The Ghost of Future Past

As reluctant as I am to admit this publicly, I was recently reading an old publication that was a collection of economics articles written at the time. In the preface to the book, written in 1971, the authors wrote the following:

"[G]iving the world capitalist system the prospect (though of course not the assurance) of two or three more decades of relative stability, would require the U.S. ruling class to moderate its ambitions and demands to a degree that it has so far shown no signs of being willing or able to do. A leadership that has consistently failed to understand what it was getting itself into in Indochina and which not only has not been able to extricate itself but even now is permitting the Nixon administration to plunge in deeper without the slightest prospect of achieving anything but more disaster - such a leadership can hardly be counted on to cooperate in finding viable solutions to the infinitely more complex problems which now face the world capitalist system."

And that's from 1971 - ouch! Now try this updated version (changes in italics):

"[G]iving the world capitalist system the prospect (though of course not the assurance) of two or three more decades of relative stability, would require the U.S. ruling class to moderate its easy money and deficit spending habits to a degree that it has so far shown no signs of being willing or able to do. A leadership that has consistently failed to understand what it was getting itself into in Afghanistan and which not only has not been able to extricate itself but even now is permitting the Obama administration to plunge in deeper without the slightest prospect of achieving anything but more disaster - such a leadership can hardly be counted on to cooperate in finding viable solutions to the infinitely more complex problems which now face the world capitalist system."

Double-ouch!