The Business of America/Independence Day Blues
Stelzer, Irwin M.
THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA INDEPENDENCE DAY BLUES As summer draws to a close, one can't help reflecting on the contradiction between the theme of the season's major holiday and the reality of the...
...This time around they are attempting to create international institutions, which inevitably take on a life of their own, to push for "more equal burden-sharing...
...economy...
...industrial capacity, brings with it some new technologies and management techniques, and will ultimately result in the production of goods in this country, which goods will displace imports...
...Long before then, however, several important new trends are likely to emerge...
...All that will be left of the so-called problem of foreign investment will be 28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 a batch of IOUs: we will have to send a flow of dividends and interest payments abroad to compensate foreigners for their investments here...
...For Americans either watched celebratory parades on their Sony television sets or drove to them in their Toyotas or Mercedes, perhaps stopping in their British-owned office buildings to catch up on a bit of work...
...If you liked UNESCO and its efforts to establish a "new order" in world communications, you will love this panel: its workshop on the impact of industrial growth on the world's climate is chaired by the newly Green Soviet Union—home of Chernobyl and exploding gas pipelines...
...Most Americans spent the Fourth of July celebrating their independence...
...They consider foreign investment to be one more proof that America is in decline, the victim of "imperial overstretch...
...Their fears are driven, instead, by vignettes...
...Previously an assistant to Presidents Nixon and Ford, he offers an insider's look at the workings of government and a behind-the-scenes perspective on policy-making in Washington...
...Liberal academics, while still professing their internationalism, go further...
...The Republicans, of course, see things differently...
...The figure represents the difference between the value of American assets owned by foreigners ($1.786 trillion) and the value of foreign assets owned by Americans ($1.254 trillion...
...Anthony Villamil, chief economist for the Commerce Department, said earlier this summer that the inflow of foreign investment "reflects continued confidence in the U.S...
...To prevent imports from flooding in, Europe will have to resort to overt and covert protectionism...
...Liberal academics, while still professing their internationalism, go further...
...That congeries of measures will shorten working hours, put workers on corporate boards, and otherwise raise labor costs to the point where American and Japanese products gain a competitive edge over local goods in the European market...
...But the more thoughtful ones paused over their beer and hot dogs to reflect on the fact that, 213 years after declaring themselves independent, they were more dependent than ever on other nations...
...Indeed, rumor has it that Japan's government, eager to avoid restrictions on its by Irwin M. Stelzer investments here, has quietly passed the word to its business community to avoid buying up highly visible assets...
...The figure represents the difference between the value of American assets owned by foreigners ($1.786 trillion) and the value of foreign assets owned by Americans ($1.254 trillion...
...A much smaller sum, spent on dirty Third World installations, would produce much greater reductions in noxious wastes...
...Read Buchanan's "Dividing Line" feature in every CONSERVATIVE CHRONICLE along with George F. Will, William F. Buckley, Jr., Donald Lambro, Jeane Kirkpatrick and many others...
...And a summer gathering of the great, the good, and the slightly goofy at the Aspen Institute—a think tank located high in the Rocky Mountains—heard one expert after another tell them that their climate was very much affected by how much coal was burned in China and how many trees were felled in Brazil...
...All of which is grist for the politicians' mills...
...And Americans' particular fear—that the Japanese will end up controlling our destiny—seems misplaced...
...Bloomingdale's, otherwise known as yuppie heaven, has fallen to the Canadians...
...They will have gotten the welfare measures they favor, and financed them with the hidden taxes of higher prices...
...Using stock market data to measure capital appreciation, and adjusting both U.S...
...Hampton, Iowa 50441 Phone hours: Monday-Friday 8 to 5 CTZ YES I accept your subscrip- tion offer of 1 year (52 issues) for $36.00 (add $20.00 for foreign postage...
...industrial capacity, brings with it some new technologies and management techniques, and will ultimately result in the production of goods in this country, which goods will displace imports...
...Hampton, Iowa 50441 Phone hours: Monday-Friday 8 to 5 CTZ YES I accept your subscrip- tion offer of 1 year (52 issues) for $36.00 (add $20.00 for foreign postage...
...All that will be left of the so-called problem of foreign investment will be 28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 a batch of IOUs: we will have to send a flow of dividends and interest payments abroad to compensate foreigners for their investments here...
