The George Bush of 2000

I recently read Ron Paul's book The Revolution: A Manifesto. It's a great book that I think everyone should read. The second chapter focuses on foreign policy. One page that stood out for me contains a couple of quotes from George W. Bush from a debate with Al Gore in the year 2000. Paul quotes Bush on foreign policy:

"I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.' ...I think one way for us to end up being viewed as 'the ugly American' is for us to go around the world saying, 'We do it this way; so should you.'"

...

"Somalia started off as a humanitarian mission and changed into a nation-building mission... And that's where the mission went wrong. The mission was changed. And as a result, our nation paid a price. And so I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called 'nation building.' ... I think what we need to do is to convince the people who live in the lands [themselves] to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here-we're going to have kind of a 'nation-building corps' from America?"

...

"If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us. Our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that's why we've got to be humble."

I didn't pay attention to the Presidential race back then so I don't remember what type of platform Bush ran on. Although I do like what he said above, I was shocked to read it. How different is that than the actions taken over the past 8 years? Of course, you can argue that "9/11 changed everything", and I can definately understand the concern after what happened in that tragic event. But didn't our nation go way beyond what was justifyable in its response? Under Bush, we became all the things that he said in 2000 that we should not become.

Paul goes into much greater detail about his reasons for a non-interventionalist foreign policy. It is a policy that was once advocated by traditional conservatives. Now, however, Republicans have become "The War Party". If the party could return to its roots, I might be able to refer to myself proudly as a Republican. At this point, however, third-party candidates seem to be the most attractive option.

First Post

Hey everyone, first blog post here. I am planning to post on a variety of topics, from updates on my personal life to economic/political issues to music and what not. Over the last half year or so I have become an avid blog surfer and have found a few that I like to read just about every day. This blog will serve as a way for me to link to those posts which I find the most though-provoking. Believe me, the blogs to which I provide links will be able to argue about things in the economic/political realm much more eloquently than I ever could. I hope you find some of the ideas as interesting and eye-opening as I do.

Today has been quite a day. I received an invitation packet in the mail today from the Peace Corps! I have been invited to serve in Honduras starting in February, in a Business Advising program. This is something I have wanted to do for over a year and it's a bit surreal now that it is all coming to fruition. I have 10 days to accept or decline the invitation. I'll probably post more on this later.

In other big news today, the House of Representatives voted against a $700 billion dollar bailout of the financial industry. This has been all over the news so I won't get into details, but I am pleased with the decision to reject the bailout. The financial industry was not exactly my specialty when studying economics in college, so as usual I turned to the blogs of economics professors to get a better understanding of the situation. I found plenty of reasons to oppose the bailout, and I've read a plethora of articles stating those reasons. Perhaps I will link to some of my favorites in another post. Anyhow, what sticks out to me about our current situation is that the opposition seems to be coming from everywhere: The average citizen who does not want their tax dollars to be used to clean up for the mistakes of people on Wall Street (a good way to summarize what we would be doing is "privatizing profits while socializing costs"). There are also many economists who oppose the bailout because it will create "moral hazard", a situation where firms realize that if the government is likely to bail them out in the future, they are able to take risks they would not under normal market conditions, knowing they have a safety net if they end up failing. Finally I have seen some convincing arguments from congressman Ron Paul and Austrian Economics, the economic school of thought with which he identifies. While I was hesitant to embrace the ideas of Austrian Economics at first (it goes against a lot of what I just spent 4 years learning in college, can you blame me?), after recent events it has become quite convincing to me. The argument of economists from this school of thought is that because the Federal Reserve has been printing money and artificially lowering interest rates, they have created a "false prosperity" for our nation. The false prosperity can only last so long, however, as has become much more obvious in recent weeks. (The abuse of the mortgage market through "government sponsored entities" is also part of the story of how we got to be in this situation, but that is for another time). A bailout would only prolong the correction that needs to take place to restore the market to more normal conditions. While there will be some painful shocks to our economy if the bailout does not pass, the argument is that the recession/depression will be longer and worse if the bailout does past. Based on the fact that Austrian Economists have tended to be much more accurate at predicting economic trends in the past, I am going to take their word for it on this one at this point.

I'll leave you with a link to commentary by Ron Paul on CNN.com (it's about time he got some media coverage, unfortunately it has taken a financial crisis to spark it). He gives a good summary of the current situation, how we got here, and why there should not be a bailout, from the Austrian point of view.