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A debt ceiling hiccup on the way to a 21st-century American world order
Daily Telegraph ^ | October 18th, 2013 | Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Posted on 10/18/2013 7:50:40 AM PDT by ScaniaBoy

Those old enough to remember the 1929 crash on Wall Street and the US exit from the Gold Standard under Franklin Roosevelt – thin in numbers these days – will recall the pervading sense that America had already peaked, its capitalist model overtaken by history.

The Russian trade agency Amtorg in New York famously advertised for 6,000 skilled plumbers, chemists, electricians, and dentists, and suchlike, to work in the Soviet Union, then deemed the El Dorado of mankind, or the "moral top of the world where the light never really goes out", in the words of Edmund Wilson. It is said that 100,000 showed up.

The commentariat went into overdrive, more or less writing off the United States. The Yale Review, Harpers, and the Atlantic all ran pieces debating the risk of imminent revolution.

Just 12 years later the US accounted for half of all global economic output and was military master of the West, literally running Japan and Germany as administrative regions.

Those a little younger – like me – who remember the impeachment of President Richard Nixon and the last American citizens being lifted by helicopter from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon in 1975, will recall the ubiquitous claims that the US could never fully recover from what looked like a crushing defeat.

The Carter Malaise, the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Iran hostage humiliation all followed in quick succession, and seemed to seal the argument.

As we all know now, it was instead the nadir before the second yet greater episode of US global domination. By 1990 Ronald Reagan had seen the Soviet Union into the dustbin. America was well on its way to becoming the world's undisputed hegemon in all fields at last.

(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: debtceiling; economy; teaparty; usa
The most fair-minded comment on the recent showdown between the Congress and the President I have seen in any broad-sheet (at least any on this side of the Pond).

AEP is not a tea-partier, but he acknowledges that the conflict concerns much more than just the public debt; it is about the "the size and role of the US government" which are "matters of great political weight".

The historical perspective is illuminating. Think if our reporters and commentators had a memory span just slightly longer than that of a gnat.

NB! Explanation to those who don't know or don't remember AEPs previous writings, the term "my old friend Bill Clinton" is laced with sarcasm.

1 posted on 10/18/2013 7:50:41 AM PDT by ScaniaBoy
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To: ScaniaBoy
Brandywine and Germantown were major setbacks for George Washington and the Continental Army and that Army almost dissolved in the Winter of 1777-1778.
Valley Forge was the testing ground for where mens's soul's were tested and the Continental Army returned from Valley Forge as a fair fighting force against the British.
2 posted on 10/18/2013 8:09:11 AM PDT by American Constitutionalist
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To: ScaniaBoy

Excellent post. “Those who forget history...are doomed”, period.


3 posted on 10/18/2013 8:18:06 AM PDT by kenavi (Debunk THIS!)
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To: ScaniaBoy
Within another decade my old friend Bill Clinton had restored American economic ascendancy as well, with some help from Silicon Valley...

Sheeeeeyit. Not to mention a Republican House that prevented him from passing HillaryCare and forced him to cut the growth of government against his will among other things.P>A good read otherwise.

4 posted on 10/18/2013 8:34:41 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: Texas Eagle
In post #1 I wrote:

NB! Explanation to those who don't know or don't remember AEPs previous writings, the term "my old friend Bill Clinton" is laced with sarcasm.

5 posted on 10/18/2013 8:40:40 AM PDT by ScaniaBoy (Part of the Right Wing Research & Attack Machine)
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To: kenavi

Nixon wasn’t impeached. He resigned. Clinton was impeached but not removed


6 posted on 10/18/2013 8:42:33 AM PDT by DownInFlames
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To: ScaniaBoy
Thanks for the assist. I recognize the name of AEB but I don't know that much about him.

That quip did seem out of phase with the rest of article.

7 posted on 10/18/2013 8:44:17 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: Texas Eagle
The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories
8 posted on 10/18/2013 8:45:14 AM PDT by ScaniaBoy (Part of the Right Wing Research & Attack Machine)
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To: DownInFlames

True, so true. Definitely a point to you for historical accuracy. (I guess AEP knows this, but either he was a bit sloppy there or he just was short of space.)


9 posted on 10/18/2013 8:47:27 AM PDT by ScaniaBoy (Part of the Right Wing Research & Attack Machine)
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To: ScaniaBoy
Thanks for the link. It was like talking a stroll down memory lane.

What a scumbag that guy was. Is.

10 posted on 10/18/2013 8:50:36 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: ScaniaBoy
So unless the US Congress does something really stupid...

Ha haaaaa!!! What are the odds of that!

11 posted on 10/18/2013 8:54:14 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: DownInFlames
And the Saigon helicopter photo isn't of the US Embassy. There were so many historical inaccuracies I had to stop reading after Nixon was impeached.
12 posted on 10/18/2013 10:09:17 AM PDT by Justa
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To: ScaniaBoy
"Those old enough to remember the 1929 crash on Wall Street..."

Ya might just remember it if you're over 90.

13 posted on 10/18/2013 11:15:46 AM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Texas Eagle
Within another decade my old friend Bill Clinton had restored American economic ascendancy as well, with some help from Silicon Valley... Sheeeeeyit. Not to mention a Republican House that prevented him from passing HillaryCare and forced him to cut the growth of government against his will among other things.P>A good read otherwise.

If I remember correctly this guy was stationed in the U>S> when Bubba was prez. He was assuming that any day he would be impeached & replaced. Aside from that I have always liked his columns.

14 posted on 10/18/2013 11:42:23 AM PDT by Digger
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To: ScaniaBoy

—Just 12 years later the US accounted for half of all global economic output and was military master of the West, literally running Japan and Germany as administrative regions. —

Ironically, millions of tons of that “economic output” went to prop up the Soviet State in the face of the Nazi onslaught.


15 posted on 10/18/2013 12:32:52 PM PDT by JoeTheGeorgian
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To: DownInFlames

Isn’t it scary when supposedly serious commentators remember things that you know never happened?


16 posted on 10/18/2013 7:57:29 PM PDT by RipSawyer (The TREE currently falling on you actually IS worse than a Bush.)
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