Tuesday, April 15, 2008

NPR this morning broadcast a fascinating interview with Kevin Phillips, big-brained GOP strategist-turned-populist.

In short, Phillips said the nation's current economic problems can be traced to how we went from being a country that made stuff to one that makes money by moving money around, with "convenience" fees and all the rest.

He likened the dollar to a bloodied gladiator laying on the floor of the Coliseum, and predicted, as have others, that this century will be dominated economically by Asian countries.

Phillips said it's not too late for America to gets it economic act together, and he pointed to England, which had food rationing for a decade after WWII, as a country that emerged with prosperity after a jarring transition. Yet he also cited an overreliance on the financial sector as a symtom of decline in other great powers, and he said the US economy is a bigger source of concern than we've been led to believe.