[lbo-talk] what? me worry?

[Carl Remick]

>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>
>[The more I read stuff like this the more I think the bubble didn't really 
>burst in 2000.]
>
>New York Times Magazine - March 13, 2005
>
>THE WAY WE LIVE NOW
>Our Currency, Your Problem
>By NIALL FERGUSON
>
>... Meanwhile, the United States may be discovering what the British found 
>in their imperial heyday. If you are a truly powerful empire, you can 
>borrow a lot of money at surprisingly reasonable rates. Today's deficits 
>are in fact dwarfed in relative terms by the amounts the British borrowed 
>to finance their Global War on (French) Terror between 1793 and 1815. Yet 
>British long-term rates in that era averaged just 4.77 percent, and the 
>pound's exchange rate was restored to its prewar level within a few years 
>of peace.
>
>It is only when your power wanes -- as the British learned after 1945 -- 
>that owing a fortune in your own currency becomes a real problem. As 
>opposed, that is, to someone else's problem.

The more I read stuff like this the more I wonder why anyone would respond 
when imperial bugle boy Niall Ferguson sounds the call to advance.  What a 
great role model, the UK.  The US, too, can aspire to be an imperial 
has-been with a corroded industrial base, overdeveloped financial sector and 
lingering delusions of grandeur despite being a mere lackey to the world's 
latest hegemon.  Sounds great!  Where do we sign up?

Carl