The Onion as prediction

Unbelievably, sadly prescient:

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

January 17, 2001 | Issue 37•01

WASHINGTON, DC–Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over." 

"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.

Wall Street responded strongly to the Bush speech, with the Dow Jones industrial fluctuating wildly before closing at an 18-month low. The NASDAQ composite index, rattled by a gloomy outlook for tech stocks in 2001, also fell sharply, losing 4.4 percent of its total value between 3 p.m. and the closing bell.

Asked for comment about the cooling technology sector, Bush said: "That's hardly my area of expertise."

Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge's coastal plain to oil drilling. As a sign of his commitment to bringing about a change in the environment, he pointed to his choice of Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior. Norton, Bush noted, has "extensive experience" fighting environmental causes, working as a lobbyist for lead-paint manufacturers and as an attorney for loggers and miners, in addition to suing the EPA to overturn clean-air standards.

Bush had equally high praise for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, whom he praised as "a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman's right to give birth."

"Soon, with John Ashcroft's help, we will move out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened time when a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic," Bush said. "We as a nation can look forward to lots and lots of babies."

Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state."

The speech was met with overwhelming approval from Republican leaders.

"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."

"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."

An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.

"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."

"You have no idea what it's like to be black and enfranchised," said Marlon Hastings, one of thousands of Miami-Dade County residents whose votes were not counted in the 2000 presidential election. "George W. Bush understands the pain of enfranchisement, and ever since Election Day, he has fought tirelessly to make sure it never happens to my people again."

Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

"The insanity is over," Bush said. "After a long, dark night of peace and stability, the sun is finally rising again over America. We look forward to a bright new dawn not seen since the glory days of my dad." 

Hat tip: PS.

Deviant globalization

Some reportage on my recent talk, in German and Spanish.

It's really that simple

It really is this simple:

Finance since Labor Day

A useful summary:

Deviant globalization and the ends of the illicit

I'm in Luzern next week giving a talk on the global illicit economy, and in relation to that may be posting more seriously on that topic on this blog over the coming months, since I am also actively working on a book on the same subject.

On this subject, via Andrew Sullivan, I present an amusing little blog snippet on the place of piracy in Somali life today:

“In Somalia, there are over 2,300 maritime pirates who include trained military men, security experts, professional translators and experienced brokers […]”

These organised, hi-tech gangs have managed to seize a Ukrainian vessel carrying tanks, arms, ammunition and military equipment and their ransom demands are high.

“These pirates have become rich and powerful and the owners of many commercial institutions,” he wrote.

“Pirate Jama Shino in the Somali town of Garowe, threw the most lavish wedding party for his second marriage and invited hundreds of people from the local authorities and among citizens,” Hussameddin wrote.

“The bride and the young women who attended the party, said: “Marrying a pirate is every Somali girl’s dream. He has power, money, immunity, the weapons to defend the tribe and funds to give to the militias in civil war.”

Obviously this anecdote has amusement value, but it also highlights the crucial point about deviant globalization, namely that the illicit economy, as it globalizes and professionalizes, becomes fundamentally inseparable from the licit economy, eventually erasing the line between the licit and the illicit, the normal and the deviant. The interpenetrations take place on multiple levels.

• On an economic level, deviant globalizers use the proceeds from illicit activity to leverage their way into legitimate commercial activities: As the article points out, Somali pirates have become "the owners of many commercial institutions." (Story reminds me of how Eazy-E used the proceeds from his crack business to fund the Ruthless Records rap label. Deviant globalizers always keep it real.)
• This interpenetration also operates on a political level, where mastery of the illicit economy gives these guys "power, money, immunity, the weapons to defend the tribe and funds to give to the militias in civil war."
• And finally (in what follows naturally from the first two points), the interpenetration operates at a cultural level, such that as the illicit economy grows, participation in it is eventually no longer even perceived deviant, and instead becomes the subject of "every girl's dream."
  

