Or you, really, either.
Barack Obama made some very peculiar statements this week during his trip abroad. Over and over, we're hearing him rehearse a particular message, for both domestic and international audiences.
This message has the following points:
- The U.S. will no longer tolerate the current scheme of trade deficits -- see above -- or budget deficits that require borrowing from foreign powers.
- The U.S. swears off, forever and permanently, policy measures that protect domestic industry and workers from foreign competition.
If you want to end the trade deficits without engaging in protectionism, there is only one way to do it:
Let the wages earned by American workers fall to the level of our competitors in developing countries.
Ready to live like people live in India? China? Peru?
Get ready to do it.
I know that I'm supposed to be sacrificing ... for something.
But I also know that if Barack Obama wants Americans to give up their security and prosperity, we deserve to know exactly what purpose this will serve.
Americans are aware that their wealth and power gives them the ability to do both immense good and terrible evil -- and a lot of in-between -- on the planet. Like any good liberal, I have a lot of ambivalence about the consequences of American power. But, at the end of the day, I believe that this country does more good than evil in the world.
Maybe that is where I differ from Barack Obama.
I still believe in the potential of America to lead the world to bigger and better times. Perhaps we change the world slowly, or incrementally. But I believe that we change it for the better.
Barack Obama wants to give this up ...
In exchange for "something" that has not been disclosed, but looks to me either like a naive vision of World Harmony, or a cynical plan to simply deliver the people of the planet into the power of global corporations, who'll keep racing and racing and racing us to the bottom, as far as wages and labor standards are concerned.
At the end of the day, though, one thing is for sure:
Barack Obama is not that interested in the economic welfare of the average American household. He doesn't think that looking after this welfare is the right direction at this point in history. He has Bigger Ideas, or maybe small, dark ones.
Well ... He's the president, after all.
But at some point, the population will realize that Obama is not on their side and the idle hours of joblessness and the rumblings of empty stomachs or simply the fear that is spreading around the country about "losing it all" ...
Well, when the population realizes that the president is not on their side, they will choose a new president.
In absence of something like a war that can dramatically steal the attention of the people from their economic worries, Barack Obama will not be re-elected in 2012 if unemployment is in the 15 or 20% range, which it hit this week.