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The Party's Over

by Pat Buchanan

Mon, Sep 22, 2008, 11:21 AM

The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people's wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.

The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The "Omnipower" and "Indispensable Nation" we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.

Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism.

This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko ("Greed Is Good!") capitalism. What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.

A true conservative cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.

Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess -- that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk?

"Government must save us!" cries the left, as ever. Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government -- the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy?

For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt -- all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.

Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars.

We are going to have to learn to live again without our means.

The party's over

Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent.

But this generation decided that was yesterday's bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into "global companies" and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.

As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad.

At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar.

Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.

John McCain is going to cut taxes, expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, confront Russia and force Iran to stop enriching uranium or "bomb, bomb, bomb," with Joe Lieberman as wartime consigliere.

Who are we kidding?

What we are witnessing today is how empires end.

The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.

What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.

Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.

Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.

An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.

What the Greatest Generation handed down to us -- the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved -- the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.

Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, "The Death of the West,", "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."

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written by Steve Heath , September 23, 2008

And this was written before the trillion dollar bailout.

Bush will go down as the worst President in U.S. History - yes, he has now surpassed Woodrow Wilson, the man to whom bogus historians have given a free pass.

I have watched Congress on C-Span for a while this afternoon. I have watched the media reports of this calamity and national disaster. I had to turn them off. They both make we want to puke.

They'll bail the crooks out. You can count on it. They're also being very careful not to blame the people responsible (Like King Henry Paulsen, who played such a prominent role in creating this massive Ponzi scheme fraud while he was CEO at Goldman Sachs). They’re blaming the other party, and Wall Street in general. They know that if start calling names and going after individuals, it would be like the pot calling the kettle black. Accountability is a very dangerous and scary concept for most of these politicians just a few weeks before election day. They know that if the American people decide that heads must roll, most of our Congress (both parties) will need to lay their heads on the guillotine also.

As I said in a post a couple of weeks ago, you can count on the mainstream media to tell you some of the truth on important matters - after its too late. The media , Wall Street and our government have all been in bed together. I think it's called fascism. Mussolini tried it. The only difference I can see between Mussolini's fascism and our own is that in Italy it was a nationalist movement that was supposed to benefit the Italian people -ours is a system to exclusively benefit the elites.

These politicians are now all engaging in partisan politics, blaming each other for this mess. They all make me sick. The republicans are more at fault than the democrats only because they controlled the Congress for 6 of the last 8 years, as well as the Presidency. The Democrats did absolutely nothing to stop them. They too had to protects their tens of millions of dollars of contributions from the likes of AIG, Fannie Mae, Goldman Sachs and the other investment banks.

By the way, have you looked at the level of salary, bonuses and stock options that these Wall Street Crooks made on this elaborate mother of all Ponzi Schemes? it's staggering. Beyond belief. Has one crooked politician even suggested they should give some of that money back? I haven't heard one such comment yet - they're squabbling over limiting future obscene fraudulent compensation.

Pat Buchanan has been telling us our day of reckoning was coming. He wrote a book with that title just last year. Ron Paul has tried to warn us also, as have many others. Very few people listened.

For those who believe Iraq was some kind of Holy Crusade, and that bombing Iran is also part of a mission from God - I will remind you of Ron Paul's warning in the debates, where he told us that if we didn't get out of the war business voluntarily, we would be forced out involuntarily, due to the fact that we will be broke. We're just about there. The dollar will now sink, gold and oil will skyrocket, as the rest of the world sees that we will be forced to inflate our way out of our enormous debt by monetizing the debt.

Part of this wonderful new economics of speculation and fraud has been to export our manufacturing jobs and industrial base overseas, to maximize corporate profits. That has been another big mistake and I am afraid we will find out real soon just how shortsighted and harmful this will be. Our cheap Chinese big screen TV's will get a lot more expensive, for those who will be able to afford them after this recession really gets going.

We will pay dearly for our sins. However, we are at a critical stage in the History of our country. We need to wake up, rise up - and take this country back. I hope and pray that Americans will wake up, become truly informed of the serious issues we face, disregard the excuses and lies that we will be given from our politicians and the media, and take decisive action to organize to start the process of electing representatives who truly serve us.

There's not much on the ballot for November to get excited about. Other than local races, I'm voting third party on just about every other choice. As far as the president goes, any of the third party choices are better than what the Democrats and Republicans have to offer. I could care less if this means one or the other party wins. I honestly don't think it would matter.

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written by Wes , September 23, 2008

Pat/Steve,
I agree that it wasn't conservatism that failed--and it sure wasn't that we followed too religiously the Constitution either!
Although I try to put a good face on this election (aka the Palin Factor), it is based more on hope than any real confidence in prediction. Pres. Bush is leaving the GOP and the country in a shambles, and neither party in Congress evinces vision or even good horse sense.

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written by michael a. , September 23, 2008

pat was the first conservative to catch on about the war, he chastised mccain and bush over the georgia/russia mess and now this which i totally finding myself agreeing with. this is good conservative thinking minus all the religious fervor. it's a pity it's not more plentiful.

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written by ElHombre , September 27, 2008

"Pat was the first conservative to catch on about the war..."

Which still puts him behind most liberals.

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written by Steve Heath , September 27, 2008

Elhombre- the liberals did nothing to stop the war. They've given Bush everything he wanted, both before and after they had a majority in Congress. The new York Times, with Judith Miller and Friedman were the biggests supporters of the war in iraq, and willingly published all lies and misinformation that Cheney's neocons in the office of Special plans passed on to them. A few liberals like Dennis Kucinich, Robert Byrd, Ted kennedy and Cynthia McKinney are exceptions.

Cindy Sheehan left the Democractic party and is running against nancy pelosi because pelosi has done nothing to stand up to Bush/Cheney. You can blame republicans all you want, but the democrats have been willing co-conspirators. Conservatives like pat Buchanan and Ron paul are the primary voices of reason on the war, the economy, and have been consistent in warning us for years where this mess is leading to. Why don't people give them some credit for their principalled positions, and begin holding their own party officials accountable.

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