Race and class

The conjunctions and disjunctions of race and class are of course the proverbial unspoken elephant in the room of this election. This passage from a recent New Yorker captures the point marvelously:

During the first Presidential debate, Obama spoke directly to "middle-class" economic anxieties several times, and he later attacked McCain for never even using the word. But Obama's middle class has no face, no name, no story. Even as he becomes more specific on policy, partly in response to criticism, he still has trouble making a human connection. Bill Clinton could always employ the drawl and roguish charm of Bubba to let the working class know he was one of them, but Obama's life story is based on upward mobility, on transcending his complex origins. There's no readily apparent cultural identity he can fall back on—no folksy or streetwise manner he can assume—that won’t threaten more white voters than it attracts.

That last sentence is profound, and it suggests the limitations that race imposes on Obama even as he appears set to win this election. Obama's preternaturally calm demeanor is a necessary function of his race. Insofar as he allowed himself to get overtly angry -- or overtly funny, for that matter -- he would end up playing into dooming racial stereotypes. But the flip side of always appearing so calm and cool is that some people end up wondering if he's really fully human. A classic "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

One of the more subtle challenges Obama will face as President is that he's going to need at times to call on those emotional registers if he is to govern successfully -- cool and dispassionate are great character traits, but you lose power if you only can play one emotional note. So far it's not entirely clear that he's capable of that, or how the public would react to him displaying those more hot emotions.

The same article continues:

Gabe Kramer, the S.E.I.U.'s chief of staff in Columbus, told me, "You talk to people about the issues and the issues resonate. But what you hear people talking about on the street and on TV and radio is the other things. Is Obama like us? Does Obama share our experience of the world? Which is not the same thing as racism, but overlaps with it."

I wonder somehow if Obama might have done well to actually call out some of this masked racism from behind its veil. I say that mindful of the most amazing political anecdote I've heard in this campaign, concerning how a black politician can effectively win over the racist vote; from the Economist:

Virginia, once the heartland of slavery, elected a black Democratic governor, Douglas Wilder, two decades ago. Granted, Mr Wilder was more conservative than Mr Obama, and worked hard to charm working-class whites. According to the Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, he once said to striking miners: "[I heard you boys] would vote for a nigger before you'd vote for a Republican, and I'm here to tell you that this November, you’re gonna get your chance."

Of course, such knee-jerk anti-Republicanism is no longer present anywhere, so Obama couldn't play that particular card. But the story, apocryphal as it may be, nonetheless suggests an alternative mode for black politicians to discuss race.

McCain concedes?

Apparently, McCain is conceding in Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico, and pinning his last hope on winning Pennsylvania (in addition to all the usual swing states), a state where he's double digits behind.

It's only yesterday that the tangible reality of an Obama Presidency started to seem real to me. And in fact, I'm still not quite sure I believe that this country will really elect as President a black northern urban liberal (four strikes you're out?). The country I thought I knew doesn't elect someone like that President.

Of course, it's not the country I once knew: the Republicans and so-called conservative governance have so thoroughly fucked things up here that even the vast unreasonable masses realize that only a black northern urban liberal has a dirty snowball's chance in hell of pulling this country's collective irons out of the fire.

Of rightwing endorsements of Obama

A good indicator of how bad it's gotten for the GOP is that a lifelong, dues-paying neocon like Ken Adelman decides to endorse Obama. This is the very guy who turned the infamous phrase that the invasion of Iraq would be a "cakewalk" -- in other words, did as much rhetorically to promote the Iraq war as anyone. As the saying goes, "If you've lost Adelman...."

On the other hand, I think that Powell's endorsement of Obama is much less of an event, and if anything simply demonstrates again how Powell is the very model of an "almost great" man. Had Powell decided to endorse Obama a month ago--immediately after the Palin interviews with Couric and Brown made clear what an absurd and irresponsible VP choice she is, but the polls were still very close--that would have shown some political courage, and would have made a more substantive difference to the campaign. But for him to do so now is simply unimpressive. Yes, he's coming down on the right side of what is frankly an obvious choice, but he's doing so only once there is no political risk to himself, only upside. If anything, Powell's decision to insert himself into the campaign at this particular juncture only fuels the racial ugliness which McCain has decided is his last worst hope to pull this thing out for himself.

It's all food to me!

Now this is what we've been waiting for! Check out the mailer that a GOP group in Southern California just sent out:


The explanation:

The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps -- instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of "Obama Bucks" -- a phony $10 bill featuring Obama's face on a donkey's body, labeled "United States Food Stamps."

The GOP newsletter, which was sent to about 200 members and associates of the group by e-mail and regular mail last week, is drawing harsh criticism from members of the political group, elected leaders, party officials and others as racist.

The group's president, Diane Fedele, ...said she doesn't think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

"I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

Today's GOP doesn't disappoint, does it?

McCain-Obama debate preview!!

Hat tip: TPM

Update: I think part of the brilliance of imagining that clip as a rendition of McCainism is that the old Sixties "Batman" series was, to the best of my knowledge, the first time a genre parodied itself -- the corny dialogue, the improbable scenarios, the ridiculous clean cut nature of the heroes, etc.

Which is of course exactly what McCain's campaign is doing to the Atwater-Rove style of campaigning. I mean, isn't Palin a perfect camp version of GOP's archetype of the true American? She's beyond parody -- which is exactly the definition of campy.

Just the same way that the Batman series was actually making fun of the whole thing, I can't help but wonder if McCain isn't doing the same thing, albeit unwittingly. Then again, as Susan Sontag noted in her magisterial essay on the topic, "you can't do camp on purpose."

Memo from Outer Wingnuttia

To get a good sense for just how crazy, literally insane, the opposition that President Obama will face, read this whackjob, explaining the "connections" that Obama "won't talk about now" between Obama and various lefty groups in New York in the early eighties.

Shorter version: 

• Fact: Obama was in New York in early 80s. 
  
• Fact: Various lefty organizations were operating in New York in the early 80s.
  
• Fact: Obama has never proven he didn't hang out or conspire with these lefty organizations.
  
• Conclusion: Clearly Obama has some 'splainin' to do.
  

Iceland

For those of you who haven't been following the story closely, you may not have noticed that the biggest (or rather, most total) victim of the global financial crisis has been Iceland, the NATO member that has more or less officially gone bankrupt and is apparently starting its bailout with a handout from Vladimir Putin's Russia. However, there is also a more novel recapitalization scheme being tested:

LONDON (Reuters) - Great scenery and wildlife but financial situation in need of repair -- collect in person.

Iceland, which is going cap in hand to Russia for a 4 billion euro loan to bail out its failed banks, was offered for sale as a wholesale lot on eBay on Friday.

Bidding started at 99 pence but had reached 10 million pounds by mid-morning on Friday.

Globally renowned singer Bjork was "not included" in the sale, according to the notice, but there were nonetheless 26 anonymous bidders and 84 bids.

"Located in the mid-Atlantic ridge in the North Atlantic Ocean, Iceland will provide the winning bidder with -- a habitable environment, Icelandic Horses and admittedly a somewhat sketchy financial situation," the notice read.

Bidders' questions included: "Do you offer volcano/earthquake insurance?", "Is it possible that my payment will be frozen?", and "Will you accept C.O.D. as a form of payment?"

Before you dismiss this as a mere joke (it is a joke, but like all good jokes, it is well rooted in reality), it's worth remembering that Iceland did sell off the research rights to the genetic map of its entire population. For details, see here.

Sequoia Capital tells its companies to cut deep

Sequoia Capital, one of the Valley's leading venture capitalists, puts out a deck telling its companies that they need to cut deep, to get to revenue neutrality (in a seriously down revenue environment) because there ain't any more capital coming down the pike for a long while.

Depending on where you sit, of course, this isn't necessarily all bad. For example, a friend of mine who just got her startup funded points out that for her this is good news. Her company is the first mover in their space, and this means competitors are unlikely to get funded by other VCs. So they expect to have several years to get their business right without a lot of competitors pressing them.

Update: Jim Fallows has additional color on the conversation that accompanied this deck. Net net: "We are in drastic times. Drastic times mean drastic measures must be taken to survive. Forget about getting ahead, we're talking survive. Get this point into your heads..."

The end of the West

The FT puts its finger on the larger, long-term political implications of the current crisis:

Owning up to the geopolitical implications will be as painful for the rich nations as paying the domestic price for the profligacy. The erosion of the west’s moral authority that began with the Iraq war has been greatly accelerated. The west’s debtors cannot any longer expect their creditors to listen to their lectures. Here lies the broader lesson. The shift eastwards in global economic power has become a commonplace of political discourse. Almost everyone in the west now speaks with awe of the pace of China’s rise, of India’s emergence as a geopolitical player, of the growing roles in international relations of Brazil and South Africa. 

Yet the rich nations have yet to face up properly to the implications. They can imagine sharing power, but they assume the bargain will be struck on their terms: that the emerging nations will be absorbed – at a pace, mind you, of the west’s choosing – into familiar international forums and institutions.

When American and European diplomats talk about the rising powers becoming responsible stakeholders in the global system, what they really mean is that China, India and the rest must not be allowed to challenge existing standards and norms.

This is the frame of mind that sees the Benelux countries still holding a bigger share than China of the votes at the IMF; and the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations presuming this weekend that it remains the right forum to redesign the global financial system.

I have no inhibitions about promoting the values of the west – of preaching the virtues of the rule of law, pluralist politics and fundamental human rights. Nor of asserting that, for all the financial storms, a liberal market system is the worst option except for all the others. The case for global rules – that open markets need multilateral governance – could not have been made more forcefully than by the present crisis.

Yet the big lesson is that the west can no longer assume the global order will be remade in its own image. For more than two centuries, the US and Europe have exercised an effortless economic, political and cultural hegemony. That era is ending. 

If in fact this mentality changes, then really, truly, we are at an end of the era of modernization theory.

Is mere anarchy being loosed upon the world?

I've been having a weird tingling sensation in my spine for the last several days that happens when I am consciously aware that History (in the Hegelian sense of Geist) is turning and turning in a widening gyre. It's a physical symptom of a heightened psychological state of awareness that things are shifting in a fundamental, radical way: a direct consciousness that my fundamental political bearings are being unhinged, that the old order is disappearing, that a new order is emerging.

I've only had this feeling so strongly twice before. The first time was my freshman year at Berkeley, when I sat, stoned, watching people dancing on the Berlin Wall. The second time was right after 9-11.

We're at the same sort of world historical turning point now with the global financial crisis.

Six months ago (specifically: March 8, before even Bear Stearns had collapsed) I undertook a scenario planning exercise with Peter Schwartz, Steve Weber, and several other colleagues, trying to assess where this whole "sucker" (to use Bush's choice phrase) could possibly end up. We spent a lovely, sunny afternoon on Peter's balcony in the Berkeley Hills thinking rational but black thoughts about where it could all end up. 

By the end of the exercise, as we discussed the various risks in the system, and how it might all play out, we had laid out a scenario whereby the money center banks, that is, the very core of the Western financial system (in the U.S., these are Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America) could end up insolvent, necessitating a wholesale nationalization of the banking sector. We then looked around the table at each other and tried to imagine what this would mean for Western capitalism and democracy, and it just seemed too crazy to even consider. Political and ideological apocalypse on a scale of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

We all sat there, feeling a little crazy, and then finally one of us (who shall remain, for now, unnamed) uttered the most taboo words in scenario planning: "That could never happen. Impossible." 

And we all agreed, and wrapped up the session.

Well, here's Australia's leading free-marketeer, writing in a Murdoch-owned paper:

Inevitably, the US, Britain and Europe are going to end up with nationalised banking systems in one form or another, and with governments guaranteeing not only their deposits but probably all their liabilities. The nationalisation will be a temporary emergency measure. But for some time at least the systemically important banks effectively are going to be public utilities and must be regulated accordingly.

The wholesale ideological and political collapse of Communism? There were lots of smart people as late as 1989 who said that couldn't ever happen, either....

