Hi CobaltBlue; Let's review this discussion. Perhaps by seeing it from my point of view you'll understand how silly your arguments seem to me:
Pat Buchanan, October 23, 2002
America ought not put herself at risk to defend rich and powerful nations like South Korea and Japan. Half a century after World War II and the Korean conflict, it is time they assumed the primary burden of their own defense. #reply-18150058
stockman_scott, in reply
VERY GOOD POINT...especially in these challenging economic times. #reply-18150234
CobaltBlue, in reply
Exactly wrong. This is the logic that led to the Great Depression. #reply-18150265
Bilow, in reply
I know that it's pretty late at night and I should let you off with this one, but do you really think you have a way of connecting the Great Depression with America's pre war isolationism? #reply-18150447
CobaltBlue, in reply
Yes. The short hand phrase for it among historians, economists, and economic historians is "beggar thy neighbor," aka competitive devaluation, causing extreme exchange rate fluctuations, which destabilized the global economy. #reply-18150785
CobaltBlue, I still fail to see what the concept of keeping US troops in foreign countries has to do with "beggar thy neighbor" and the Great Depression.
As far as the Great Depression and the "beggar thy neighbor" policy, you now admit that "beggar thy neighbor" did not create the problem, but that instead it was debt induced deflation. I agree.
So that argument, which is now completely split off and distinct from the original argument about keeping US troops in Japan, is over the question of how much "beggar thy neighbor" had to do with the Great Depression. I already showed data proving that exports were not a significant part of the US economy in 1929, consequently "beggar thy neighbor" could not have had a significant effect on the economy. It's patently ridiculous to imagine that a 2% reduction in exports could have been the primary cause of a 29% reduction in GDP. It's less patently ridiculous to argue that the economic system is prone to large moves, and that a reduction in exports was the "originating" cause, but as I noted before, the international data indicate that those countries that had very large exports, as a percentage of GDP, did not suffer the depression more deeply, but in fact the reverse was the case.
-- Carl |
