Globalized economy more sensitive to recessions: physicists

The countries running a trade surplus are recovering just fine. Countries running a trade deficit are the ones with a slow recovery.
The United States has an accumulated trade deficit in the last few decades in access of $5 trillion. Shouldn't this tell us something?

What is standard economic theory?
How does it address the fundamental concept of subjective value?

Nationalized industry and/or public sector workforce, in the short and mid term, can act as resistant to the detrimenal effects of recession. Whereas both these are often considered heresy among the liberalize trade at-all-costs crowd, they provide stability and are not so easy to shed workers at the slightest whiff of a slowdown. There is less emphasis on tunnel vision on the bottom-line and shareholder return on investment.

Decades of pressure to decrease the public sector workforce - which in turn means decreased unionized labour - drives down wages, creates employment insecurity, under-employment and so on.

Allowing governments to surrender their ability to steer the domestic ecomony only means the handing over of economics to private, essentially unaccountable private tyrannies (multi national corps).

Long story short, 'Modules' are often the best way of weathering a economic recession without pouring billions into Unemployment payments etc.

@TopherTO,

Nationalized industry and/or public sector workforce, in the short and mid term, can act as resistant to the detrimenal effects of recession.

In the long term, though, it can breed resource allocation inefficiency (e.g. USSR.) The government's main purpose is to regulate and enforce a fair, lawful, and level playing field for private actors. It is not the government's purpose to be the employer of choice, or to otherwise distort the economy.

decrease the public sector workforce - which in turn means decreased unionized labour

I'm of the opinion that public sector workforce should not be unionized at all. Laws should set compensation for public sector employees, to be comparable with private sector employees performing similar jobs.

On the other hand, nothing should prevent private industry workers from unionizing. Nothing, that is, if the government weren't waging a war against all domestic workers by fostering free trade with slave-driving counter-parties.

"So, again, the evidence would seem to be overwhelming: high tax-and-spend policies and regulation produces stagnation and unemployment, low tax-and-spend policies and regulatory restraint produce the opposite. So why are there still so many liberals?"
http://www.commen...n/374376

Texas and California provide real data to explain the 'sensitivity' to recession: too much government spending.

It is hard to define people as liberal or conservative because most of us are a combination of both. For example, a person can be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal or visa-versa.

The example of Texas vs. California is not really a contest between conservative vs. liberal. There are several other reasons Texas has been doing better. Just to name a few, how about high oil prices that help Texas but hurt most of the other states. Also,Texas has gained from NAFTA while it has devastated the Midwest.

The example of Texas vs. California is not really a contest between conservative vs. liberal. There are several other reasons Texas has been doing better. Just to name a few, how about high oil prices that help Texas but hurt most of the other states. Also,Texas has gained from NAFTA while it has devastated the Midwest.

California has oil, lots of oil. California borders Mexico.
CA used to be quite productive but then govt spending and regulations spiraled out of control. That did not happen in TX and people are voting with their feet.

Marjon:
True, California has oil but not nearly the amount that Texas has. And California didn't get the benefit from NAFTA that Texas got because of location. The factories in Mexico are mostly along the border with Texas, that is where water is available. Also most of the products imported from Mexico head north and east through Texas.

You don't remember when Texas was hurting during low oil prices in the late 80's and late 90's do you? Well California was doing great then with their Silicon Valley.

I will agree with you that it does have a lot to do with long term fiscal responsibility which is fiscal conservatism. But it has next to nothing to do with social conservatism which you are trying to imply. Fact is social liberalism has been shown to be very beneficial to a country's living standard. Just compare your liberalism vs. conservatism with other countries around the world for proof of that.

"The businesses of California, and their workers and families, cannot afford to be locked out of the global marketplace.""
"California is the nation's top exporting state, with goods and services exports valued at $163.7 billion marketed abroad in 2000 — 15 percent of all U.S. exports. Trade supports 1,700,000 jobs in California."
"In the seven years since NAFTA, California exports to Mexico have increased 192 percent, or $12.5 billion. Today, California exports to Mexico directly and indirectly support approximately 228,000 jobs, with more than 150,000 of these jobs resulting from export growth under NAFTA. Similarly, California exports to Canada have increased 98 percent, or $7.4 billion. California exports to Canada directly and indirectly support approximately 180,000 jobs in California, with 89,000 of those resulting from export growth under NAFTA."
http://www.cbrt.o...701.html
The socialists in CA killed the goose.