A possible upside to the financial crisis

They say that in every crisis is an opportunity -- for visionary and effective leaders. Well, here's one possible silver lining to the global financial crisis, courtesy of Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organization:

He suggested the crisis might be a blessing in disguise in the long term – to drive a "grand bargain" between the global players for a more coherent system of global governance.

That would include a new Bretton Woods pact to regulate the financial world, conclusion of the Doha trade round, a new post-Kyoto deal on climate change to bring in the US as well as China and India, and reform of the United Nations Security Council.

There would be benefits for developed and developing countries, he said. Maybe it is too fantastic to hope for. At the very least it would require the wholehearted engagement of the next US administration. Washington has long been resisting more regulated global governance. But maybe this time a homegrown US crisis will prove the trigger for a change of heart.

Of course, this is the same guy who thinks the Doha Round is going to get done.

More U.S.-Soviet parallels

Odd Arne Westad's magisterial The Global Cold War presents the case that the battle between the United States and the Soviet Union was between two competing forms of modernist universalism, that in many respects shared similar visions of development as an Enlightenment project of progress. Dmitry Orlov's equally (though very differently) excellent Reinventing Collapse takes the comparison between the two Cold War hegemons to its logical conclusion and argues that the collapse of the Soviet version of modernity, which happened because of the fundamental lack of rational capacity of its financial and political elites, was merely the first phase of the total collapse of modernity. Orlov argues that the United States too will collapse because of the fundamental lack of rational capacity of its financial and political elites. 

The parallels between the Soviet Union's condition in the 1980s and the United States today are indeed eerie: ranging from the utterly corrupt and competely unhinged-from-reality politics of the ruling party to a fruitless, endless war in Afghanistan. And I for one think that the U.S. may indeed be on the verge of an economic collapse on the same scale as the one the Soviet Union experienced in the 1990s, with a double digit contraction of the economy and a bout of hyperinflation that essentially immiserates everyone without fixed assets.

I was mindful of this uncomfortable parallel upon reading a post today from Sullivan, who argues that, "With the exception of America's superb armed forces... the US is now a banana republic." That exception that Andrew wants to make, though, reminds me of Helmut Schmidt's famous observation about the Soviet Union in the 1970s, namely that it was "Upper Volta with missiles." Is the U.S. now on the verge of becoming Burkina Faso with missilies? 

One thing is for sure: if the American economy does collapse, then our military might will inevitably collapse along with it. I hope someone at the Pentagon is thinking hard about what a 30, 50, or 90% reduction in their budget would mean in terms of their strategic ambitions.

The Fall of America

Francis Fukuyama on the end of the American era:

Ideas are one of our most important exports, and two fundamentally American ideas have dominated global thinking since the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was elected president. The first was a certain vision of capitalism‹one that argued low taxes, light regulation and a pared-back government would be the engine for economic growth. Reaganism reversed a century-long trend toward ever-larger government. Deregulation became the order of the day not just in the United States but around the world.

The second big idea was America as a promoter of liberal democracy around the world, which was seen as the best path to a more prosperous and open international order. America's power and influence rested not just on our tanks and dollars, but on the fact that most people found the American form of self-government attractive and wanted to reshape their societies along the same lines‹what political scientist Joseph Nye has labeled our "soft power."

It's hard to fathom just how badly these signature features of the American brand have been discredited. Between 2002 and 2007, while the world was enjoying an unprecedented period of growth, it was easy to ignore those European socialists and Latin American populists who denounced the U.S. economic model as "cowboy capitalism." But now the engine of that growth, the American economy, has gone off the rails and threatens to drag the rest of the world down with it. Worse, the culprit is the American model itself: under the mantra of less government, Washington failed to adequately regulate the financial sector and allowed it to do tremendous harm to the rest of the society.

Democracy was tarnished even earlier. Once Saddam was proved not to have WMD, the Bush administration sought to justify the Iraq War by linking it to a broader "freedom agenda"; suddenly the promotion of democracy was a chief weapon in the war against terrorism. To many people around the world, America's rhetoric about democracy sounds a lot like an excuse for furthering U.S. hegemony.

