Manners of an Economist?

I have been oddly stuck on one phrase said by Mr. Greenspan; that is what he cleverly expressed, a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami.” It immediately spread out worldwide since it was made by the person who had been seated at top as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank.

However, I must have heard such a line like “once-in-a-century” from his mouth before. So, I pulled out and looked over my scrapbooks, and right away, there it is.

There was a similar remark he makes in a serial article called “The American Empire” from Washington on May 1998. But the context was completely opposite; it was used as a punch line that chants the second arrival of “America’s century.”

During this period, the U.S. had blown off a momentous rumor of its decline and built the golden age of the 1990s. Dollars used to flow back and forth over the world, and the U.S. troops used to operate on the other side of the Earth. On theaters of the world’s corners, the young people enjoyed Hollywood movies.

A theory of the 1980s rise of Japan and its threat vanished completely at that time, and the Chinese power was still murky. The magazines on American diplomacy identified a new wave of the information revolution as a key to America’s prosperity and declared the coming of the second wave of “America’s century” following the first wave after WWII.

Chairman Greenspan called the revolution as a “once-in-a-century” situation since the invention of an electric generator in the 1800s in a hearing, as if he were a prophet. He listed increasing productivity due to technological innovation, globalization of economies and lowered expenses due to deregulation and spoke very passionately of the three elements.

Then he just called this arrival of recession “once-in-a-century tunami” last fall. It has been only 10 years. How dizzy this up-and-down has been! And an economist will say that this recession is that serious, with hindsight.

When a big economist gives a pessimistic oracle resolutely, a herd of small economists follows it. If they all followed the manner and chorused “deterioration of economy,” the world would inevitably lose its drive. It would further deteriorate if they tell the public to tighten one’s wallet during a downtown.

Since the whole world is dependent on the U.S. market, if someone fell, then everyone would fall. Moreover, what is more troublesome is that the decline of the U.S. leads to the rise of rouge states.

In history, there has been always a good guy in a community, flinging bad guys away. When his power becomes diminished, a dirty bunch stands up again.

If the good guy was the U.S. in the international community, he led to the fall of the Soviet Union, liberated the East Europe and drove Iraq out of Kuwait. But when the good guy trips over something, tough nations behave indecently with open egoism and say “America’s unilateral rule is over.”

Russia has stopped supplying its natural gas because it is not pleased with attitudes of its neighbor, Ukraine. This is clearly an intimidation during the harsh winter. The action reminds me of the military invasion into Georgia last summer.

Also, China is thought to plan to build a new aircraft carrier with high offensive capability during the good guy’s decline. What the Chinese authority said before must be a lie now. China is also developing a new natural gas field unilaterally, going against the Japan-China agreement on that issue last June. It bulldozes its own interest over criticism from the Japanese counterpart by citing the difference on interpretation.

The decline of a good guy like the U.S. is troubling, but one should not underestimate this super-sized nation. The country which has experienced the “once-in-a-century” extreme twice will unexpectedly recover quickly.