I think all who own houses and salivate over the increase in value or bemoan the decrease in value should abstain from commenting on this article.

Brian,

Thank you Brian for opening up this discussion, I am the long time reader that suggested he begin dialogue. This is a very serious political issue.

My question is...Are Americans hyper-consumerism and need for instant gratification threatening our national security?

Regarding SWF's...
Finally, Summers said out loud what nearly everyone has been thinking: What if SWFs start throwing their weight around for purely political reasons? Could one country devalue another's currency? Is the independence of the banking system at risk? Would the United States want Russia or China or Iran investing in defense subcontractors?

Donna

It would be a bit heavy handed, but the countries affected could always threaten to nationalize the investment, or continue paying interest on the agreement while cutting the SWF from any management decisions. I'm pretty sure we would do exactly that (2nd option) if any of the SWF started playing games with American companies.

Brian:

Congratulations!
You've finally posted a story that follows "Deep Throat's" advice, which was to "...Follow the money.."
SWF pose a huge challenge to American governments, investors and consumers, and we better start playing to win, not just compete.
Here are two other numbers that might help your readers put the $3 Trillion SWF current holdings figures into perspective.

Whomever the next President is, he or she will face the prospect of either a positive or negative swing of $4 Trillion in Federal Revenue by 2018, depending on final Congressional decisions made on whether or not to extend the Bush Tax Cuts when they expire in 2011 and/or whether or not to fix or nix the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), the so-called "hidden-tax," on the middle-class.

What do you think, Brian? Which Presidential candidate will be the first to float the idea that the easiest way to deal with the cost to the Federal Treasury of implementing both of these fiscal policy decisions would be to have the SWF underwrite it? Care to guess?

Another, critical data point is that nationwide, public pension funds in the U.S. currently manage more than $3 Trillion in assets. That's money that eventually will or already is used to pay retirement benefits for as many as 14 million public servants, and as many as 7 million retires and their family members. Remember, these families are consumers too, and consumption is responsible for two-thirds of the GDP.

Imagine if an ever increasing majority of the portfolio of public pension funds were kept in America, and invested in the reconstruction of water, flood-control, transportation, alternative energy projects and other crucial national infrastructure, instead of speculating in foreign debt markets and equities.

And by the way, if you think such public infrastructure hasn't been a mainstay of the creation of private sector wealth, you've forgotten the lessons of economic history. The Erie Canal, the Transcontinental Railroads, countless flood-control and navigation projects along the Ohio, Mississippi, Tennesee and Missouri Rivers, the Federal Interstate Highway System, the Central Valley Water Project, the Space program, and the most recent entry, the Internet, which was created not by Al Gore, (bless his Inconvienently-Truthful little heart) but by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Admiinistration (DARPA), totally funded by the American taxpayer.

From my point of view, the problem isn't lack of money, the problem is lack of imagination, vision and leadership amongst both Democratic and Republican leaders. Something is very wrong if we continue to believe that spending $12 to $15 billion a month providing security in Iraq and rebuilding their infrastructure while ours crumbles is sound American fiscal policy.(Remember Wolfowitz's argument that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the reconstruction of Iraq?) We need to strategically invest American dollars in America's future, regardless of the rest of the world.

It's time we stopped thinking less global, and acting more rational and local with our national treasure. We are already the world's largest debtor nation, if we don't get this right soon, we'll be the world's economic basket case.

NostraDEMUS

I saw this topic today and did some checking...

Am I missing something here? 2/3rds of SWF's are from oil-producing countries. These countries use them as hedges against inflation and their un-diversified export, usually a commodity. If their economy falls apart, then they can stay afloat.

While large for emerging markets, according to the IMF, SWF's only represent 1.8% of the global value of traded securities.

Oil will crash just as housing and tech before it. It's hard to know when, but it will. SWF's will most likely bail out these countries that put all their export eggs in one basket.

I think these are probably the least of our economic problems right now, but it's good to see something from the business section on this blog every now and then.

No, Scott, it's not. It is good seeing you around here, but I can't think of a faster way to loose readers than by blogging about business news!! ;)

Owen:

Thanks for the kind words. Good point on the business section losing readers.

Hey, quick question unrelated on this topic.

First, I've been reading the various foreign policy positions of McCain, Clinton, and Obama available at www.foreignaffairs.org.