Frank's an optimist: he thinks that global faith in unregulated capitalism and liberal democracy can be restored. I'm not so sure. But even Frank concedes that an American comeback will require fundamental changes, including abandoning the generation-long national nightmare of anti-tax and deregulatory jihad.

The initial historical verdict on Bushism

In its editorial endorsing Obama over McCain, the New Yorker provides the following simultaneously fair and utterly damning summation of the final legacy of 28 years of Nixonian-Reaganite-Bushist rule:

The incumbent Administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction....

The Republican disaster begins at home. Even before taking into account whatever fantastically expensive plan eventually emerges to help rescue the financial system from Wall Street's long-running pyramid schemes, the economic and fiscal picture is bleak. During the Bush Administration, the national debt, now approaching ten trillion dollars, has nearly doubled. Next year's federal budget is projected to run a half-trillion-dollar deficit, a precipitous fall from the seven-hundred-billion-dollar surplus that was projected when Bill Clinton left office. Private-sector job creation has been a sixth of what it was under President Clinton. Five million people have fallen into poverty. The number of Americans without health insurance has grown by seven million, while average premiums have nearly doubled. Meanwhile, the principal domestic achievement of the Bush Administration has been to shift the relative burden of taxation from the rich to the rest. For the top one per cent of us, the Bush tax cuts are worth, on average, about a thousand dollars a week; for the bottom fifth, about a dollar and a half. The unfairness will only increase if the painful, yet necessary, effort to rescue the credit markets ends up preventing the rescue of our health-care system, our environment, and our physical, educational, and industrial infrastructure.

At the same time, a hundred and fifty thousand American troops are in Iraq and thirty-three thousand are in Afghanistan. There is still disagreement about the wisdom of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his horrific regime, but there is no longer the slightest doubt that the Bush Administration manipulated, bullied, and lied the American public into this war and then mismanaged its prosecution in nearly every aspect. The direct costs, besides an expenditure of more than six hundred billion dollars, have included the loss of more than four thousand Americans, the wounding of thirty thousand, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and the displacement of four and a half million men, women, and children. Only now, after American forces have been fighting for a year longer than they did in the Second World War, is there a glimmer of hope that the conflict in Iraq has entered a stage of fragile stability.

The indirect costs, both of the war in particular and of the Administration's unilateralist approach to foreign policy in general, have also been immense. The torture of prisoners, authorized at the highest level, has been an ethical and a public-diplomacy catastrophe. At a moment when the global environment, the global economy, and global stability all demand a transition to new sources of energy, the United States has been a global retrograde, wasteful in its consumption and heedless in its policy. Strategically and morally, the Bush Administration has squandered the American capacity to counter the example and the swagger of its rivals. China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other illiberal states have concluded, each in its own way, that democratic principles and human rights need not be components of a stable, prosperous future. At recent meetings of the United Nations, emboldened despots like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran came to town sneering at our predicament and hailing the "end of the American era."

The "end of the American era": this is what Reaganism has brought about. Even on its own malign terms, conservatism has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.

The only thing I would add is to this entirely fair account of conservative policy's substantive ruination of the country's finances, military capacity, and moral standing, is that conservative politics have also done grave damage to the tacit procedural norms that subtend functioning democracy. To paraphrase H.R. Haldeman, once the toothpaste of decency gets squeezed out of the tube of democracy, it's awfully hard to put it back in. The fundamental contempt for political decency and openness shown by Rove on the one hand and Cheney on the other may, in the end, be judged the worst thing of all about the Bush regime.

$2Tr lost from retirement accounts

For some strange reason, with 401(k)s down 20% (that's $2,000,000,000,000!), we're not hearing a whole lot from the GOP these days about how great it would be if we privatized Social Security, so that everyone could have their entire retirement riding on the stock market.

Just think how much more effed we'd be if the Wingers had gotten even more of their way.

P.S. We all owe Josh Marshall a debt of gratitude for leading the derailment of Bush's SS-privatization scheme. The story of how Josh harnassed his distributed readership to force each Congressman to commit on a dime for or against Bush's sceme wrested the political initiative away from the President in a way that I believe is without precedent. And as far as I know, that story's never been fully told anyway.