Niall Ferguson, Victor Davis Hanson, and Stephen Kotkin: Three Historians Debate the Era of Trump

A lot of grandiose prognostications about what China could achieve militarily if it wanted to but no discussion about the accelerating economic collapse of China because of the CCP's incompetence and widespread corruption and the exodus of foreign brands taking their manufacturing elsewhere - not just in the U.S.

Regarding the discussion on fiscal insanity - as with many mental disorders there are degrees of insanity (ask me how I know). Yes, entitlement spending dominates the debt carried by the federal gov't. But the federal government will continue to grow unrestrained and become a greater leviathan when Democrats with absolutely no economic sense (nor business acumen) and who actually want to keep expanding the reach and authority of government are in power. More bureaucracies and agencies will be created. More unrestrained spending. Rampant graft. More regulations and ways to inhibit economic growth. More of a choke hold on energy production. Higher taxation. Greater inflation.

Kamala Harris, the intellectual giant, was prepared to institute price controls on grocery stores because she felt supermarkets were deliberately gouging consumers while she and the Democrat leadership completely ignored their own role and that of the Biden administration because of their fanatical zeal for climate hysteria that cut off oil and gas exploration and extraction, spiked the price of gas - that accelerated inflation for virtually all goods including groceries.

At least, Trump in his second term, had a clearer understanding that the economy was on a dangerous precipice and that unrestrained spending had to be stopped. The Dept. of Education will soon be shuttered, USAID has been killed. The Green New Scam is being dismantled by the Energy Dept. Gas prices have declined. Manufacturing in several sectors is returning. And the much hoped for goal of eliminating health coverage, education costs and other benefits to illegal aliens is in the offing. How many hundreds of billions will just that save since some 20 million illegals flooded into the country? How much will a more thriving economy help to address the entitlement commitment?

So, with all due respect to Stephen Kotkin - when it comes to fiscal insanity - I will happily take the Trump administration's less insane version and hope that it can be improved upon.

One thing I wished they talked about is how the west outsourced the supply chain to the CCP to begin with. This is the mistake which we will pay for a long time. Until we decouple from China, nothing can be done

GlennAmurgis (View Comment):

One thing I wished they talked about is how the west outsourced the supply chain to the CCP to begin with. This is the mistake which we will pay for a long time. Until we decouple from China, nothing can be done

The theory was, of course, that it was the charitable thing to do, end of history, and all of that rubbish. And the Clintons had Gore at the Buddhist Temple collecting "bundled" campaign donations suspected of laundered sources. The CCP had this cynical theory that DC (and Sacramento, and Olympia, and Salem, and New York, and...) was corrupt and the oligarchs and executive class could be bought off with market access and fat incentives in exchange for IP theft and such. To actually apply standard 20th Century national security resource analysis to our new best buddies was just racism. It got you kicked out of the club and your rice bowl taken away.