Richard Spencer

June 11, 2009

Here?s what I meant when I wrote ?dreaded ‘globalization’ has been dramatically reversing.? 

First let?s look at actual global trade: over the past year, the total U.S. trade deficit has been halved, from around 60 billion throughout much 2008 to a current deficit just under 30 billion. The drop off in trade with the most competitive countries is even more striking. When the Dow hit its all-time high of 14,000 in late October of 2007, the U.S. was running a trade deficit with Japan of over 8 billion; the number now is hovering around 2.5. The deficit with NAFTA partner Mexico has also declined by 40-50 percent.

The ?privatization? of the Reagan-Thatcher years wasn’t all it was cracked up to be; nevertheless, over the past eight months of Bush-Obama-Bernanke socialism, we?ve seen the government move to full to partial nationalizations of the banking, credit, and auto sectors, with massive Federal Reserve interventions into the housing market.

Mexican immigration has also dramatically declined, as Lew Rockwell writes, ?A quarter of a million people who would otherwise have come to the U.S. for work have decided to stay away.? We?re only now beginning to recognize how much of the ?illegals? problem was a product of the housing bubble.

None of these developments point in the direction of a revival of traditionalism. So, is “globalization” really the thing we should be dedicating our energies to fighting?