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--></style><title>Excerpts: A view of US economics from Jimmy Carter
to toda</title></head><body>
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<div><font face="Geneva">"After what happened to Carter, no
American politician today is brave enough to ask for limits
.... President Carter is remembered as a weak man-yet no
politician now (outside of perhaps Ron Paul) has the guts to make a
similarly bold speech during our current economic
crisis."</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font
face="Geneva">-------------------------------------------------------</font
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<div><font face="Geneva" size="-5">Caddell thought Americans would be
receptive to a speech that, instead of appealing to mom, apple pie,
and the flag, laid out the nation's problems honestly and
bluntly.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">Many within the administration thought
Caddell had gone mad and tried to keep his ideas from the president.
But Carter's thinking paralleled Caddell's.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">Carter felt the country was on an
unsustainable course, and only through lower expectations,
conservation, and sacrifice could the U.S. survive as a free
nation-or at least "free" as Carter defined the term in his
speech:</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">"We are at a turning point of our
history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned
about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest.
Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for
ourselves some advantage over others. Š All the traditions of our
past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future
point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration
of American values. That path leads to the true freedom for our nation
and ourselves."</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">This was not the speech of some
America-hating leftist. Carter did not try to tear down the country,
he simply wanted it to come together and direct itself toward a goal
other than unlimited growth or unending progress.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">Mr. Conservative himself, Barry Goldwater,
said much the same thing when he accepted the Republican nomination in
1964: "There is a virtual despair among the many that look beyond
material success for the inner meaning of their lives." But just as
Goldwater's words were of no help in the year of Lyndon Johnson's
landslide, Carter's words did not prevent his defeat in
1980.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">The speech was initially well received, and
Carter's poll numbers went up. But all that goodwill was destroyed a
few days later when Carter demanded the resignation of his entire
cabinet.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">Reagan never repudiated his four votes for
Franklin Roosevelt and soon began gathering elements of the
traditional New Deal coalition into his fold-neoconservatives;
socially conservative Democrats of the Midwest, urban Catholic
Northeast, and the Protestant South; and idealistic Kennedy Democrats
who could not stomach the notion that a country that put a man on the
moon should turn down the thermostat.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br>
After what happened to Carter, no American politician today is brave
enough to ask for limits. Bush I said that our way of life is
non-negotiable. Bush II told Americans to go shopping after 9/11.
President Obama says Americans "will not apologize for our way of
life." President Carter is remembered as a weak man-yet no
politician now (outside of perhaps Ron Paul) has the guts to make a
similarly bold speech during our current economic
crisis. </font><br>
<font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000"></font></div>
<div>Full text here:</div>
<div
>http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/carter-conservatism/</div
>
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<div><font face="Verdana" color="#000000">"Consumer expectations of
ever-higher living standards were fuelled by more lenient and readily
available bank lending, the subsequent booms in construction and
property market sectors, .... Social status and identity became
closely associated with consumption, in particular with the concept of
luxury. Identifying oneself with the good life meant being able to
live beyond traditional understandings of basic needs. Debt was the
price one paid for the joys of being part of a hedonistic consumer
culture."<br>
<br>
Kenneth Dyson.The Morality of Debt.<br>
<i>Foreign Affairs.</i> May 3, 2015</font><br>
<font color="#000000"></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana"
color="#0040C2"><u
>https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-05-03/morality-debt</u></font
></div>
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<div><font face="Bookman Old Style" color="#000000">"Š the serious
meaning in a concept lies in the</font></div>
<div><font face="Bookman Old Style" color="#000000">difference it will
make to someone if it is true."<br>
<br>
William James (1842 -1910)</font></div>
<div><font face="Bookman Old Style" color="#000000"><i>Pragmatism</i>.
Meridian Books, 1955</font></div>
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