The Fall of America, Inc.

If we consider the current world like one big village, does not believe that it is necessary to speak a "global language" ? The MBS is a languaje to avoid further crises and improve the global economy.
The MBS is fully explained in www.fivestarmanager.com
The US MBA is a great program,but the problem is that companies and Executives must speak MBS !

If we consider the current world like one big village, does not believe that it is necessary to speak a "global language" ? The MBS is a languaje to avoid further crises and improve the global economy.
The MBS is fully explained in www.fivestarmanager.com
The U.S MBA is a great program,but the problem is that companies and Executives must speak MBS !

L.G. Jaramillo

Reagon's trickle down ecconomics have always been a complete failure and we are now seeing the end results.

"..what were once fresh ideas have hardened into hoary dogmas."
An excellent and informative article -- the above quote hits the nail on the head. What has happened to our country is a breakdown of ideas, and values, not financial systems. As Kevin Phillips says in Bad Money, we are governing from our "venal center," not our vital center. Wail until "peak oil" and global warming impacts hit.

I already pay taxes both personnally and as a business owner. How do you define a freeloader? If I ran Fannie Mae for 6 years and cooked the books so that I could make 90 million would that make me a freeloader? Oh wait I forgot Franklin Raines associates with the in crowd.

You know, "worriedtaxpayer" --leave if you want. If you stay, expect to start paying for what you get, rather than running defecits your grandchildren will have to pay.

If you were a real conservative, rather than a freeloader, such behavior would have caused you shame long ago.

Yes, the end of Reagan's era is upon us. It started when he signed the bill deregulating the S&L's. His statement after signing the bill was,"boys , I think we've hit the jackpot".

And your worldview is delusion

1984 is fiction.

To kinshasa

Did you ever read George Orwell's 1984? In your worldview was Winston Smith just not a team player? Limiting one's freedom of speech and association will hopefully never happen in the United States of America. If it ever does there will no longer be a reason to live here.

The free ride is just about over, kids. The cruel joke is, business pays no tax. It is only capable of collecting tax from you to turn over to government. Even Karl Marx understood that:

???Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.??? ~ Karl Marx ~

Time the Free-tiberters, the self-described anarchists, free spirits, socialists and assorted Liberals learned who the unseen hand really is

It is you.

Dr. Fukuyama's comment fails to ntoe that the fed contributed to the debacle not simply by minimal oversight (desired government failure) but by reducing interest rates to absurd levels to place money after the dot com bubble burst

"Reaganism reversed a century-long trend toward ever-larger government. Deregulation became the order of the day not just in the United States but around the world."

The notion that Reagan was responsible for these shifts is a major American conceit. Fukuyama should know better. Even Thatcher, a much more serious thinker than Reagan, had the decency of crediting Hayek and Friedman for much of her ideas. Please, it's bad enough that Americans are told repeatedly that Reagan won the Cold War. Yes, the "brand" is in the toilet. Redistribution from the majority to the wealthiest minority should be seen for what it is...wrong!

To G. Noonan

"Most people want personal liberty: freedom of speech, conscience, association etc. Authoritarian China and the 'managed democracy' of Russia routinely infringe upon people's freedom."

Having spent the last 5 years in China and throughout Asia I can tell you that this particularly Anglo-American ideological stance is viewed with great suspicion throughout the world, in no small part due to the Bush administration's deeply inept governace over the last 8 years.

Trillions of dollars and a million lives lost in Iraq, the city of New Orleans disappears, the world's so-called "most sophisticated" financial systems melts-down, the country's infrastructure is crumbling, it's schools are terrible, and I can tell you, it is no "shining city on the hill." All of the shining cities are springing up in Asia these days. By this measurement, the world does not look to the United States for leadership, and no amount of ideological rhetoric will sway them.

The truth is that 99% of people would rather work their jobs and have a better life and forgo freedom of speech and association. I would argue that "conscience" is more of a culture-bound notion and doesn't really apply to the rest of the world in the way that it does in the west.

Moreover, the rest of the world sees our ridiculous "democratic process" -- our billion dollar elections (which obviously don't work too well if they rewarded us with Bush), the 24 hour news cycle, the endless inane and corrupt public discourse, etc. Please, tell me why the rest of the world needs this "democracy." As most see it, the American elections are a great national distraction, and average people do not need to be involved in this process. Rather, most people are confused and distracted by it.

The United States must alter its tactics in promoting its national ideology to the rest of the world and instead focus on producing great people and great achievements. Only then will the rest of the world follow.

To G. Noonan

"Most people want personal liberty: freedom of speech, conscience, association etc. Authoritarian China and the 'managed democracy' of Russia routinely infringe upon people's freedom."

