Fareed Zakaria - Tom Friedman's replacement as Globalization's #1 cheerleader

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Fareed Zakaria is an insufferable apologist for our corporate overlords. His arrogance makes me ill. It grates my ass how much Jon Stewart sucks up to this slick snake. The financial elitism of this man practically oozes from the TV screen.

All snips from:

"The Future of American Power" By Fareed Zakaria
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/the_future_of_american_power.html

U.S. military power is not the cause of its strength but the consequence. The fuel is the United States' economic and technological base, which remains extremely strong... The United States will remain a vital, vibrant economy, at the forefront of the next revolutions in science, technology, and industry...

The U.S. technological base is shit. Every tech job that can be outsourced has been outsourced - including major surgery, organic chemistry, airplane maintenance. The children of the well-to-do want to be lawyers and bankers, not geeks or navvies. Our secondary school system is non-functional; so we import foreigners to our univeristies to make up the slack. But, in a recent poll, Indian techies have decided there is no reason to come to the U.S. anymore; they think the job opportunities at home are as good as here. We are screwed.

...capital has been free to move across the world -- and the United States has benefited massively from these trends.... Despite two decades of a very expensive dollar, U.S. exports have held ground, and the World Economic Forum currently ranks the United States as the world's most competitive economy.

"Exports have held ground." Tell me another one, Fareed. Ha. Ha. Ha. Our trade deficit is gigantic and growing. The only thing we export is trouble and weapons.

Manufacturing has, of course, been leaving the country, shifting to the developing world and turning the United States into a service economy. This scares many Americans, who wonder what their country will make if everything is "made in China." But Asian manufacturing must be viewed in the context of a global economy....What it comes down to is that the real money is in designing and distributing products -- which the United States dominates -- rather than manufacturing them. A vivid example of this is the iPod: it is manufactured mostly outside the United States, but most of the added value is captured by Apple, in California.

This is classic globalism-speak. Yeah, a tiny handful of CEOs pocket the sweatshop laborers sweated profits. Meanwhile, the Chinese are, as a country, getting about 50% of the value they add; and Americans are being laid off in droves. This "the money is in design" shtick went out with the dot-com bust.

The U.S. savings rate is zero; the current account deficit, the trade deficit, and the budget deficit are high; the median income is flat; and commitments for entitlements are unsustainable. These are all valid concerns that will have to be addressed. But it is important to keep in mind that many frequently cited statistics offer only an approximate or an antiquated measure of an economy. Many of them were developed in the late nineteenth century to describe industrial economies with limited cross-border activity, not modern economies in today's interconnected global market.

So, Fareed. Just because the circulation of the blood was discovered 300 years ago, does that mean it is "approximate" or "antiquated"? Just asking. Is "antiquated" another word for "quaint" or "inoperative"? You weasel-wording schmuck. Why don't you "keep in mind" that our economy is in the ICU and flat-lined. It is being kept alive by the central banking equivalent of a heart-lung machine at this point. Yeah, I guess being legally dead is a "valid concern".

For the last two decades, for example, the United States has had unemployment rates well below levels economists thought possible without driving up inflation... Or consider that the United States' current account deficit -- which in 2007 reached $800 billion, or seven percent of GDP -- was supposed to be unsustainable at four percent of GDP.

You know, Fareed, that a man who has just been shot through the heart is still alive for a few seconds. You could say that his life during those seconds was "supposed to be unsustainable". Wouldn't that be fair? :-)

Oh, all of this and low inflation too. Right. Did you get a chutzpah transplant from Tom?

The current account deficit is at a dangerous level, but its magnitude can be explained in part by the fact that there is a worldwide surplus of savings and that the United States remains an unusually stable and attractive place to invest. The decrease in personal savings, as the Harvard economist Richard Cooper has noted, has been largely offset by an increase in corporate savings. The U.S. investment picture also looks much rosier if education and research-and-development spending are considered along with spending on physical capital and housing.

"the United States remains an unusually stable and attractive place to invest." ROFLMAO. That's why everyone is fleeing the U.S. dollar. That's why banks all over the world are bailing on our crap-assed real-estate paper. That's why all the economists agree we are in at least a recession. What fucking brass balls you have, Fareed.

I could go on; but I need a shower. What a sickening display of corporate propaganda. No wonder this guy has a contract with Newsweek.

:puke: :puke: :puke:

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