...This means that the British own almost twice as much of America as does Japan, although Japan's investment here is rising rapidly enough to make Japanese officials nervous about some sort of backlash...
...The federal deficits had to be financed somehow, they argue, and since Americans wouldn't even save enough to make up for the government's profligacy, the Treasury was forced to borrow from foreigners...
...Thatcher's manful drive to prevent the Eurocrats and socialists from imposing their much-loved "social dimension" on long-suffering European consumers is not likely to succeed...
...nfortunately, the problems created by our greater ecological interdependence will not so easily disappear...
...As a result, those who won influence in the constricted Carter years by preaching the virtues of "no growth," only to be overrun by pro-growth Reaganauts, are back at their old stands...
...They will have gotten the welfare measures they favor, and financed them with the hidden taxes of higher prices...
...Britain, from whom we won our independence in a seven-year war, has over $100 billion in direct investment in the U.S...
...All of which is grist for the politicians' mills...
...I understand I can obtain a full refund on unmailed copies at any time...
...Such a step would eliminate the need for the web of international controls now being put in place by the people who see the disparity between American wealth and African/Latin American poverty as the result of some mystical North-South divide, rather than a consequence of the superiority of free enterprise to state-managed economies...
...Perhaps the most significant will be Japanese and American reaction to what is called, simply, "1992...
...Meanwhile, by the end of the century, we will once again be hearing about the dangers of foreign investment in Europe, rather than in the U.S...
...The widely followed World Financial Markets, a publication of the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, chimed in with a report that "foreign direct investment holdings in U.S...
...Democrats, newly enamored of fiscal responsibility, blame increased foreign "control" of America on the budget deficits rolled up during the Reagan years...
...AX ^ Bill Me Card # Exp Date Name Address THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 29 THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA INDEPENDENCE DAY BLUES As summer draws to a close, one can't he...
...C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics, estimates that by 1992 we will be paying between $40 billion and $50 billion each year to foreigners in interest and dividends...
...Led by our State Department's Bill Nitze—yes, the son of the arms controller—we are participating in an International Intergovernmental Panel on World Climate Change, due to report its findings to a waiting world in October 1990...
...Because the issue of dependence on foreigners is so emotional, especially in a country in which Independence Day is the leading holiday, it is important to view foreign ownership in some perspective...
...Americans acquired their foreign holdings years ago, when asset values hadn't been much affected either by inflation or by real increases in capital values...
...Using stock market data to measure capital appreciation, and adjusting both U.S...
...And since the budget deficit spawned the trade deficit—this relationship remains more asserted than proved—it drove the dollar so low as to make American farms, factories, and real estate irresistible bargains for foreign investors...
...Led by our State Department's Bill Nitze—yes, the son of the arms controller—we are participating in an International Intergovernmental Panel on World Climate Change, due to report its findings to a waiting world in October 1990...
...Anthony Villamil, chief economist for the Commerce Department, said earlier this summer that the inflow of foreign investment "reflects continued confidence in the U.S...
...Both will get around the new protectionism by diverting their investments from America to Europe, enabling them to manufacture, in Europe, goods they will not be allowed to export there...
...Keep in mind, first, that figures showing America as a large debtor nation are in part an accounting fiction...
...And in the midst of these celebrations, the Commerce Department reported that America's total debt to the rest of the world had risen by 40 percent in 1988, to $532.5 billion...
...The widely followed World Financial Markets, a publication of the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, chimed in with a report that "foreign direct investment holdings in U.S...
...Buchanan revived his respected column after serving on the Reagan administration as communications director and assistant to the president...
...I understand I can obtain a full refund on unmailed copies at any time...
...Meanwhile, by the end of the century, we will once again be hearing about the dangers of foreign investment in Europe, rather than in the U.S...
...In practice, that means having America slow its growth to make room for more growth—and more pollution—by so-called Third World countries...
...To prevent imports from flooding in, Europe will have to resort to overt and covert protectionism...
...European consumers will pay more for those products than they would have if imports were allowed, but that won't bother Brussels bureaucrats too much...
...More precisely, they have convinced politicians that it is best not to incur the wrath of the world's "Greens" by questioning their findings...
...Remember, too, that foreign holdings in the United States remain small by international standards...
...I don't mean to gainsay the need for international cooperation in ameliorating the environmental effects of economic activity...
...Even internationally minded Forbes magazine seemed a bit worried by the fact that more states now have economic affairs offices in Tokyo than in their nation's capital...