Marjon: The article you refer to contains info that is 10 old! But that's ok, Ca was booming then and big Tex was stuck in a tar pit. Here is some more recent, but limited info.
BUSINESS
State's exports, still low, inch up
November 14, 2009 | By Alana Semuels
Many economists use California's exports as a gauge of the state's rebound potential. According to September's numbers, California still has a long way to go. The state's merchandise exports, at $10.35 billion in September, were up 3.2% from August but still down 16.3% from the same month last year, according to an analysis of Commerce Department data released Friday. "September's figures represent modest progress in growing California's export trade," said Jock O'Connell, international trade and economics advisor at the University of California Center Sacramento, which did the analysis.
http://articles.l...ia-trade

If CA was booming, why is it now bankrupt?

The US would be in bankruptcy also if it did not have the ability to print money. I agree with you about California but the US faces the same problems. We have been living beyond our means, running up huge trade deficits. These trade deficits are directly responsible for a large part of our internal deficits. Trade deficits turn working taxpayers into tax consumers.

It is widely known that UN data is heterogeneous and not reliable. There is no international standard for Government Accounts and so each one is custom. At best they are an approximation at worst fraud (Greece/Nigeria). You have to qualify aggregate stats by taking into account the +/- error in the data. Otherwise your conclusions could contain bogus precision.
CA's problem is that state expenditure is asymetrically elastic. It increases when there is a surplus but fails to decrease when there is a deficit. Unfortunately CA is the epicenter of the Housing bubble/crisis. The state made no contingencey plan for when HH disposible income drop to zero because mortgages/prices got so ludicrously high coupled with banks "self regulated" loans. Sadly most systemic problems are still manifest, the Fed government using taxes to cover up the mess and prolong the crisis. It is government interference that prolongs recession.

It is government interference that prolongs recession.

Without government help, that started during the Bush presidency, the US would most likely be in a depression right now.

What you would have instead, google, is an event similar to Black Tuesday, where the whole market loses a third of its value over the course of a month, and eventually loses almost 90% of its original value, wiping out any investment and most of the savings of the middle class, while at the same time, since the bust involves housing, loses untold millions of construction jobs, in businesses of all sizes, not to mention jobs lost in banks and everywhere else in the economy. Pull the "band-aid" off quick, 'eh, and pay for our past (conservative led) profligacy. Except that band-aid is an arrow close to the vitals middle class income. I'd want surgeons who take their time to get it out, not a quick pull and hope, and would not expect a quick recovery in any case.

It is government interference that prolongs recession.

Without government help, that started during the Bush presidency, the US would most likely be in a depression right now.

How do you know? The FED does not know what to do to end the recession except to inflate the dollar and raise taxes.
Coolidge, JFK and Reagan knew what to do, cut govt spending and taxes. Let the People keep more of THEIR money.
The current economic mess was CAUSED by the govt promotion of the real estate market yet Freddie and Fannie are still being subsidized.
Maybe had the govt done nothing, there could have been more short term pain, but now we have long term agony.

The current economic mess was CAUSED by the govt promotion of the real estate market yet Freddie and Fannie are still being subsidized.
Maybe had the govt done nothing, there could have been more short term pain, but now we have long term agony.

Hah, it's a momentous occasion. I actually find myself in agreement with marjon.

Well, partial agreement anyway. What marjon sees as 100% of the cause, I'd say is about 33%. Another 33% would've been the cumulative deregulation of financial industry, that began under Reagan and culminated under Bush II. And a final 33% would be the "free trade" idiocy that has bled our country dry of its productive industries.

@Question,

Without government help, that started during the Bush presidency, the US would most likely be in a depression right now.

Newsflash: we ARE in a depression right now. The Fed is hiding this by pumping the markets with borrowed money: that's like paying your mortgage with your credit cards. Real smart, particularly in the long term...

All the while, the value of the dollar is being undermined, which directly hits retirees and savers, while encouraging unproductive speculation and deterring capital formation. Additionally, the dollar's status as the world's de facto reserve currency is under threat because of the Fed's shenanigans. Apropos, we're starting to see failed treasury auctions, which is the inevitable consequence of "quantitative easing" and, if allowed to escalate, will be the death knell for our federal budget and our way of life.

