NYT Columnist: Restore Economic Growth or Threaten Pax Americana

Pax Americana is best for the entire world because of the soft, non-colonial nature of American policy. Many nations taking advantage of it have thrived. I recall an example. India and Pakistan massed troops at their border, and both made angry statements. The leader of India received a call from an American corporate head. War was not compatible with further investment by American industry. No war took place, and troops went home, this time.

In order to grow faster, the self-dealing lawyer profession must be crushed. It does not mean tort reform or limits on anti-scientific regulation. It means reducing the legal load by a half or more.

1) Judges who attack productive sectors of our economy should be arrested by federal marshals, tried for collaboration with the enemy, and executed for treason. The same goes for state attorney generals.

2) The economic burden of crime must be ended by executing all repeat violent offenders, until violent crime is reduced by 99%. Their protectors in the legal profession get arrested for treason, tried and executed.

3) The $trillion stolen by the lawyer lawyer profession must end, by shrinking the lawyer profession to a more appropriate 700,000 from 1.3 million. Do so by closing law schools, starting with the extreme left wing Top Tier, headed mostly by Hate America left wing extremists. Transfer that stolen loot to research and development, across the board. About 20% of our economy should consist of high end, innovative, brain work.


Op-Ed Columnist
Superbroke, Superfrugal, Superpower?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 4, 2010

In recent years, I have often said to European friends: So, you didn’t like a world of too much American power? See how you like a world of too little American power — because it is coming to a geopolitical theater near you. Yes, America has gone from being the supreme victor of World War II, with guns and butter for all, to one of two superpowers during the cold war, to the indispensable nation after winning the cold war, to “The Frugal Superpower” of today. Get used to it. That’s our new nickname. American pacifists need not worry any more about “wars of choice.” We’re not doing that again. We can’t afford to invade Grenada today.

Ever since the onset of the Great Recession of 2008, it has been clear that the nature of being a leader — political or corporate — was changing in America. During most of the post-World War II era, being a leader meant, on balance, giving things away to people. Today, and for the next decade at least, being a leader in America will mean, on balance, taking things away from people.

And there is simply no way that America’s leaders, as they have to take more things away from their own voters, are not going to look to save money on foreign policy and foreign wars. Foreign and defense policy is a lagging indicator. A lot of other things get cut first. But the cuts are coming — you can already hear the warnings from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. And a frugal American superpower is sure to have ripple effects around the globe.

“The Frugal Superpower: America’s Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era” is actually the title of a very timely new book by my tutor and friend Michael Mandelbaum, the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy expert. “In 2008,” Mandelbaum notes, “all forms of government-supplied pensions and health care (including Medicaid) constituted about 4 percent of total American output.” At present rates, and with the baby boomers soon starting to draw on Social Security and Medicare, by 2050 “they will account for a full 18 percent of everything the United States produces.”