BEEN THERE - DONE THAT

The arrogance of youth is far outmatched by the arrogance of age. Youth believe that anything that happened before 1995 is irrelevant. Age believes that everything that ever happened is relevant. The argument rages.

Like others of my age I remember fifty, sixty, even seventy years ago. I don't have to go to the archives or dust off old newspapers - I was there. So - while I continue to stress "Looking Ahead," I will respond with the wisdom of the elderly - the ones who were there, the people who were, as they say, "on the ground" when it all happened.

Today I watched Charlie Rose on PBS talking to some economist about the present economic crisis. It was all about how much money would be needed to bail out mortgage defaulters, banks, car companies, and sundry other victims of their own foolishness.

I also read, and it is daily reading, about the huge deficits that are coming, while at the same time commenting that the patience of the countries who lend us money, is wearing thin. How long, ask the pundits, will China continue to subsidize American extravagance? My comment: it is in the interests of their own survival that they keep the money taps open.

Now for the arrogant part as I dip back into my historical memories. I was around for the Marshall Plan, a massive infusion of money from the U.S. to rebuild a shattered Europe - mostly Germany.

The reason, we were told, was that having learned the lessons that followed the Great War, we should not allow an impoverished, beaten Germany to plan revenge, but that we should rebuild.

It all sounded very altruistic, but we who understood knew that it was not. The Soviet Union represented the threat. And ironically, just as we did with Hitler's Germany, we needed a bulwark against Soviet aggression, which had already occupied everything up to a dividing line in Germany.

Now, for the scholarly among you, the real reason. Yes, there was merit in rebuilding Germany, but let us not forget that the money from the Marshall Plan had strings attached: it was to be spent in America. (There is another irony here. The country that was economically shattered by the war - England - got little help from generous America.)

If all that sounds familiar you are right. The Chinese can not afford to become impatient with American prodigality and wild consumerism. They lend America money (most countries on the Pacific Rim lend money by buying U.S. Treasuries) to keep the American economy afloat. The world';s greatest consumers are the biggest customers for the products that are churned out by Cbinese (and other Asian) factories.

So all the sanctimonious preaching about how Anericans (and to some extent Canadians) will have to curb their out-of-control spending because the lenders like China will lose their patience, remember the Marshall Plan. You take our money You spend our money back where it came from.

Unfortunately, if you are under 50 you won;t remember the events. You weren't there.

Now can we please cut out the nonsense and get on with the business of rebuilding our economy.