I am going to spare you of my thoughts on the debt ceiling circus in Washington and its foreign policy implications in East Asia. (I’ll leave that to Krugman and Richardson, both of whom I think are spot on). Instead, I’d simply like to direct your attention to a political cartoon I stumbled across recently that I think puts the current fiscal debate in general and its foreign policy in particular in a deeper historical perspective. The cartoon, sketched by Rollin Kirby, was published in The New York World Telegram in 1932.
I can’t help but wonder what a current rendering of this sketch might look like. Surely, The National Bank of China would be included somewhere. “Cut down on those things and we’ll do business,” seems to me like a line one would expect from a CCP mouthpiece. And Uncle Sam, should he take on the role of his European counterpart, would be bearing a much heavier and more diversified load.
Any other ideas?
(H/T to reddit)