...And we carry them on our books at original acquisition cost...
...Such capital also adds to U.S...
...To get Buchanan and a great line-up of his conservative contemporaries, call toll free or mail coupon and take advantage of an exceptional value — 52 issues of the CONSERVATIVE CHRONICLE for only $36.00 — with a money back guarantee...
...A much smaller sum, spent on dirty Third World installations, would produce much greater reductions in noxious wastes...
...R ead Pat Buchanan's pointed, insightful column about national affairs every week...
...The devalued dollar turned the U.S...
...The devalued dollar turned the U.S...
...Most American businessmen now think that Britain's heroic efforts to limit European integration to freer internal trade, an end to restrictions on capital flows, and more coordinated economic policy-making are doomed to failure...
...And, coincident with the Fourth of July fireworks, the cover story on the New York Times's rotogravure section lamented the British conquest Irwin M. Stelzer is chairman of the Regulated Industries Group, Harvard University, and an American correspondent for the London Sunday Times...
...Without such a hidden agenda, the no-growth-here crowd might bewilling to consider the quite sensible suggestion of my colleague Charles Cicchetti, associate director of Harvard's Energy and Environmental Policy Center...
...Perhaps the most significant will be Japanese and American reaction to what is called, simply, "1992...
...Americans acquired their foreign holdings years ago, when asset values hadn't been much affected either by inflation or by real increases in capital values...
...And Americans' particular fear—that the Japanese will end up controlling our destiny—seems misplaced...
...In most industrial countries foreign-owned capital comes to about ten percent of the value of all goods and services produced...
...And in the midst of these celebrations, the Commerce Department reported that America's total debt to the rest of the world had risen by 40 percent in 1988, to $532.5 billion...
...Most American businessmen now think that Britain's heroic efforts to limit European integration to freer internal trade, an end to restrictions on capital flows, and more coordinated economic policy-making are doomed to failure...
...Early forecasts are that the panel will call for cutbacks in America's use of fossil fuels to allow for increased coal-burning in China, that citadel of concern for its people's welfare...
...assets, on the other hand, are more recent, and hence are carried on foreigners' books at relatively inflated values...
...ATIVE Box 29 CALL TOLL FREE 1-800-558-1244 ex...
...Americans also realized that their dependence on the rest of the world could not be measured in dollars alone...
...Early forecasts are that the panel will call for cutbacks in America's use of fossil fuels to allow for increased coal-burning in China, that citadel of concern for its people's welfare...
...and foreign investments accordingly, the Morgan Bank economists reckon that America has some $500 billion more invested in foreign assets than foreigners have invested in American assets...
...C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics, estimates that by 1992 we will be paying between $40 billion and $50 billion each year to foreigners in interest and dividends...
...Payment Method ^ Check Enclosed ^ Visa ^ M.C...
...Long before then, however, several important new trends are likely to emerge...
...Both will get around the new protectionism by diverting their investments from America to Europe, enabling them to manufacture, in Europe, goods they will not be allowed to export there...
...I don't mean to gainsay the need for international cooperation in ameliorating the environmental effects of economic activity...
...This time around they are attempting to create international institutions, which inevitably take on a life of their own, to push for "more equal burden-sharing...
...Thatcher's manful drive to prevent the Eurocrats and socialists from imposing their much-loved "social dimension" on long-suffering European consumers is not likely to succeed...
...That congeries of measures will shorten working hours, put workers on corporate boards, and otherwise raise labor costs to the point where American and Japanese products gain a competitive edge over local goods in the European market...
...economy...
...But since this will come to only about one percent of the value of our economy's output, we will be only slightly—and probably imperceptibly—poorer...
...A foreign-built, foreign-owned oil tanker had a mishap off the coast of Rhode Island and soiled the beaches of Newport, the stomping grounds of the East Coast establishment...
...The Japanese now own a large portion of downtown Los Angeles and of Washington, D.C...
...So why not permit American companies to save huge sums by equipping Third World plants with antipollution devices that will cut their pollution by a much greater amount than a similar expenditure would reduce ours...
...And we carry them on our books at original acquisition cost...
...More precisely, they have convinced politicians that it is best not to incur the wrath of the world's "Greens" by questioning their findings...
...In short, while Americans worry about a problem that isn't a problem—rising foreign investment—the real threat to their independence, egalitarian-minded international institutions, is emerging quietly and virtually unnoticed...
