Some fifty years ago, in 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy was elected president of the United States, stating that his religious beliefs were his own personal affair and that, as an elected official for all the people, he was going to use his best judgment in his public decisions, and not be obligated to follow the diktats of any established religion, not even of his own, the Roman Catholic Church, nor its foreign Pope.
As an indication of how much the United States has regressed on the question of separation of Church and State, consider that a presidential candidate of the quality of Sen. John F. Kennedy would most likely not be elected to office today with such a stand of intellectual independence. Mind you, most of the Fathers of the U.S. Constitution could not be elected either, a clear indication that the United States has strayed away from its founding principles.
Consider what President James Madison (1751-1836) had to say about religion in politics: "The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State." Do you really believe that President Madison could be elected today? Nowadays, in fact, religious zealots dominate the Republican party while some half of democrats think that a presidential candidate must have "strong religious beliefs" to be considered for public office. The only problem is that such a view is in direct conflict to what the U.S. Constitution says!
Mixing personal and official religion with democratic politics is a form of intellectual corruption. --It's dynamite. If the United States continues in the same destructive direction that many theocratic Muslim countries have followed for centuries, with disastrous results, I would not hesitate to predict that the U. S. will self-destruct.
II- The Widespread Confusion Between What Works in an Open Economy as Compared with a Closed Economy
Let's talk economics.
The U. S. economy, like most industrial economies, is an open economy. This means that goods and services can be exported and imported while facing a minimum of border taxes and other barriers to international trade. For a quarter of a century now, it has also meant that the U. S. economy is part of the economic globalization model. The latter goes much further than free trade: it means that corporations and banks can move their capital, technology and production plants around the world in search of the greatest profit and the best investment environment. I happen to believe that this globalization model has been pushed too far and has become a major cause of economic stagnation in the industrial economies.
When it comes to economic policies, what can work in a closed economy does not necessarily work in an open economy. Consider macroeconomic policies to stimulate a stagnant economy. In an open economy, keynesian-type stimulus policies of deficit government spending or of tax reduction do not work properly, essentially because stimulus policies of this type are the equivalent of heating a house in winter with the windows and doors wide open. The new deficit spending may help the world economy, since much of the new spending ends up abroad, but the domestic multiplier effect of such spending can be very low. This means that such an economic stimulus in an open economy may not be as effective in stimulating economic activity as hoped and, in some circumstances, it can do more harm than good.
Nevertheless, many politicians (and some economists!) cling to the old idea that lowering taxes for the rich when the government is in deficit or new non-infrastructure government deficit spending can stimulate the economy. This obviously does not work, at least not if the new deficit spending is not focused domestically. Spending deficit money in Afghanistan or in Iraq doesn't much stimulate the U.S. economy!
What works in an open economy are policies geared toward changing relative prices in order to encourage domestic production and employment. First of all, a lowering of the real exchange rate can encourage net exports and stimulate domestic production and employment, provided the government does not sustain excessive domestic absorption through unproductive large deficits.
Another approach to skew relative prices in favor of domestic production and employment is to use the tax system accordingly. Presently, many American corporations are hardly taxed at all on their profits when they operate abroad. Some appropriate taxation of these profits can encourage repatriation of capital and support additional domestic investments. It may be argued that the American political system is not flexible enough to allow for the use of tax policies to encourage domestic production and employment. If so, this would be another indication that the current state of the political system in the U. S. is inimical to economic progress.
These are only a few examples of public policies that can have a positive impact on the functioning of the economy.
In general, and that will be my conclusion, I would say that it is in the interest of any country click here to avoid giving power to idiots, ignoramuses, incompetents, devious and delusional characters or to demagogues. If not, watch out. --More countries are destroyed by their own politicians than by foreign armies.
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