Frankly, this is just another example of American hypocrisy. Of course China is “manipulating” its currency in order to help Chinese industry and keep unemployment lower than it might otherwise be. But America also “manipulates” its currency to help specific American businesses. In the case of the US, the focus is much more on helping the US banks and US investors in other countries than it is on supporting manufacturing in the US, but that just reflects the political domination of the US government by the rich.
Smoot-Hawley was an example of the “beggar your neighbor” trade policies the prevailed during the Great Depression, as each country tried to make other countries suffer the worst consequences of the Great Depression. Because the US at the time had a very strong economy, it probably hurt other countries more than it hurt the US. But it certainly started a wave of retaliatory trade policies that hurt world trade. To quote the Wikipedia article on Smoot-Hawley,

U.S. imports decreased 66% from US$4.4 billion (1929) to US$1.5 billion (1933), and exports decreased 61% from US$5.4 billion to US$2.1 billion, both decreases much more than the 50% decrease of the GDP.

According to government statistics, U.S. imports from Europe decreased from a 1929 high of $1,334 million to just $390 million during 1932, while U.S. exports to Europe decreased from $2,341 million in 1929 to $784 million in 1932. Overall, world trade decreased by some 66% between 1929 and 1934.[14]

Using panel data estimates of export and import equations for 17 countries, Jakob B. Madsen (2002) estimated the effects of increasing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers on worldwide trade during the period 1929–1932. He concluded that real international trade contracted somewhere around 33% overall. His estimates of the impact of various factors included about 14% because of declining GNP in each country, 8% because of increases in tariff rates, 5% because of deflation-induced tariff increases, and 6% because of the imposition of nontariff barriers.

I think the current desire among some US politicians for trade sanctions against China has more to do with the US Military Industrial Complex’s need for an enemy (in order to justify spending huge amounts on the military), and the desire for a scapegoat, (in order to distract the US public from the criminality of US elites), than it does with getting more manufacturing jobs for Americans. Vilifying the Chinese as “currency manipulators” ignores the fact that when American corporations use Chinese labor to manufacture things in China and then ship them back to the US, it counts as part of a Chinese trade surplus. When parts are manufactured in Vietnam or Singapore and then shipped to China to be assembled into items which are then exported to the rest of the world, that also counts as part of a “trade surplus”.

Eli is treating Bachmann as if she’s crazy to say this, but I think it more clearly shows that she’s evil, not crazy. One major reason why the dictators of Egypt and Tunisia managed to hold onto power for decades was because the US government had supported them for decades. The overthrow of those dictators really was a defeat for the American empire, though not a decisive defeat, given that former members of those dictators government have held on to a lot of power to date. While Obama needs to pretend otherwise, I think it very likely that he privately regrets the Arab Spring as much as Bachmann does.
Both Obama and Bachmann want to maintain the American empire. Obama tried to maintain the empire by lying to the Arabs about how he would change American policy towards the middle east. It didn’t work for long, because most of the people in the middle east realized after a couple of years that American policy hadn’t changed. I think what Bachmann is basically saying is that Obama’s pretense that he was friendly towards the Arab peoples meant that they weren’t afraid of being slaughtered by US drones if they tried to overthrow the US puppet governments that ran their countries. She may know that if the US had sent in drones to slaughter the demonstrators in Tahrir Square, the US would have had to slaughter tens of thousands of Egyptians at the very least to keep Mubarek in power. But from her point of view, that would be a desirable thing.

Why isn’t it in Obama’s personal best interest to suck up to the rich? Sure, if Obama wanted to be a great President, if he wanted to change the course of history, he would do things differently. But if Obama’s main goal is simply to become a member of the ruling elite after he leaves the Presidency, then the sort of class warfare he’s engaged in makes sense. He knows he’s not going to be President after 2016, even if he can win reelection. He wants the sort of 8 figure salary Bil Clinton has gotten since he left the White House. It’s as if he sees the Presidency as an entry level job.

So why do you think the people of China and Europe will fail so badly to do what’s in their society’s best interests? The idea that Confucian ideals are somehow going to prevent China from being successful sounds like warmed over Max Webster. If you look at the last two thousand years of Chinese history, you’ll note that for much of that time, China had the most advanced technology and economy on Earth. Then it had a bad two or three centuries, followed by the very recent upturn in the last few decades. So why does Confucius prevent China from (for example) developing quantum computers or nanotechnology?

This is the sort of desperate wishful thinking I’d expect from someone who writes for The Economist. You are predicting that the two greatest threats to continued American dominance, China and the EU, will both fail badly. Global warming will actually help insure American dominance. Americans will have lots of great jobs as the “world’s sales force”, which presumably means that they will be able to skim off a lot of the profits from the world’s manufacturing industries. Brainy people around the world will abandon their own countries and come to America.
If you’re an American, this must all sound very nice indeed. But doesn’t most of the population of the rest of the world have good reason to hope most of your predictions don’t come true?

Mr. Alterman, I’m sorry but I just can’t accept your premise. The Bush administration committed a whole series of enormous crimes, starting with stealing the 2000 Presidential election. If Obama had really been interested in changing the system, he would prosecuted the criminals who preceded him for crimes like torture. Instead, the only people he’s interested in prosecuting are whistle blowers like Bradley Manning. If Obama really wanted to change the system, he could have declassified the government files in which US government misconduct is hidden. Don’t you think that allowing the American people to see what the US government had really done over the last twenty or thirty years would have dramatically changed the political dynamic?

It’s true that any government of a major oil exporting country will have a strong vested interest in not destroying the long term market for oil. But that doesn’t mean that the US won’t be economically affected if a new government comes to power in a major exporter. Suppose Saudi Arabia had a different government. Would that new government decide to continue pricing oil in US dollars? Would that government recycle much of its profits to the US by spending billions on weapons, the way the current Saudi government does? Would that government support the US position on issues like Iran or Israel? The US benefits from having dictatorial governments in power because such governments value US support in keeping their own populations under control. If more democratic governments came to power, they would need less US support to stay in power, and would therefore be in a better position to adopt policies the US government doesn’t like

It’s true that any government of a major oil exporting country will have a strong vested interest in not destroying the long term market for oil. But that doesn’t mean that the US won’t be economically affected if a new government comes to power in a major exporter. Suppose Saudi Arabia had a different government. Would that new government decide to continue pricing oil in US dollars? Would that government recycle much of its profits to the US by spending billions on weapons, the way the current Saudi government does? Would that government support the US position on issues like Iran or Israel? The US benefits from having dictatorial governments in power because such governments value US support in keeping their own populations under control. If more democratic governments came to power, they would need less US support to stay in power, and would therefore be in a better position to adopt policies the US government doesn’t like.

So, Germany should just allow anyone to smuggle arms into the Warsaw Ghetto at will by whatever means they desire. Never check a truck, blame Germany yet again for defending itself. If German soldiers are fired upon, blame the soldiers. I really hate to say it, but this bias has to be rooted in anti-Nazi(anti-German) sentiment.