...Payment Method ^ Check Enclosed ^ Visa ^ M.C...
...If you liked UNESCO and its efforts to establish a "new order" in world communications, you will love this panel: its workshop on the impact of industrial growth on the world's climate is chaired by the newly Green Soviet Union—home of Chernobyl and exploding gas pipelines...
...The Japanese now own a large portion of downtown Los Angeles and of Washington, D.C...
...But it is important to point out that a durable set of international institutions is being created to advocate a single solution: greater equality of income distribution worldwide...
...And, coincident with the Fourth of July fireworks, the cover story on the New York Times's rotogravure section lamented the British conquest Irwin M. Stelzer is chairman of the Regulated Industries Group, Harvard University, and an American correspondent for the London Sunday Times...
...The Japanese have known this all along, and the Americans have just figured it out...
...into a discount shopping mall," wailed Fortune magazine...
...And a summer gathering of the great, the good, and the slightly goofy at the Aspen Institute—a think tank located high in the Rocky Mountains—heard one expert after another tell them that their climate was very much affected by how much coal was burned in China and how many trees were felled in Brazil...
...Backed by computer models as unreliable and untestable as they are elaborate, researchers with the government, universities, and nonprofit groups have persuaded America's politicians that emissions from cars, cows, and power plants are raising global temperatures...
...of Madison Avenue: almost every leading advertising agency is now controlled from London...
...European consumers will pay more for those products than they would have if imports were allowed, but that won't bother Brussels bureaucrats too much...
...This means that the British own almost twice as much of America as does Japan, although Japan's investment here is rising rapidly enough to make Japanese officials nervous about some sort of backlash...
...Foreign purchases of U.S...
...Remember, too, that foreign holdings in the United States remain small by international standards...
...that figure is only about seven percent...
...And since the budget deficit spawned the trade deficit—this relationship remains more asserted than proved—it drove the dollar so low as to make American farms, factories, and real estate irresistible bargains for foreign investors...
...Because the issue of dependence on foreigners is so emotional, especially in a country in which Independence Day is the leading holiday, it is important to view foreign ownership in some perspective...
...So the Empire State Building, the New York Yankees, and Time magazine are likely—although not certain—to remain in American hands when the hot dogs hit the barbecue grills on the Fourth of July, 1999...
...Keep in mind, first, that figures showing America as a large debtor nation are in part an accounting fiction...
...and foreign investments accordingly, the Morgan Bank economists reckon that America has some $500 billion more invested in foreign assets than foreigners have invested in American assets...
...The President's preppy clothier, Brooks Brothers, has been snatched by the British...
...Foreign purchases of U.S...
...Even internationally minded Forbes magazine seemed a bit worried by the fact that more states now have economic affairs offices in Tokyo than in their nation's capital...
...The Republicans, of course, see things differently...
...Such huge numbers are too abstract to have much effect on the thinking of most Americans...
...Read Buchanan's "Dividing Line" feature in every CONSERVATIVE CHRONICLE along with George F. Will, William F. Buckley, Jr., Donald Lambro, Jeane Kirkpatrick and many others...
...Democrats, newly enamored of fiscal responsibility, blame increased foreign "control" of America on the budget deficits rolled up during the Reagan years...
...But the more thoughtful ones paused over their beer and hot dogs to reflect on the fact that, 213 years after declaring themselves independent, they were more dependent than ever on other nations...
...Previously an assistant to Presidents Nixon and Ford, he offers an insider's look at the workings of government and a behind-the-scenes perspective on policy-making in Washington...
...Cicchetti notes that it will take a huge sum to clean up residual emissions from our already quite clean plants...
...A foreign-built, foreign-owned oil tanker had a mishap off the coast of Rhode Island and soiled the beaches of Newport, the stomping grounds of the East Coast establishment...
...In short, while Americans worry about a problem that isn't a problem—rising foreign investment—the real threat to their independence, egalitarian-minded international institutions, is emerging quietly and virtually unnoticed...
...So why not permit American companies to save huge sums by equipping Third World plants with antipollution devices that will cut their pollution by a much greater amount than a similar expenditure would reduce ours...
...in the U.S...
...Their fears are driven, instead, by vignettes...
...Most Americans spent the Fourth of July celebrating their independence...
...in the U.S...
...In most industrial countries foreign-owned capital comes to about ten percent of the value of all goods and services produced...