Another 33% would've been the cumulative deregulation of financial industry, that began under Reagan and culminated under Bush II. And a final 33% would be the "free trade" idiocy that has bled our country dry of its productive industries.

What free trade?
What deregulation?
Trade has not been free and there has been only re-regulation, not de-regulation. Had there been real de-regulation of the financial industry, they would now be either bankrupt or thriving, not 'too big to fail'.

Marjon:
You would like to live in a world with fewer rules and regulations. So would most of us, but those days are gone forever because as the population of the world increase so does the need for more regulations and rules so we may live peacefully together. There is no getting around that. And the ever increasing standard of living brought to us by technology only compounds these needs for rules and regulations exponentially.

PinkElephant, I would not call it a depression yet but give it a few more years and I might be calling it that.

@Question,

Oh, but we are in a depression, indeed. Real unemployment rates (using the same methodology that was applied during the Great Depression) are north of 20%, and rising. Incomes are stagnant or falling. Asset prices are deflating catastrophically. Industry remains decimated. The federal government is borrowing in excess of 10% of GDP per year just to prop up the collapsed economy in a quasi steady-state -- but such wanton escalation of national debt is simply unsustainable, and will not be tolerated much longer by international investors, particularly in conjunction with near-0% yields on treasuries while the dollar is being trashed by deliberate monetary actions. Yet the instant rates go up, the mirage of economic recovery will vanish in a blinding flash, leaving behind nothing but a rising mushroom cloud...

as the population of the world increase so does the need for more regulations and rules so we may live peacefully together.

Why?

There is no getting around that.

Yes, there is.

So would most of us,

But not Question, he likes more rules.

Yes, there is.

No there isn't.

@question
Sorry I one'd you cause I'm used to giving out ones lately.

the need for more regulations and rules so we may live peacefully together.

One law making murder a crime applies to a population of 10 or 1 billion.

This is what happens when you add more regulations to 'live peacefully together':
"The new term “overcriminalization” describes the last few decades’ legislative orgy of criminalizing trivial or harmless behavior. "
"From 2000 to 2007 Congress added 452 new federal crimes to the 4,450 already in effect and the roughly 300,000 regulations that can be enforced criminally."
"The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics states that “in 2008, over 7.3 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at year-end — 3.2% of all U.S. adult residents or 1 in every 31 adults.” "
"Overcriminalization threatens everyone. It does not matter how peaceful or law-abiding you mean to be. Today you are a criminal. Tomorrow you may be a prisoner."
http://www.thefre...living/#

the need for more regulations and rules so we may live peacefully together.

One law making murder a crime applies to a population of 10 or 1 billion.

No it doesn't. You would get in a LOT more trouble if you killed a billion people.

I'm not really sure where to begin with you on this one, marjon, except to point out that the majority of those on probation, in jail or prison were there for non-violent drug-related charges. Most of the rest were burglaries and robberies, with a significant fraction of homicides. The real criminals, those banks, investment firms and ratings agencies that stole middle class America's retirement accounts, and precipitated this crash, they don't typically go to jail.

Marjon:
There are many more different methods and ways and ways of killing people today. That is why we need many more rules and laws to deal with these new methods and ways. Take for example the auto, mix in a little drinking or just talking on your cellphone while drinking a little coffee, you get in an accident and kill someone. Is that the same as going out and just shooting someone? We need laws to deal with those types of situations. Now add the crime of stealing, here again there are many new ways of taking someone else's property in this age of computers. This also requires new laws and rules.

As for an increase in population, well the world is finite and the closer people live together the more prone they are to invade another person's personal space. This can be from noise to your pet dog's droppings, oh geez, more rules!

continued - - -

- - - - Continued
And what do we do with the unemployed, the orphans, the mentally ill, the homeless, etc.? More rules, more regulations needed, etc., this is endless. A family man can't just go out and shoot a deer to feed his wife and kids in most places anymore.

Like I said Marjon, no way around it, unless we go back to the horse and buggy days and live without modern medicine, which would keep the population under control. The only choices, more rules or back to the "good old days".

You would get in a LOT more trouble if you killed a billion people.

