(Newsflash!) Foreigners Buy Up USA!

Brent Budowsky deserves some praise for his essay currently carried by The Smirking Chimp (originally from The Hill). (And the Chimp really needs some donations right now so they can continue to be an outlet for this type of expose.) Budowsky, former Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen and one of the core drafters of the CIA Identities Law, connects the dots between the "silent scandal" of the BushLeagueCheneGang's secret Energy Task Force meeting(s) of early 2001 and the results currently on view as America is "sold at bargain basement prices," leaving us finally aware of "one of the most dangerous trends in the American economy." Even people on the far-right side of the leftwing are angry about these consequences of BushLeagueCheneGang greed. I guess they just noticed that things have gone too far. Not that they'll be losing their jobs or houses or anything important. _________________________

America is being sold at a discount to foreign buyers at bargain basement prices and it is time for a serious discussion about why. The Chrysler Building, large pieces of America's major banks and investment houses, Anheuser-Busch. What will be next? Will we sell the Lincoln Memorial to Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth funds? America is now dependent on Chinese capital to buy our bonds to finance our debt. We are dependent on Middle Eastern oil to fuel our economy. This massive export of capital to foreign nations is used by them to buy our assets, often at dollar-store prices. It is a scandal. How odd that neoconservative theoreticians hunger for war with Iran, while the Bush policies keep us addicted to oil, which finances Iran. How strange that the voices on the right hunger for the overthrow of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, while the Bush policies keep us addicted to oil, which finances Chavez. It is pathetic to watch an American president virtually begging Saudi Arabia for more oil, and even more pathetic when the Saudi royals, whose hands he holds and whose cheeks he kisses, say no! Meanwhile, we await the revelations of the Cheney energy task force, which will sooner or later emerge, detailing how oil companies used the White House to divvy up the oil bounty from the Iraq war, before the Iraq war. What happens with this massive exodus of capital from America to foreign suppliers, foreign owners, foreign sources and foreign monarchs and the sovereign funds where they put their money, gotten from us, is the wholesale bargain basement sale of America. The dollar becomes the petty-cash currency of the world, which only increases the sales to foreign owners, lowers the prices they pay and powers their increasing control over our assets, workers and sovereignty. Let’s begin a very serious debate about this very serious subject, one of the silent scandals of the Bush years, one of the most dangerous trends in the American economy. This is one of the great causes of outsourcing and layoffs, which inevitably result as foreign owners maximize their profits, by getting rid of American workers. It is a shame, and it is a scandal.

Yeah, baby! Nice to see him on our side of the fence again, isn't it? Suzan ____________________