How do you know America has not spoken to China or Russia regarding the need for more loans? I enjoy your writing yet find it takes great leaps of faith to follow all of what you say as fact. With the global economy failing, the only countries that matter right now are the countries who can prop it up. It stretches my imagination to think if they've talked enough to agree to lend this many $$, surely they've discussed the possibility it may require more.
Considering the ill-relations we have with Russia, how smart is it to take their money anyway? What have we promised to give if we cannot repay the loan? I also believe if Russia is the war mongering nation we've been taught to believe, now would be a good time for them to show their strength. With the economy of so many countries crippled, why is it we're not being attacked by terrorists or invaded? Seems like the ideal time. We've been told to worry about war and terrorists and told who were our enemies, yet we were attacked by our own people. Who's our enemy now?

Re: liz
Enjoy your comments and agree with you except you forget this is the administration that planned the invasion and occupation of Iraq; had they been leading us during WWII, we'd be speaking German or Japanese, depending upon which side of the Mississippi River you lived. As to what we have promised to give, it'll be selling off our assets to sustain the fix, like all addicts.

While I wholeheartedly agree with Roberts about the fact that America is facing the end of its hegemony (and good riddance!), he bowdlerizes the true history of the Reagan presidency. Is it by accident that in the ‘Authors Bio' that Craig gives in this paean to Reagan, he describes himself as an “assistant of the US Treasury,” but neglects to mention he served in the Reagan era and that he was a Reagan appointee? [Google other pieces by Roberts and he mentions his ties to Reagan.]
Inter alia, Roberts writes, "Reagan defeated stagflation and ended the cold war, producing a peace dividend to be divided among taxpayers, social programs, and national debt reduction."
First off, Reagan only defeated stagflation by jacking up interest rates so high it led to a severe recession in the early 1980s, the worst since the depression, with a surge in unemployment.
Here's how Mike Hersh debunks this oft-repeated myth:
Quote Hersh:
Which brings us to myth number two: Jimmy Carter wrecked the economy, and Reagan's bold tax cuts saved it.
This is utterly absurd. Economic growth indices -- GDP, jobs, revenues -- were all positive when Carter left office. All plunged after Reagan policies took effect.
Reagan didn't cure inflation, the main economic problem during the Carter years. Carter's Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker tried when he raised interest rates. That's the opposite of what Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has done to keep inflation low.
Carter's policies and people fought inflation, but maintained real growth. On the other hand, Reagan's policies helped cause the worst recession since the Great Depression: two bleak years with nearly double-digit unemployment! Reaganomics failed in less than a year, and it took an entire second year for the economy to recover from the failure.
Carter didn't cause the inflation problem, but his tough policies and smart personnel solved it. Unfortunately for Carter, it took too long for the good results to kick in. Not only didn't Reagan help whip inflation, he actually opposed the Volcker policies!
End Hersh. On-line at: http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020319Hersh.html
Reagan didn't end the Cold War. Reaganistas argue the USSR collapsed after trying to keep up with The Gipper's increasing defense spending. But in fact defense spending in the USSR was flat during the Reagan era. The USSR collapsed of its own weight of fiscal and military mismanagement, something that plagues America today. (See: "Reagan and the Russians," in The Atlantic Monthly, on-line at: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/foreign/reagrus.htm
Roberts' comments about Reagan's contributions to fiscal soundness, social programs and national debt reduction are breathtakingly cynical and misleading.
Re the national debt, the San Francisco Chronicle's business writer, David Lazarus, has noted that, “In 1981, shortly after taking office, Reagan lamented "runaway deficits" that were then approaching $80 billion, or about 2.5 percent of gross domestic product. Within only two years, however, his policies had succeeded in enlarging the deficit to more than $200 billion, or 6 percent of GDP.”
He added that, according to economics professor Alan Auerbach, “‘It was up to the first President Bush, the loyal soldier, to clean up the mess by raising taxes, and he didn't get re-elected because of it,' Auerbach observed. ‘Clinton also had to raise taxes because of Reagan.' Over time, the Reagan deficit became the Clinton surplus.”
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/06/09/BUGBI72U8Q1.DTL
Re Reagan's kindheartedness on social programs, Lazarus writes, “When homelessness first became a national issue, however, the Reagan administration all but turned a blind eye to the problem. Federal expenditures for low-cost housing plunged during Reagan's watch from $32 billion in 1981 to just $7 billion in 1987.
“At the same time, funding was slashed for a variety of social services, including public health, drug rehab and food stamps -- programs that were relied upon by the thousands of mentally ill people who'd been released from state facilities as a cost-cutting move.
“Reagan was asked in a 1988 interview, shortly before Christmas, what he thought of the homeless people sleeping just across the street from the White House in Lafayette Park. ‘There are always going to be people,' he replied. ‘They make it their own choice for staying out there.' (!)
“A couple of years later, Reagan's daughter, Patti Davis, commented on her fear that she might be recognized by a homeless person while out jogging.
"'What would I say if I were asked why I didn't talk to my father, or argue with him, about this national tragedy?' she wrote in Parade magazine. ‘How do you argue with someone who states that the people who are sleeping on the streets of America 'are homeless by choice?'”
How about Reagan's efforts on the AIDS epidemic? Lazarus writes:
“Last but not least, AIDS. Reagan is not to blame for this horrific epidemic, or for the high cost to the nation in terms of lost lives and lost productivity. What he is responsible for is the government's callous failure to respond to this crisis in a timely manner.
“Reagan famously did not utter the word AIDS in public until 1987. He did precious little to arrest the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in the early 1980s, and limited the amount of official resources dedicated to what was perceived by his administration as an affliction exclusively of the gay community.”
Roberts is entitled to his own opinions about Reagan, but he shouldn't be allowed to get away with rewriting history to make his patron and mentor look good.

Time magazine's interesting cover article "The End of Cowboy Diplomacy" raises an interesting question. Has the period of American hegemony as the lone global superpower ended after only fifteen years? And has its downfall been precipitated by the overreach of hegemonic power by the Bush administration? Iran and North Korea openly flout the Western world because they have no fear that American power will be used against them. We have little influence over our historic allies. Russia and China are more likely to exert their will. High oil prices bring wealth and power to states who use that wealth and power to counter American will. Etc.
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Roger
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