By whom? Liberals still praise Stalin and Mao.
Why do believe it is the laws of the govt that keep people under control?

"The Founding Fathers considered faith and freedom as companions in several senses. First, they believed that religion seasoned freedom with compassion for one's fellow man. Absolute freedom would lead people into moral chaos. Founders such as James Madison and George Washington knew that people were naturally inclined to oppress their neighbor, because of what Washington called the "love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart." To Washington, the health — and liberty — of the republic depended on religion, which had a unique power to inculcate moral responsibility."
http://www.usatod...ST_N.htm

"The Founders believed, secondly, that a respect for religious freedom and religious strength was one of the primary bases for American unity. Even Thomas Jefferson, personally skeptical about Christianity, saw faith as an adhesive force among the broad diversity of Americans. The Patriots had severed their historic connection to England, and the American government was far too small to create a sense of national commonality on its own. Where was a basis for their new civil society? Faith offered a solution.

Jefferson's first inaugural address in 1801 extolled Americans' "benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; "
http://www.usatod...ST_N.htm
The liberals in govt attack religion. Reason? So they can create more laws and usurp more power. Suckers (or supporters?) like Otto and Question go along.

@marjon: Ahh, so there's no need for government when religion can substitute? That's nonsense. Unless you give religion real physical power (relinquishing government), those laws won't affect anyone. So what you're asking is for the government to relinquish any power it has to people whom you agree with, and who cannot be democratically replaced. Nice.

Also, I'm pretty sure that despite religion creating strong morals, only some 20% of prisoners claim to be atheist/agnostic. Just saying

By whom? Liberals still praise Stalin and Mao.
Why do believe it is the laws of the govt that keep people under control?

Yes I guess it WOULD depend on who was killing whom and who was left to write the history books.

The Founding Fathers considered faith and freedom as companions in several senses.

blahblah. You don't think they would be capable of saying one thing while having something completely different in mind do you? You know like the bible does? Lets start with 'one NATION under blahblah...'- What the hell does that mean? Germany is a nation. Israel is a nation. The US is no such thing. Smells like propaganda.

First, they believed that religion seasoned freedom with compassion for one's fellow man.

And religion reserved the right to define what the term 'man' meant, which has varied through the years depending on the agenda. Blahblah.

@marjon: Ahh, so there's no need for government when religion can substitute? That's nonsense

Indeed, but islamists and most religionist fanatics, including the biblical prophets, will tell you otherwise. Israel got their king- mayhem ensued. All because god didn't feel like arguing about it.

Also, I'm pretty sure that despite religion creating strong morals, only some 20% of prisoners claim to be atheist/agnostic. Just saying

Religions appropriated morals as a very slick way of promoting their particular forms of bigotry and violence. They claim to be the ultimate authority of right and wrong, which enables them to assign those labels to most anything.

Religious morality has been replaced by the rule of law, which is how it was in the first place.

Unless you give religion real physical power (relinquishing government), those laws won't affect anyone.

Religions do have a nasty habit of taking that power by enthralling the people and encouraging overgrowth, as is happening in Kashmir for instance. That's why we must be vigilant for people like christine oconnel and all the hairy pudels who infest this site.

Attack is the best defense. Never let a godly comment lay unanswered!

All because god didn't feel like arguing about it.

God warned Adam and Eve, they did not listen.
God warned His people what a government will do to them, they did not listen.
God was right.

morality has been replaced by the rule of law,

How well will that work if the govt must be constantly keeping the People in order? It will work just like it does in DPRK and every other totalitarian regime.
BTW, there is no "separation of church and state" in the US Constitution. The candidate from DE was correct.

How well will that work if the govt must be constantly keeping the People in order?

In other words, the United States Constitution (with its checks and balances, and its three branches of government) is DOA according to marjon. Hey clown, if you're in America, would you kindly get the hell out of MY country? If you're not, stay the hell out...

BTW, there is no "separation of church and state" in the US Constitution.

No, there's just prohibition of religious legislation, and Congressional funding for religion. Oh, and also a guarantee of equal treatment under the law. So unless you're ready to officially welcome and represent every single religion on the globe, including all the extinct ones, and all the mutually-conflicting ones, then you'd better leave the hell alone. The government's job is to provide law and order, not to be your effin' church.

