Hudson on the Economy

" The xenophobic idea is that China is taking away American jobs, not that America’s pro-financial policies are responsible for de-industrializing the economy and shrinking domestic markets and employment here.'

"So what will emerge is a new multi-lateral financial system after all. But there will be two financial systems: one centered on the BRIC countries with strong trade balances and currency values, another system centered on the U.S. dollar. Europe is likely to be left out, and may become an economic backwater, because so much of its politics are run by U.S. aficionados. So I see a dual world monetary system and a dual world trade system operating under a different set of trade and financial rules.

U.S. diplomats no doubt will call this socialism. Other countries can reply, “What we’re doing is just what the French Physiocrats, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and the other major classical free-marketers wanted: no free lunch. If we’re socialists, what are you guys? We’re too polite to use the word, but it was used in World War II