Perhaps as part of his public spasm of apology, President Obama
also strove successfully to increase the voting strength of the debtor
nations on the IMF from the current 43 percent to 48 percent. This is the
economic equivalent of giving deadbeat debtors more votes on their bank's
governing board of directors.
Thus, the world's most successful economy, ours -- which is the
only one that has produced reliable economic growth for three decades and
has lifted real personal incomes almost every year -- is going to subject
itself to the burden of justifying its own economic policies in front of a
global community of 20 nations, some of which do not even embrace
free-market economies in the first place.
Indeed, it is only through access to our markets that nations
have been able to escape poverty. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan,
Singapore, China and India have sequentially trod this path into prosperity.
Obviously, we live in a global economy. But the United States
is 24 percent of it. We are entitled to more than one-twentieth of a voice,
and it is the world that should be following our policies -- not the other
way around.
Much of the damage of the Obama administration can be undone at
the next election. But such grants of sovereignty to autocratic, backward,
bureaucratic and even communist nations will be hard to undo.
The world is recovering from its leftist obsession -- e.g., the
Angela Merkel victory in Germany. But by the time the voters discover how
phony, failed and fraudulent these policies are, we may have given it all
away already. Irrevocably.