Having spent the last 5 years in China and throughout Asia I can tell you that this particularly Anglo-American ideological stance is viewed with great suspicion throughout the world, in no small part due to the Bush administration's deeply inept governace over the last 8 years.

Trillions of dollars and a million lives lost in Iraq, the city of New Orleans disappears, the world's so-called "most sophisticated" financial systems melts-down, the country's infrastructure is crumbling, it's schools are terrible, and I can tell you, it is no "shining city on the hill." All of the shining cities are springing up in Asia these days. By this measurement, the world does not look to the United States for leadership, and no amount of ideological rhetoric will sway them.

The truth is that 99% of people would rather work their jobs and have a better life and forgo freedom of speech and association. I would argue that "conscience" is more of a culture-bound notion and doesn't really apply to the rest of the world in the way that it does in the west.

Moreover, the rest of the world sees our ridiculous "democratic process" -- our billion dollar elections (which obviously don't work too well if they rewarded us with Bush), the 24 hour news cycle, the endless inane and corrupt public discourse, etc. Please, tell me why the rest of the world needs this "democracy." As most see it, the American elections are a great national distraction, and average people do not need to be involved in this process. Rather, most people are confused and distracted by it.

The United States must alter its tactics in promoting its national ideology to the rest of the world and instead focus on producing great people and great achievements. Only then will the rest of the world follow.

This is how totally outside of reality the republibots are at this time: Eisenhower, by their standards, was a socialist. Eisenhower started the interstate highway system. This was paid for with public funds. Eisenhower was president when the top tax rate was more than double what it is today. This is the "golden age" that so many republibots yearn for - yet it was an era of spending for public infrastructure. an era of increased college enrollment due to the G.I. bill. It was an era when housing was created for people (Levit-town - oh yeah, white people) to increase the number of homeowners.

Rational republicans are not the problem in this nation. But there are so few of them left - or rather, the truth is that they are the equivalent of centrist democrats today. This is how far to the right the republican party has gone. In other words, Bill Clinton is the best republican president we've had since Eisenhower.

As far as the "liberal media" - a Pew Poll found that those who watch PBS are the best-informed people in this nation. Those who watch Fox News are the least informed. Why? Because Fox continued to lie about WMDs, about the ties between Iraq and al queda, about the impact of economic policies on particular groups long after it was obvious these issues were not what the republicans claimed. I could cite incident after incident in which the "liberal media" was in lockstep with the Bush administration. Why no word about the coming Chavez coup in 2002 when it was already being reported in GBrit in Jan? Why no word about the b.s. propaganda about Jessica Lynch until 6 months after it was reported in the media in GBrit? Why no word about the Pat Tillman incident until it was reported in the media in GBrit? I found that during the Bush years, if I wanted to get actual information about this nation, I had to go to foreign press sources. The U.S. media was a republican version of Pravda.

If you don't like "socialism" then don't drive on public roads. Don't send you kids to public Universities. Don't file for unemployment if you are laid off your job. Don't accept a social security check if you are retired and don't allow your children to accept one if your spouse dies and your child needs help to afford college. Don't go to a public park. Some people in this nation are so freaking reactionary that someone needs to slap some sense into them. The rich don't mind socialist intervention when it benefits them. But they'll make sure you think it's the boogey man.

The idea that Reagan shrank the Federal government is simply a myth -- it grew by nearly 5% while he was in office. But of course that was nothing compared to the growth of its debt. More importantly, however, why would anyone pay serious attention to analysis by Francis "The End of History" Fukuyama?

Unless we stem the tide of imports and illegal immigrants, we are doomed as a viable society.

his is an interesting article. I have a couple of points:

1. If this is really the end of neo-liberal capitalism, then I think most people will rejoice. Thatcherism and Reaganomics promised a lot more than they delivered. True, as Fukuyama argues, some amount of reform was needed to re-energise Western economies in the late 1970s. But was it really necessary to pass policies so nakedly in favour of the rich: tax cuts, privitisation, attacks on trade unions? I don't think so. Aslo, economic growth under neo-liberal capitalism paled in comparison with that of regulated Keynesian capitalism of the 1940s-1970s.

2.Fukuyama says that America's image as the promoter of democracy has been tarnished by the Iraq debacle. This is only partially true, I think, because most people know that America, like other super-powers throughout history, has done good and bad things with its influence. Throughout the Cold War, it supported authoritarian dictators in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (including Saddam) as bulwarks to Communism.

3. I disagree with Fukuyama that the debacles in Iraq and global capitalism have led people to admire the models of China and Russia. Most people want personal liberty: freedom of speech, conscience, association etc. Authoritarian China and the 'managed democracy' of Russia routinely infringe upon people's freedom. I would say that most people want freedom with some measure of safety. European social democracy, or American liberalism, seem to me the happy mediums.

G. Noonan