...Buchanan revived his respected column after serving on the Reagan administration as communications director and assistant to the president...
...But since this will come to only about one percent of the value of our economy's output, we will be only slightly—and probably imperceptibly—poorer...
...Britain, from whom we won our independence in a seven-year war, has over $100 billion in direct investment in the U.S...
...into a discount shopping mall," wailed Fortune magazine...
...Without such a hidden agenda, the no-growth-here crowd might bewilling to consider the quite sensible suggestion of my colleague Charles Cicchetti, associate director of Harvard's Energy and Environmental Policy Center...
...Such capital also adds to U.S...
...THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA INDEPENDENCE DAY BLUES As summer draws to a close, one can't help reflecting on the contradiction between the theme of the season's major holiday and the reality of the world in which Americans find themselves...
...The President's preppy clothier, Brooks Brothers, has been snatched by the British...
...nfortunately, the problems created by our greater ecological interdependence will not so easily disappear...
...industry, commerce, and real estate" more than quadrupled during the 1980s...
...AX ^ Bill Me Card # Exp Date Name Address THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 29 THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA INDEPENDENCE DAY BLUES As summer draws to a close, one can't help reflecting on the contradiction between the theme of the season's major holiday and the reality of the world in which Americans find themselves...
...of Madison Avenue: almost every leading advertising agency is now controlled from London...
...For Americans either watched celebratory parades on their Sony television sets or drove to them in their Toyotas or Mercedes, perhaps stopping in their British-owned office buildings to catch up on a bit of work...
...Such huge numbers are too abstract to have much effect on the thinking of most Americans...
...R ead Pat Buchanan's pointed, insightful column about national affairs every week...
...As a result, those who won influence in the constricted Carter years by preaching the virtues of "no growth," only to be overrun by pro-growth Reaganauts, are back at their old stands...
...They consider foreign investment to be one more proof that America is in decline, the victim of "imperial overstretch...
...that figure is only about seven percent...
...So the Empire State Building, the New York Yankees, and Time magazine are likely—although not certain—to remain in American hands when the hot dogs hit the barbecue grills on the Fourth of July, 1999...
...The federal deficits had to be financed somehow, they argue, and since Americans wouldn't even save enough to make up for the government's profligacy, the Treasury was forced to borrow from foreigners...
...But it is important to point out that a durable set of international institutions is being created to advocate a single solution: greater equality of income distribution worldwide...
...Indeed, rumor has it that Japan's government, eager to avoid restrictions on its by Irwin M. Stelzer investments here, has quietly passed the word to its business community to avoid buying up highly visible assets...
...The Japanese have known this all along, and the Americans have just figured it out...
...Bloomingdale's, otherwise known as yuppie heaven, has fallen to the Canadians...
...industry, commerce, and real estate" more than quadrupled during the 1980s...
...Now, when you subscribe to the CONSERVATIVE CHRONICLE, you get two Buchanan columns printed in full every week along with the opinions of over 24 other distinguished columnists and 20 cartoonists with conservative appeal...
...Backed by computer models as unreliable and untestable as they are elaborate, researchers with the government, universities, and nonprofit groups have persuaded America's politicians that emissions from cars, cows, and power plants are raising global temperatures...
...Americans also realized that their dependence on the rest of the world could not be measured in dollars alone...
...To get Buchanan and a great line-up of his conservative contemporaries, call toll free or mail coupon and take advantage of an exceptional value — 52 issues of the CONSERVATIVE CHRONICLE for only $36.00 — with a money back guarantee...
...Cicchetti notes that it will take a huge sum to clean up residual emissions from our already quite clean plants...
...Such a step would eliminate the need for the web of international controls now being put in place by the people who see the disparity between American wealth and African/Latin American poverty as the result of some mystical North-South divide, rather than a consequence of the superiority of free enterprise to state-managed economies...
...Now, when you subscribe to the CONSERVATIVE CHRONICLE, you get two Buchanan columns printed in full every week along with the opinions of over 24 other distinguished columnists and 20 cartoonists with conservative appeal...
...In practice, that means having America slow its growth to make room for more growth—and more pollution—by so-called Third World countries...
...ATIVE Box 29 CALL TOLL FREE 1-800-558-1244 ex...
...assets, on the other hand, are more recent, and hence are carried on foreigners' books at relatively inflated values...
Vol. 22 • September 1989 • No. 9