With regards to Russia, McCain thinks Russia should be excluded from the G8. He wants to add Brazil and India. His stance appears to be more aggressive toward Russia and China even saying Japan should be added as a permanent member to the security council.

Being that you've spent time in Russia, do you think it's the right position to be more confrontational with Russia?

Scott, let's just say that I hope if McCain wins I'll have some say on Russia affairs :)

Owen:

If, by chance John McCain, your candidate becomes the next President, and if, by an even further outstretched chance, you have some say on Russian affairs, then I suggest you carefully reexamine the historical basis of your fanciful and romanticized characterization of the Waffen SS as some sort of "German Foreign Legion."

First, go back to the very own "Wikipedia" article you reference on your Lex Libertas blog site and count the incidents of massacres performed by Waffen SS units, against both military combatants and innocent civilians. Just to name a few: 99 surrendering British soldiers who were machine gunned and bayoneted to death by Waffen SS Division Totenkopf troops under SS Hauptsturmführer Fritz Knöchlein in France in 1940; 40,000 to 100,000 Poles killed during the Warsaw uprising in 1944 by numerous Waffen SS units,including the infamous SS-Sonderregiment Dirlewanger, which atrociously went on a rampage of raping, looting and killing citizens of Warsaw regardless of whether they belonged to the Polish resistance or not. And, nearly 100 American soldiers from the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion (FAOB), machined-gunned and rifle-butted to death by Waffen SS troops in Kampfgruppe Peiper in a snow covered field near Malmedy in early 1945.

And, to bring the story closer to home regarding your reference to today's Latvian Legionnaires Day celebration in Riga,let's examine the historical contribution toward mass-murder by the 15 Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Latvian). In the Polish town of Podgaje, on 2 February 1945, SS-manner from that division burnt-alive 32 Polish Army soldiers in a barn tied up with a barbed wire. Owen, so much for fanciful revisionist history regarding Latvian contributions towards German Foreign Legion traditions.

Finally, any argument that conscripted foreign nationals in Waffen SS units were somehow less murderously evil because they were commanded by Wehrmacht Generals is historically naive as it is morally perjorative. Field Marshall Willhelm Keitel, Oberkommando des Wehrmacht (that's Commanding General of the German Armed Forces, including Waffen SS units) was as guilty of murderous atrocities against both military combatants and innocent civilians as was Eicke, Eichman, Himmler and countless other SS Einsatzgruppen and Schutzstaffel officers and men.

In fact, Keitel was convicted and sentenced to death by the Nurenberg Tribunal for countless war crimes involving the signing and issuance of several infamous military decrees including: the May 2, 1941 directive to Wehrmacht troops before the invasion of the Soviet Union that political commissars be liquidated by the Army, the May 13, 1941 decree that civilians suspected of offenses against troops should be shot without trial, and that prosecution of German soldiers for offenses against civilians was unnecessary, and finally, the July 31, 1941 decree that legal punishment was inadequate and troops should use terrorism against "Untermenschen," in the East.

Frankly, Owen, based on your other blog posts on Brian's site and your own Lex Libertas blog, I expected more from you. There appears to be a nostalgic revisionist history strain in your article about whether Latvian Legion veterans who were Waffen SS soldiers should be able to march in Riga today in order to celebrate Legionnaires Day, since they fought against the Soviet occupiers in the Baltic states as allies to the Germans during WW II. Frankly, to me, both national socialism and rabid communism are cut from the same reprehensible cloth of political extremism. Together, both extremist ideologies have caused untold misery, suffering and death to scores of millions of innocent people throughout the 20th Century.

If Latvian authorities only allow veterans from the 15 Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Latvian) to march in today's celebrations in Riga, and not anti-fascist marchers, then it will be a triumph of blind nationalist nostalgia instead of historical realism and moral responsibility. Once again, the wisdom of George Santyanna's admonition confronts us all, "those who forget the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.."

NostraDEMUS

wow, a cross-post. I have never said that the Waffen SS didn't committ atrocities. In fact, I think it's you who have a romantic conception of a "Foreign Legion." The French one had a fair amount of criminals, who weren't always gentlemen.

I'm a little confused as to the point of your post. You lay out all the bad things the Waffen SS did, then say the anti-fascists should be allowed to march (leaving aside, of course, the fact that Soviet soldiers also committed their share of war crimes). So, should the Latvians be allowed to march, evil as they were, or should it be banned. Or should eveyone be able to march? Note, however, that I never posted my opinion, just opened the conversation.