1968-1978 In I968 Republican Richard Nixon was elected President and sworn in on a Quaker family Bible turned to a page containing the words "beating swords into plowshares." In 1971 Nixon took the US off what remained of the gold/silver standard (silver coins were changed to silver-colored copper coins) and said "We are all Keynesians now," opening the door to unlimited spending, eventual "quantitative easing," and a $20 trillion debt. Also in 1971 the Nixon administration declared a "war on drugs" and initiated the No-Knock Laws, co-sponsored by Democrat Ted Kennedy in the US Senate, which led to the militarization of local police. In 1972 Nixon visited Moscow and negotiated an Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia, and also became the first US sitting President to visit China, establishing relations there. In 1973 Nixon ended conscription and withdrew US troops from Vietnam. 1976 Jimmy Carter was elected President. (A great human being who unfortunately accepted the conventional wisdom of his economic advisors.) On his second day in office he pardoned Vietnam War draft-dodgers. 1978 The Carter administration expanded the US bureaucracy with the creation of the Departments of Energy and Education. Meanwhile, in1978, the Chinese Communist Party picked free market advocate Deng Xiaoping to lead them out of their economic nightmare. It worked, and for the last four decades central command economists like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich have been chanting a mantra that the Chinese economy is overheated and about to crash, while the Chinese government lends the US money.
China-London freight train: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...eight-train-China-Britain-arrives-London.html
