Keeping Us Safe

by digby

I think it’s pretty clear that the Republicans are playing for 2010 and want to run against the “Obama Economy.” That means they are going to put a monkey wrench in everything they can get away with. And I think we know that the consequences for all of us are likely to be painful.

But if they get away with it, things may go awry in ways that they may not expect. (It’s even possible that newtie and Cheney and some of the other radicals who are saying some odd things may realize.) Here’s an article on the subject that will curl your hair:

What’s the worst that could happen?

That’s a question that James Rickards spends a lot of time pondering these days, as he sifts through the national security implications of the financial crisis facing the United States.

Rickards will lay out his worst case scenarios in a lecture sponsored by the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy tonight. And his forecasts aren’t for the faint of heart.

Rickards calls it the “A to Z” problem: What are the threats that could make the U.S. economy look less like America and more like Zimbabwe? He sees them everywhere – in the Chinese ownership of vast amounts of American debt, in Russia’s increased centralization of its economy, in Al Qaeda’s long-established fascination with damaging the U.S. economy.

In many ways, Rickards is the ultimate bear. He’s not just thinking about whether the stock market will decline, but whether or not the stock market will survive.

All that puts Rickards decidedly outside mainstream economic and political thinking in America. But he does have an influential audience: the United States intelligence and defense communities.Rickards is a regular adviser on financial issues to the director of national intelligence’s office, and he lends his financial advice to the national security community.

His lecture comes as part of an annual “Rethinking Seminar” produced by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Rickards argues that government is not doing nearly enough to prepare for the worst. “Here’s the policy problem for the United States,” he said in an interview. “We have experts in defense and intelligence, and huge depth in capital markets experience at the Fed and at Treasury. But they’re separated by the Potomac River. And they’re not talking to each other.”

Rickards came by his economic experience the hard way. He was the general counsel at Long Term Capital Management, the hedge fund that collapsed in spectacular fashion in the late 1990s and nearly took the global economy along with it. That near-economic death experience gave him a healthy appreciation for risk. Today, he’s the senior managing director for research at Omnis, an applied research firm.

read on for the details.
Now I don’t know if this is reasonable. But I do think that it’s something that the Republicans should keep in mind as they plan their little obstruction fest to the necessary stimulus Obama is said to be planning to propose. While Peggy Noonan and the rest of the clones have been robotically mouthing Karl Rove’s talking points about Bush “keeping us safe” he has actually been weakening this country in more ways that we can measure. From the secret energy task force, tohis intimate relationship with Kenny Boy Lay’s electrical ponzi scheme, to putting partisan hacks like Chris Cox in charge of the SEC to, well … everything else, this financial and economic crisis has most definitely made us all less safe.

If these Republicans want to continue with conservative dogma on free market fundamentalism by obstructing Obama’s efforts, I suppose they can. But if they think it’s a good political calculation, I’d suggest they have really lost their touch. Everybody is going to suffer and they are going to blame the wealthy grownups who ran the self-described “low tax and national security party” that ran the country into the ground. Why do you think that Dick Cheney is running around telling people that it’s “Herbert Hooverville” if the Republicans don’t get their act together. He’s evil, but he isn’t stupid.

Update: Oy.

Update II: Stupid people on CNN have taken it upon themselves to decide what constitutes “legitimate” infrastructure spending. Apparently, Obama is only going to be allowed to spend money on roads and bridges. Even things like bike paths are “pork” and are not going to be acceptable to the “fiscal responsibility” scolds and cable news spokesmodels. Word to the wise. Nobody gets it.

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