Friday, November 12, 2010

You cannot fool all of the people all of the time

The hype continues and in a typical piece of Washington newspeak we are told that there is a "currency war" and that progress towards a more balanced global economy is being undermined by China undervaluing its currency. Of course, away from the hype and on a bottom up reading of a 'newspeak', which among other things maintains that "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," "Ignorance is Strength," we might conclude that the magic money produced abracadabra style by the Federal Reserve is all about ensuring that there never will be a balanced global economy. Of course, Friedmanism was never about balancing economies, global or national and if any proof of that fact were needed, we need look no further than the United States itself where it looks as if the Obama administration is in the process of extending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy.

Fortunately, there is more than a little truth in the contention that you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time and, with China refusing to float its currency and the Germans not about to put a cap on their exports, the great globalisation game pursued by the disaster capitalists might be coming to an end. Moreover, with members of Obama's own Democratic Party up in arms on hearing that the White House is in the process of ceding to Republican demands to extend the high-end tax cuts, it might even be that even in the USA the majority has had enough. Yes,  the evidence would indeed suggest that you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

No comments: