Really it was the internationalists who did. Their policies of international aid, engagement and disregard for America's national interest, plus one-sided free trade pushed on the aid-takers, blew up a bubble. The bubble was pricked when more aid [e.g." The Young Plan (replaced the Dawes Plan in 1929)"] could not be obtained for Germany and Austria, which defaulted, causing France to default, then Britain to suspend gold payments. All the demand for liquidity in the world converged on the American banking system, crashing our finances, while other countries Patriotically let that demand go elsewhere.
More free trade would have been irrelevant at any point in the process, since any large growth of trade was being financed by federal reserve operations here. Concern for national interest would have had us refrain from that unsustainable export financing, which was done through support of foreign currencies. A policy of America First would not have had the international payments system depending on credit expansion from our central bank, with the side effects of a wildly booming and crashing stock market. Why would 'nativists' be interested in propping up sterling or the mark versus the dollar, if it cost a lot to do that? It was the irresponsible subsidy of foreigners which could not soon be reinflated after having reached extreme proportions, which precipitated and extended the depression of the 1930's.
From "The “Isms” That Bedevil Bush
by Patrick J. Buchanan", Bush is quoted as follows: " isolationism and protectionism is what happened in the late—in the ’30s, when we had this America First policy and Smoot-Hawley. And look where it got us.” Buchanan gives part of the refutation of that position, but not the part outlined above, involving the international payments breakdown, and what made it inevitable.
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2 comments:
JS Bolton,
I think Ive figured out what is "up" with our elite wanting to allow in so many Mexicans, I posted it at another site, and I'll paste it below:
What is happening is that our corporate elite is planning on owning the assets of Mexico (mainly oil) in 30 years. They are betting (wisely) that Mexicans will not "revolt" against the United States in the Southwest because they will be addicted to our welfare benefits in 25 years and various other benefits of being U.S. citizens (like owning a cheap car, reliable utilities, TV, porn, fast food, malls, roads, welfare and hospitals for their oldies, etc). Our corporate-establishment overlords will spread the global corporate uniculture into Mexico (and slow their birthrate to replacement levels like Argentina's) and slowly but surely begin to buy up what is worth having there (natural resources) and planting a few factories here and there. They will also buy up their media slowly but surely as time passes and use it to condition opinion as they do here. What do the coporate gated-community elite "get"?
They get 100 million new people, smarter and more hardworking and less physically threatening than blacks, who will be a permanent working class in the new ENLARGED Amercia. They get to cut wages in the USA for the smart-mouthed white and black working class also as a beneficial externaltity. They will be unaffected by the influx of Mexicans because they (the elite) live in gated communities here and are just as removed from us as the white elite in Mexico is removed from the average poor Mexican. ...............and we will get alot of oil in the process.
JSB,
I think our elite would like to try to get Canada (much more natural resources and higher-end scientific talent) suckered into the same kind of bargain.........but Canadians might be too smart to take the bait. Mark my word, if we "merge" with Mexico, like Ted Turner merging with Time Inc., the elite of Mexico will find themselves dissapointed down the line as their oil fields and other assets end up in Wall Street hands.
I think THAT is the plan. m
I'd say its more likely to be power-greed. Taking care of Mexicans at the American standard or anywhere near it, will impose losses on many a capitalist, who otherwise would have had profits.
A larger polity, though, means greater power and the prestige that goes with that. Whitehall was much more prestigious and powerful when it ruled its populous tropical colonies. British businessmen got a break when those territories were cut loose. The U.S. used to have the Philippines, but losing them raised the per capita income and profitability of the reduced empire.
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