is mere footnotes to Plato, same can be said without much debate for the Fantasy genre about those two guys above. The Great Consumer American, following the herd buying- practices of the Joneses, of course couldn't wait for someone else to buy the book then borrow the text after they got finished with the tripe to see if it is worth a dollar, couldn't have patience to wait for it to appear on the shelves of a used book store, let alone wait for the paperback. Devotion to the Mall God required that they stand in line wherever and get Harry Potter for some $34, I think. It is sad that Americans won't stand in lines to purchase any books that are useful, that extends self-education. And Yanks wonder why some other people on the Blue Dot think that they are shallow, uncultivated and dumber than shit as a collective whole. But I bet they stood in line for Harry Potter in Copenhagen too, or whenever it is printed in Danish....

....and how much does anyone want to wager that this Rowling dame will bring Harry Potter out of retirement in a few years when her royalty checks start decreasing in amount?? I'd like to see the Vegas odds on that.

The Bush Administration has finally done something that I agree with(I haven't been able to write this in a long, long, time): said Administration is thus far not buckling under to Brazil's threats of retaliation through the WTO concerning American cotton subsidies. This could be the starting point of dismantling this globalist edifice if the cards are played correctly. Firstly, it is not another country's business on how another nation subsidizes or does not subsidize their internal agricultural or industrial base. The contradiction of the Bush Administration is that it has as policy that the USA does not need a 'permission slip' to defend America's interests and sovereignty, yet pursued further trade liberalization via the globalist edifice. Read: okay to place American troops in Iraq without UN authorization, but not kosher to protect the economic infrastructure of the United States.' And Bush probably wonders why people think that he is rather, uh, daft.

It is my hope that Brazil aggressively pursues penalties via the World Trade Organization, as threatened, and this Administration stands its ground. This could spell a zeal to pull out of this entangling trade organization , or rather, the WTO can do us all a favor here in Middle America and kick us out of it.
No, not all agricultural subsidies are good - especially those that benefit chiefly the big AgriBiz sector at the expense of the small family farmer, who is rapidly approaching extinction. Currently, with this *BioFuels*(or 'fools') rage, it is this side of retarded to subsidize the corn crop. The argument can be presented that it is further shooting ourselves in the foot by subsidizing domestic cotton when the USA has few textile industries left - cotton remains chiefly an export. But on the other hand, subsidizing cotton smooths out the costs of any tariffs imposed on American cotton. Subsidies are an internal matter, a domestic fight, and not Brazil's, Ethiopia's, or any other nation's business, to sum it all up. Neither is it any of the USA's business what another nation does with their internal agricultural and industrial sector. THAT is Fair Trade; respecting another country's national economy is the cornerstone of amicable international relations. Economic nationalism is international, albeit not global. For instance, the USA has never been a closed autarky or isolationist even in the days when it had high tariff walls. Washington in his wisdom made it quite clear that the USA would trade with any nation in the spirit of fairness early on, and he was opposed to special relationships that favored another country in trade at the expense of another. 'Left-Federalist' is firmly committed to this tradition in trade. Even if the USA could be a 100% total economic autarky with benevolent results, I'd rather have this current laissez-faire instead(if a gun was held to my head for an either/or choice in the matter, that is). We do not want to become like North Korea or the former Albania either. However, using autarky in times of global conflict has its merits, as President Jefferson employed during the Napoleonic Wars between France and Great Britain; if Woodrow Wilson would had banned all trade and financial loans, public and private, to the waring parties in the Great War of 1914, the world conflict probably wouldn't had lasted more than a year. Wilson was such a peace-lovin' man, yet he allowed the Wall Street faction of his Democratic Party dominate his views. By 1915, the Entente Powers were broke and were dependent on the financial apparatus of the City of New York to keep them in the war. If Wilson was that serious about world peace, and America being a leading role in this aspect, one would think that he would had put his foot down early on and summarily informed both the Entente and Central Powers, that was turning Europe into a big graveyard of trenches : "..the pinch is off! Not one more Yankee dollar, not one kilo of wheat, and certainly not any weapon of warfare and the ammunition to go with it - will cross the Pond until you guys sit down and discuss a just armistice." ?? Wilson could had practically dictated peace terms, if he so elected, without sending a single American soldier to France. Some 57,000 + American lives wouldn't had been snuffed -out in the prime of their young lives in Flanders Fields, and millions of lives of our European cousins would had been saved undoubtedly.

Though I have the luxury of hindsight here, I seriously believe that the Great War of 1914-18, the length thereof, could had been averted if Woodrow Wilson would has closed American ports, banned exports to Europe, and had told the JP Morgans and Co. on Wall Street that they are not to extend loans to anyone outside of the United States - and they would go to the gaol if they do. Such would had temporarily harmed the US economy, these measures, but back in those days we were a second-to-none industrial power,quite self-sufficient domestically(unlike today) and could had weathered the hardship without serious calamity.Those were the days when we followed the National System of economics to varying degrees(though Wilson himself was a Free Trader by design). Presently, because of *Free Market&Trade Bolshevism* we Americans are dependent on others.
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I do not think that is a flame-o phrase to create antagonism - 'Free Market Bolshevism'. Rather it is an apt and fitting description of the Libertarian purists, and some members of the GOP. Just as the Marxist- Bolshevik faction in Russia believed that only they had the answers and only they are fitting to lead just talk to a Vienna School devotee at one of their corporate funded think tanks and one will hear the same noise and hubris. Neither the Marxist or Free Market Bolsheviks are about democracy and really do not care for adoption of the populists, and they are not welcome in their ranks anyway. Lenin thought that only his Bolsheviks had the correct idea of socialism , though they were far outnumbered in Russia by other socialist factions and parties. Same applies to libertarianism in the USA: no other people have the correct line on capitalistic economics than - them. The 'People' aren't in for their spiel, so they have contempt for the commoners quite like the Marxist intellectuals have. It is not surprising that some ex-Trotskyites often evolve into libertarians, like PJ O'Rourke. To both Free Market and the former communist Bolsheviks - ideology is everything and trumps all. If the Galt's Gulch capitalist Utopia was ever granted the opportunity to employ their measures, labor camps for *Individualist Re-Education* for the "altruistic-collectivist-mystics and Enemies of Capitalism" would be the likely result. Whittaker Chambers had Ayn Rand and the broad Libertarian movement dead to center in his famous piece at National Review - "Big Sister is Watching You". Chambers, being a repentant Communist and Soviet agent, recognized his erstwhile fellow travelers when he seen them - even when they're under the slogans of liberty, individualism, 'Free Markets'.....