Has the US defrauded the world’s economies? - by Ben Tanosborn
America, the should-be creditor nation par excellence, has become instead a parasite to the savings of the world, becoming the largest debtor nation in the planet with only two possibilities left: one, allowing America’s creditors to liquidate the paper for hard assets, permitting once-proud Americans to become vassals to foreign capital; or two, change America’s consumption habits . . . and learn to live within our means. The precarious economic fix does not seem to be understood by most economists, and even the elite in the profession make questionable statements which seem out of the ballpark. Like Paul Krugman, whose judgment I usually respect, asserting how complex the US economy is, when the adjective should have been deceptive. Weren’t derivatives supposed to have disappeared after the dot-com fiasco? Instead, additional crooked financial instruments were allowed to debut without proper scrutiny by a hands-off government happy to see capitalism run amok in predatory ways to once again redistribute wealth from middle-class to rich. Not complex, Dr. Krugman, just deceptive! And all the while, those in the trade-brotherhood of economics in solemn silence!
Perhaps Arnold Sommerfeld, the German physicist, had it right, if this attribution to him is correct: “Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don’t understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don’t understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, it doesn’t bother you any more.” Substitute thermodynamics with economics and you may understand what most economists are all about.
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