Isn't it wonderful China has all that money to, in essence, guarantee Pakistan's foreign debt? Do you kind of think Beijing will want to have a word with Islamabad about cracking down on al-Qaeda and Taliban in the North West Frontier? And, do you supposed Beijing's renbimbi might make Pakistan listen?

Where am I going and what am I doing in this hand basket?

China and Russia are helping to bail out our allies. Wonderful.

How can American primacy have been completely destroyed in only eight years? Eight years.

In a way, this is welcome news, because I was beginning to feel a little complacent in the idea of Obama winning in a landslide. We all have to work our butts off to make sure Republicans don't have the opportunity to finish off the rest of the nation as we know it.

BTW, shouldn't greasing the runners of our economic slide to hell be added to the long list of Crimes Against Humanity that the Bush administration should be charge and convicted with?

When can we have our Judgment at Nuremberg moment? Because frankly, George and his fellow travelers have done about as much harm to this nation and the world as any other monster in history.

It may only be a few months before the end of his term, but we won't be in as good a position to impeach/indict George, Dick, Lisa, Rumsfeld, and the rest. They'll be high tailing it to their Bolivian fortresses to live the rest of their lives in luxury stolen by spilling the blood of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.

And sticking a monkey wrench into the US economy changing it from the most powerful and dynamic economy in history reducing it to some crippled mockery of what it once was.

If a man steals our children and grandchildren's well-being isn't that a crime? A crime against humanty?

My god, what have they wrought?

Maybe that is a good thing - China and Russia spending their money supporting collapsing 'allies'... As the Washington Post editorial endorsing Obama mentioned: The Republicans deserve to spend a few years in the political wilderness ...

America as a country needs to spend a few years in the wilderness as well, and tend to its own business/economy instead of meddling in other countries' affairs.

Dr Morpheus said:

They'll be high tailing it to their Bolivian fortresses to live the rest of their lives in luxury stolen by spilling the blood of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.

That wouldn't be such a bad idea. (not the spilling blood part) I'd love it if they all moved out of this country.

It would mean they could never come back to America, because they 'might' be arrested at the border to face their trials.

Hopefully a lot of Republicans will think about moving out of the country as well. Of course that is not going to happen, because they wouldn't know what to do in a foreign country that doesn't fit their fantasy of what it 'ought' to be.

Of course if they all happen to move to Texas and Utah, it wouldn't be bad either, keeps them contained where the only harm they'll do is to themselves.

about my post above.... No offense to progressives, liberals and moderates living in Texas and/or Utah.

Uhh, TAritac? Pakistan isn’t our ally, really. They’re still leery we will use them like a douche bag, and the nuke supplies treaty with India doesn’t help. Stuff like this is why I, like better known and knowledgeable bloggers like Juan Cole, have blogged repeatedly that Obama is (yes, allowing for political pandering) an idiot for proposing more troops in Afghanistan with the refusal to cooperate from Pakistan. The rising instability just underscores that.

And, unilateral intervention? Pakistan North West Frontier is about as rugged as Afghanistan. And, if Beijing is guaranteeing Pakistan’s foreign loans, they’ll want a say about that anyway.

Damn that Barack Obama and the Democrats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SocraticGadfly,
Yes, I know that Pakistan is an ally in name only. I erred on the side of rhetorical expediency over accuracy. But your point is noted.

I am not sure that Obama's approach is the best one either, but I trust him to get the best advice available and change tactics if something fails. And at least he's articulated a strategy, something that John I-Know-How-To-Get-Them McCain has yet to do.

Everything that is occurring on the global stage today suggests that we are in the early stages of a second Great Depression, and everything that the industrialized nations are doing---force-feeding hard currencies into the patient; currencies that have no tangible back, but only "the faith" of the governments issuing them---risks a scenario whereby the hyperinflation we've seen in countries such as Haiti and Zimbabwe are merely a hint of what the world will experience.

Take oil, for example. Everyone needs it, and the slowing economies are depressing the price that its producers are getting for it. What happens when the cartels finally decide that they're tired of watching their portfolios run dry while their "black gold" leaves their export terminals at fire-sale prices? Seven words here:

OPEC hoards oil like GE hoards cash

I'm willing to play poker with this idea. I'm willing to bet the farm that a lot of the people on this blog---just as in the American business community---don't remember the effects of the '73 Oil Embargo. I'm willing to go the distance, right to the tip of the weakest branch on the highest limb of the most rotted-out tree ever imagined in a game of five-card cutthroat on the theory that very few people have actually taken the time to think out the scenario of what happens to this country if its access to imported oil, imported petrochemicals, and imported products that require oil and petrochemicals for manufacture and transport---all come to a full stop.

And here's why:

Plastics. Polymers. Petrochemicals used in agriculture, commerce, and industry at the point of manufacture are either produced outside the United States, or the raw materials needed for their production are produced outside the United States.

So---you want to fold and walk away from the table---or are you feeling lucky?

Gee, this economic thing might have political impacts, in a scary destabilizing sort of way, around the globe.

It's really kind of a shame that US financial standing, military capacity and credibility has been so severely compromised over the last eight years.

We're screwed.

Yet, in general the American media (notwithstanding NYT) seems too preoccupied with our own concerns to bother with the big picture. The next president will be inheriting not just a faltering U.S. economy but an entire globalized planet on the brink. We absolutely can not afford a McCain/Palin presidency at this dire hour. I don't even need to list the reasons why.

Look what happens when you let minorities start buying houses. Lordy, lordy. Obama sure has screwed us all up.