""We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human
passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made
only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the
government of any other." "
John Adams.
Adams and others understood that there could be no force of government that could force all people to follow the law. The significant majority must all implicitly agree to function within the terms of the Constitution or else it would disintegrate.
Only people who have a moral sense about them will agree that the Constitution, until such time when the govt deviates from that Constitution, as it is doing now.
Are Constitutional supporters rioting in the streets or taking up arms or trying to use fraud to rig the election? No. They are following the laws, exercising their right to speak and will exercise their right to vote in Nov for candidates who agree with them. This requires self-government on the part of these people.

n other words, the United States Constitution (with its checks and balances, and its three branches of government) is DOA according to marjon.

It is when the officials in power refuse to follow the law. The Attorney General refuses to prosecute voter intimidation. His reason? The perps are black.

The government's job is to provide law and order, not to be your effin' church.

That is what statists are doing with the govt. It is their religion.
The first amendment states Congress cannot establish a state religion nor can it prohibit the free exercise of any religion.

God warned Adam and Eve, they did not listen.
God warned His people what a government will do to them, they did not listen.
God was right.

And yet... if we factor into your equation the fact that god doesn't exist, then we may want to come up with alternate interpretations for these fairy tales, yes? In each case 'god' is instilling guilt for inevitable suffering.

People suffer not because their king is overtaxing them or sending them off to war, but because people fail to resist temptation, and thus DESERVE to suffer. Kings and governments are after all provided by god, but only because the people would not heed gods will.

So the stories cleverly take blame from govts and lays it back on the people, thereby strengthening the power of govts to cause suffering in Controlled and Planned ways, with less whining.
Cont-

Of course suffering is inevitable, and people will always blame whatever govt is in charge for it whatever the form, as you so enjoy doing. But you and everybody else do it in an orderly fashion, because you're very well trained.

See, we have a new and improved System in place for people to feel guilty for their lot in life. It's called democracy. We didn't campaign hard enough for our candidate, or didn't vote at all, or voted for the wrong guy, and so we only have ourselves to blame. We voted a crook into office because we didn't vett him adequately. Etc.

Of course none of this is true; we vote for whoever we're told to vote for, but our glorious holy documents proclaim that freedom is god-given and if we screw up by not assuming the responsibility that accompanies it, again it is our fault.
Cont.

This by the way applies to our investments, etc. If we were paying more attention to the markets we would have known when to sell, blahblah.

In order to get sheep to herd themselves you have to make them feel guilty for wandering off. This is called domestication.

Do you think People in Charge would ever let the course of civilization rest on the whims of an ignorant and unconcerned public? Of course not. Their concerns are always immediate; the vast majority of them care nothing about the future, or indeed have any concept of it. They will never vote to suffer now in exchange for a better future. Which is why democracy is a sham.

But Someone needs to care about the future or there will be none. Just like your Joseph and pharaoh, who saved Egypt from starvation and ended up owning it. Or Solomon who discovered the Secret of Empire in his lamentings of a meaningless future without him there to preserve it. Your fairy tales do have Meaning.

Do you think People in Charge would ever let the course of civilization rest on the whims of an ignorant and unconcerned public?

The People in Charge won't, but your disdain for public are misplaced. You support their arguments for control.
They are not ignorant regarding what they need and want and are very concerned about getting what they need and want.

"The number of Americans who pay taxes continues to shrink—and the United States is close to the point at which half of the population will not pay taxes for government benefits they receive. In 2009, 64.3 million Americans depended on the government (read: their fellow citizens) for their daily housing, food, and health care. Starting in 2015, the Social Security program will not receive enough taxes to pay all the promised benefits—which will be hard for all job-holders, but devastating for roughly half the American workforce that has no other retirement program."
"Americans should be concerned about this seemingly relentless upward march in Index scores. Dependence on the federal government for life’s many challenges strips civil society of its historical and necessary role in providing aid and renewal through the intimate relationships of family, community, and local institutions and governments. "
http://www.herita...e-on-gov

"One of the left’s most insidious canards is that you only care about helping someone if you support a federal program for them. That is true only to the degree that Washington has crowded out private charity.
In the past, a person in need depended on help from people and organizations in his or her local community. …

“However, the dependent relationship with elements of the civil society includes healthy expectations of the recipient’s future civil viability and ability to aid another person in turn. The dependent relationship with the political system has no reciprocal expectations.”

