French Unemployment Without French Welfare

Roger Cohen of the Times:

The most important line in President Obama’s Afghan speech was not about Afpak policy (so named by the White House) but about the U.S. domestic situation: “Our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended — because the nation that I am most interested in building is our own.” 

As military strategy for winning a war the speech made little sense. But as a political statement and as an acknowledgment of the limits of American power after the first decade of the 21st century, the speech was adroit.

...as the delirious decade draws to a close — a period in which America was upended by 9/11 and close to one trillion dollars was spent on the Afghan and Iraq wars — the realism of Obama is welcome. It takes getting used to — idealism propelled him after all. The three presidential C’s (cool, controlled, cerebral) can get to people; they’ve gotten to me at times. Still, Obama is right; America needs a heavy dose of nation-building that’s incompatible with ever escalating military commitments.

The United States is buried in debt, personal and collective, after a decade in which median incomes for the average working stiff fell, and more Americans dropped below the poverty line, and the number of Americans without health insurance rose. Unemployment is above French levels without French welfare. Enough said.

A lot of Americans are worried sick. The friendly loan packagers who were doling out money like risk no longer existed have taken real exit ramps — they’ve vanished.

Leading by example has to mean something. If the U.S. government doesn’t care what it spends, citizens aren’t going to either — and the dollar’s plunge will become irreversible.