Thursday, September 18, 2008

Nationalists, Socialists, and Wall Street's just desserts

A friend asked me to comment on Meyerson's op-ed in today's WaPo:

Someone needs to invest in the United States of America. For the past decade and, in a broader sense, for the entire duration of the Reagan era, both government and Wall Street have opted not to. Should Barack Obama win, the era of neglectfulgovernment will probably come to an end. No matter who wins, Wall Street is vanishing before our eyes. And by the measure of their contribution to America's economic strength and well being, both Reagan-age government and Wall Street's investment banks plainly deserve to die.


Here's what I wrote him:

Meyerson here is quite right that investment has decreased in America, and increased in the rest of the world. But he seems to think this is a real bad thing, because we're Americans damn it and we deserve to be richer than everyone else? This guy is both nationalistic and socialistic, a wonderful combination of sentiments, which has been tried before, it's called National Socialism, aka Nazism.

A more fruitful question is why are investors bailing on America? I have some ideas, like out of control government no longer limited by the Constitution so that we're pretty much no longer such a special place. But I'd love to hear the candidates weigh in on this, rather than scapegoating.

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