Well, the politicians do expect votes. Still, the healthier kind of relationship is under ever-greater threat."
http://blogs.ajc....e-grows/

The globalized economy may serve as an analogy of monocultures in agriculture and forestry. These monocultures are more effective in production of wood and agricultural products - but they're more prone to pests invasions and natural disasters, like the windthrows.

The globalized economy may serve as an analogy of monocultures in agriculture and forestry. These monocultures are more effective in production of wood and agricultural products - but they're more prone to pests invasions and natural disasters, like the windthrows.

How so? I would suspect comparative advantage would spread the risk.

Do you think People in Charge would ever let the course of civilization rest on the whims of an ignorant and unconcerned public?

The People in Charge won't, but your disdain for public are misplaced. You support their arguments for control.
They are not ignorant regarding what they need and want and are very concerned about getting what they need and want.

Like the french, who need and want to retire at 60 and work far less than 40 hours a week? Their politicians bought their votes with bribes, knowing they wouldn't be around to pay for them.

The majority WANT and they want it NOW. They elect people who will give it to them. That's why democracy is one step above and before despotry, as Aristotle? said, unless it is Controlled from behind the scenes. Which it is.

That's why democracy is one step above and before despotry, as Aristotle? said, unless it is Controlled from behind the scenes. Which it is.

See, I tend to agree with this in principle.

America today believes that "democracy" is the solution to everything, and arrogantly and hypocritically wants to force democracy even on nations who don't want it.

Democracy is only good if an overwhelming majority of people are good. Else, as the quote says, It's just two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for lunch.

Unfortunately for America today, those controlling things from behind the scenes, by all appearances, are idiots.

It was said just recently on one of the liberal news media, that the federal government plans to cut taxes, and spend another almost $4 trillion dollars worth of deficit spending through the next 10 years. How much more do they plan on driving inflation till even higher percent of wealth is in the hands of the rich?

$5 per gallon gasoline cometh.

The bailout money should have been spent on incentives to families and businesses to buy solar power, to build new roads and bridges, and other things that put real, average folks directly into a new job.

They should have let the corporate big wigs and financial sector collapse. After all, in the past, it was argued that the reason these people make all the money is because they are somehow better than the rest of us or smarter than the rest of us, so they "deserve" to be 1000 times as wealthy as a normal person. Well, if they were so smart, they shouldn't have screwed up so bad. They deserve nothing. They should have been left to rot just like all the families that had foreclosures. When you're dumb enough to pay 4 or 5 times what the real value of a house is, you deserve to lose it anyway.

Anyway, the stimulus should have been spent to do useful things that simultaneously created work for your average people, trade workers, etc. Instead, it was wasted on wall street thugs.

it was argued that the reason these people make all the money is because they are somehow better than the rest of us or smarter than the rest of us,

In free markets those who work hard to satisfy their customers succeed.
In today's facsist state, it is those who are connected to the state that profit.
So the 'solution' advocated is to increase the power of the state. But that only enables the politically connected to steal more.
Why not try cutting back on the power of the state to regulate and devote more resources to prosecute fraud and theft at all levels.

"Willing Slaves of the Welfare State"
http://docs.googl...jlX1Fc1A
Too bad more people don't pay attention to CS Lewis.

http://books.goog...EQ6AEwAQ
Maybe this link will work.

In free markets those who work hard to satisfy their customers succeed.

Except when their competitors collude to fix prices and drive them out of business, or offer their customers kickbacks, which is Inevitable. Which is why one solution

is to increase the power of the state.

-But youre right, corruption from that side is also Inevitable. In either case, sustained Stability is only possible

if an overwhelming majority of people are good.

-But good is not even the right word here. The point is, collapse is Inevitable without Control from behind the scenes. As collapse has not occured we may assume that Control does in fact exist.

'But otto, things are a mess! Do you really call this Control??' From a wider perspective what we see is a history of continuous consolidation, progress, techl advancement, and increasing opportunity. Chaos and peril may then be understood as Tools used to produce these things, and not indications of threats to them in any real sense.

How could these dead white guys predict the future so well?
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands;they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…"
James Madison