THE RIGHT BOOKS

According to its authors, Buying into America: How Foreign Money Is Changing the Face of Our Nation (Times Books, $19.95), by Martin and Susan Tolchin, had its inception in a conversation with Senator Jim Sasser (D., Tenn.), who had recently won re-election. An issue in the campaign had been a bill, strongly opposed by his Republican opponent, that would have required every automobile sold in the United States to contain parts manufactured here. Sasser’s neutrality on this bill, he discovered, offended executives of Nissan, U.S.A, (a wholly owned subsidiary of a Japanese multinational corporation that operates a truck factory in Smyrna, Tennessee), who, after seeking advice from company officials in Tokyo and Washington, D.C., offered political and financial support to Sasser’s challenger. “Nissan’s entry into American politics,” the Tolchins write, “intrigued us. We soon discovered that Nissan was not an isolated case . . .”

“In the most pragmatic nation in the world,” they observe, “most Americans don’t care where the money comes from so long as it provides jobs and stimulates economic growth.” Similarly, most mayors and governors don’t care who dumps out the cash flow that lifts their gashed and leaky economies from the mud and refloats them, however soddenly; nor do federal officials lie awake at night worrying over who buys the Treasury notes that finance the federal debt. And there are plenty of voices, in fact, to argue that they shouldn’t. According to the optimists, the current flood of foreign investment is as American as the dollar bill. They talk brightly of freedom of opportunity, exalt the “global economy,” and denounce “xenophobia.” They cite the creation by overseas investors of three million jobs, the stimulation of the stock market,Jan increase in real-estate values, the preservation of agricultural land, the influx of new technology, and a positive effect on the balance-of-payments impasse. They are increasingly opposed in their Pollyanna-ism, however, by people like Paul A. Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who has said: “In a real sense we have been fortunate that funds have flowed so freely to the U.S. in recent years, reflecting to a considerable extent widespread confidence in our prospects. But it is clearly not healthy for the largest and richest country in the world—in its own interest or that of others—to use up so much of the world’s savings to finance a budget deficit.” These people fear, in addition, that the United States, through its addiction to foreign capital, is placing itself at the mercy of foreign investors who, by withdrawing their money of a sudden, have it in their power to wreck the American economy.

CW

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Chilton Williamson Jr.

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According to its authors, Buying into America: How Foreign Money Is Changing the Face of Our Nation (Times Books, $19.95), by Martin and Susan Tolchin, had its inception in a conversation with Senator Jim Sasser (D., Tenn.), who had recently won re-election. An issue in the campaign had been a bill, strongly opposed by his Republican opponent, that would have required every automobile sold in the United States to contain parts manufactured here. Sasser’s neutrality on this bill, he discovered, offended executives of Nissan, U.S.A, (a wholly owned subsidiary of a Japanese multinational corporation that operates a truck factory in Smyrna, Tennessee), who, after seeking advice from company officials in Tokyo and Washington, D.C., offered political and financial support to Sasser’s challenger. “Nissan’s entry into American politics,” the Tolchins write, “intrigued us. We soon discovered that Nissan was not an isolated case . . .”

“In the most pragmatic nation in the world,” they observe, “most Americans don’t care where the money comes from so long as it provides jobs and stimulates economic growth.” Similarly, most mayors and governors don’t care who dumps out the cash flow that lifts their gashed and leaky economies from the mud and refloats them, however soddenly; nor do federal officials lie awake at night worrying over who buys the Treasury notes that finance the federal debt. And there are plenty of voices, in fact, to argue that they shouldn’t. According to the optimists, the current flood of foreign investment is as American as the dollar bill. They talk brightly of freedom of opportunity, exalt the “global economy,” and denounce “xenophobia.” They cite the creation by overseas investors of three million jobs, the stimulation of the stock market,Jan increase in real-estate values, the preservation of agricultural land, the influx of new technology, and a positive effect on the balance-of-payments impasse. They are increasingly opposed in their Pollyanna-ism, however, by people like Paul A. Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who has said: “In a real sense we have been fortunate that funds have flowed so freely to the U.S. in recent years, reflecting to a considerable extent widespread confidence in our prospects. But it is clearly not healthy for the largest and richest country in the world—in its own interest or that of others—to use up so much of the world’s savings to finance a budget deficit.” These people fear, in addition, that the United States, through its addiction to foreign capital, is placing itself at the mercy of foreign investors who, by withdrawing their money of a sudden, have it in their power to wreck the American economy.