With the increasingly desperate situation America finds itself in at home and abroad, it seems inevitable to me that Americans will elect a Republican in 2016, and for lack of a better alternative that Republican will be Romney. We know his pitch from 2012- basically his record as a "Mr Fixit", applied to Washington D.C.
My fear is that the fruits Obama's recklessness will only manifest themselves in full after Romney's election. I speak, primarily, of the American Dollar's de-dollarization movement(yet another blow announce just yesterday vis-a-vis South Korea-China trade. The best case scenario is that America sees a severe decline in it's purchasing power, the worst is that a tidal wave of dollars repatriated from overseas leads to hyperinflation. As the (excised) article explains.
This is basically inevitable, and should rightly discredit Obama. My fear is that if it detonates under his successor instead that it'll be free market conservatism that cops the blame in the eyes of the populace, despite socialist policies having been responsible.
1. Although a two-term President rarely has a successor from his own Party, Democrats so far have a near-sure win of the Presidency in 2016 with Hillary Clinton (but so far, nobody else). Not only is she likely to win just about every state that Barack Obama won in 2012 with similar margins, she projects not to lose the states that Obama lost that year by such huge margins. I can see her winning Arizona and Georgia.
Is it too early to put the image of Hillary Clinton on a collection of images of the Presidents? Of course. That said, she has the Obama campaign apparatus practically intact and can expand the map.
2. Romney ran on an alleged record as a moderate, yet he broke clearly to the Right. He has been exposed for his business ethics. He has been shown a flaming narcissist. He got caught saying one thing in one place and its diametric opposite elsewhere.
It is possible to win the Presidency after losing one Presidential election, as did Richard Nixon. But with Nixon it was after a catastrophic failure of the R nominee in the next election and a very troubled D President. The last two Presidential nominees to run for the Presidency in the general-election year following a failure were Adlai Stevenson and Tom Dewey.
3. South Korea warming up to China? South Korea is one of the biggest trading partners of the People's Republic of China. I suspect that China would like a Finlandized Korea -- a capitalist and democratic country that creates no problems for China. Nuclear-free with no US bases? Neutral and prosperous?
That has nothing to do with President Obama, and everything to do with an unreliable client state, North Korea. North Korean leadership has murdered pro-Beijing figures. South Koreans who cozy up to the PRC have nothing to fear from their government. China has a big problem with refugees from North Korea, which is an economic drain and an unreliable ally.
One of the most likely wars is between the PRC and North Korea. Such is not the result of the choices of President Obama. Such was so when Dubya was President.
4. Barack Obama isn't much of a socialist. He has presided over the greatest privatization of publicly-owned assets that resulted from 'receivership socialism' that Dubya made necessary. Obamacare? All in all it is likely to make the US more competitive with countries that have 'socialized medicine'. America is more capitalist now than it was in 2009.
5. Repatriated cash? It will have to buy something -- maybe American industrial assets and real estate. The stock market would soar.
6. President Obama is not at all reckless. Sneaky and secretive at times? Sure. One of his harshest critics Karl Rove says that if Barack Obama has any virtue as a politician it is that he is cautious.
7. Many of the dollars abroad are from illicit activities -- like drug trafficking. Maybe we could wipe out the money held by drug traffickers. One suggestion is to recall all foreign-held dollars, exchanging them for new dollars only after those who present them can show that those were obtained through legitimate means. "We sold you oil" is a legitimate means of getting dollars. Money filthy with cocaine would not be so acceptable for exchange. This would also lead to the elimination of much counterfeit US currency circulating abroad.
