Simply put, America is being sold off to those nations and
institutions that have collected huge pools of capital.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_barton_k_080113_concerned_about_the_.htm
January 14, 2008
Concerned about the economy? End the war.
by Barton Kunstler
One of the media's greatest failings in its coverage of the U.S.'s
deteriorating economy is in ignoring the economic devastation wrought
by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A dangerous displacement is occurring in the public mind as the media
proclaims that the economy has replaced the war as voters' chief
concern, as if neither media nor public can keep two thoughts in its
head at the same time.
In fact, the war is a prime contributor to our economic woes, but
outside of a few voices in the alternative media, no one seems to have
noticed.
Between widespread propaganda about the success of the "surge" and a
growing focus on the economy, the war can roll on without unduly
discomfiting the president, Congress, or the tireless warriors of the
campaign trail.
Estimates of the direct cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq range
from half a trillion to a trillion dollars, with no end in sight.
Most of this money goes into a deep, black pit:
to salaries for soldiers that represent far less than what they'd earn
in a healthy economic setting;
weapons that enrich a relatively few at the top of the defense,
energy, and arms dealing pyramid;
and contracts with the Halliburtons and Blackwaters of the world.
These funds tend to collect and, from an economic standpoint,
coagulate, in off-shore accounts, political campaign chests, and
high-level investment.
All of this, of course, is courtesy of the United States taxpayer,
strapped into a system in which the poor and middle classes pay far
more, proportionately, than the wealthy.
In fact, we pay doubly, as much of the money we spend for energy is
recycled from the Arab oil states back into the hands of U.S. defense
contractors who supply the Arabs with high-tech weaponry and
in-country military bases.
(The Carlyle Group, for instance, comprising top ex-politicos like
former President Bush, handles many of these contracts, making a
fortune for all concerned, including the Bush family. Some conflict of
interest there, one would think, but the same press that salivated
over a stained blue dress somehow considers the web of interests spun
by the Bush family and their allies too insignificant to write about).
The immediate economic factors behind the current crisis have been
described in some depth in the mainstream media, although not all
equally.
For instance, Alan Greenspan's cash-pumping policies when he was
Chairman of the Federal Reserve have gone largely unremarked.
The coincidence of the 2005 Bankruptcy Act being passed just before
tens of thousands of Americans were plunged into bankruptcy by the
credit crisis seems to be a ripe subject for investigative reporting.
But of course the media holds to the line that no one anticipated this
crisis.
Well, perhaps not some loan-crazed bank president, but the top
economists who work for the elite financial groups, and who advise the
government, had to have anticipated the problems.
Meanwhile, the financial markets' "creative" pyramid schemes of
bundling weak mortgage loans together, selling them, and then using
the proceeds as the basis for new loans with values several times that
of the original bundle, created enormous profits for hedge funds,
mortgage companies, and banks – for a time.
When the bubble burst, executives walked away with hundreds of
millions while employees of the companies and mortgage holders were
left high and dry.
Sound familiar?
Enron all over again?
Savings and Loan scandal all over again?
When will we ever learn?
The upshot is that major financial institutions, such as Citibank and
Countrywide Mortgage, are being sold off to the new global money
masters.
In effect, the dollar is seemingly being rescued by the very interests
holding it hostage.
Simply put, America is being sold off to those nations and
institutions that have collected huge pools of capital.
This is bad for America but very good for those people at the very top
of the nation's economic pyramid.
It also follows the logic of economic policy since Ronald Reagan
became president in 1981:
engineer ever-greater shifts of capital from the lower and middle
classes to the very wealthiest members of the national and global
economies.
The U.S. military invasions in the Middle East and the securing of a
long-term military position throughout Central and Southwest Asia are
part and parcel of this economic policy, intended to facilitate the
seizing of more and more of the world's wealth.
It is also propelled by a recognition that neither the U.S. population
nor the global economy can withstand the rampant pillaging by the
world's wealthiest individuals and institutions.
The militarization of U.S. society; the "Bush Doctrine", which states
that we can attack anyone we want for whatever reason we devise;
the assault on civil liberties in the U.S.;
and the replacement of the values of the republic with those of a
runaway market economy, all grow out of an almost crazed attempt to
impose a new post-capitalist economic order on the world.
The causes are complex, perhaps psychological as much as political and
social.
Surely there is some connection as well to the truly stupid religious
fundamentalism and creepy hyper-patriotism espoused by so many of the
purveyors of this "new world order".
But we'll put those questions aside for another time.
For now, it is enough to recognize the close connections between the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and America's economic deterioration.
If a Martian observed the economic behavior of the "world's wealthiest
nation", what would she, he, or maybe even she-he, think?
The Martian, like any smart galactic traveler, would figure:
"Cui bono – who benefits? Follow the money."
Then they might reflect, "Hmm, a huge amount of money is assigned to
destroying other nations and building military complexes around the
world. Weapons are being produced at a record pace. A select group of
very wealthy people are dancing in fountains of cash while most of the
population is increasingly strapped. The world's wealthiest nation
ranks low in many indicators of quality of life: 32nd in longevity,
43rd in infant mortality, number one in public surveillance. Hey,
they've even created an entire system for torturing people around the
world!"
The Martian wouldn't have any trouble deriving some economic
principles from all she-he observed.
First off, forget about where all this money has gone, where has it
come from?
Perhaps the number Nine Trillion Dollars!
(imagine the look of glee on Dr. Evil's face if he could say that
number!) would reach the Martian's ears, however many ears she-he
happens to have.
That's the extent of our national debt.
In simple terms, that means we must issue bonds to get the money we
don't have and also print up dollars when we need them.
Thus, the dollar is worth less.
The only benefit to this is that books still cost more in Canadian
dollars than U.S. dollars, even though the two are now virtually equal
in value!
So Canadians should flock across the border to buy their books, waving
at Americans on their way to Canada to buy prescription drugs, which
will at least have a salutary effect on literacy in Canada.
But that fringe benefit aside, the debt means several things.
Other countries are beginning to find the dollar a less secure
investment instrument.
Thus they raise interest rates on their loans to the U.S. government,
so more of our money goes to servicing debt, i.e., down the toilet.
They also may switch their investments, say to Euros, which means we
have to print more money to meet our obligations and the dollar goes
from the toilet to the sewage treatment plant and finally, winds up
floating worthlessly in the sea.
China, Japan, Europe, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as
major creditors of the U.S., now wield a very big stick in terms of
influencing the U.S. economy and U.S. investment and foreign policies.
Which is fine for those Americans who operate at the highest levels of
the global system, like the major banks, hedge funds, brokerage
houses, Carlyle group, oil, energy, agribusiness, and mining
conglomerates, etc., etc.
Their interests are not just separate from those of most Americans,
but actually opposed to them.
And guess who's winning.
Meanwhile, the subprime crisis is in large part a response to the
inflationary spiral that has been held in artificial check by
Greenspan's interest rate policies, the housing bubble and its
associated refinancing spree, and the easy money that the government
has been pumping into war-based industries.
The build-up of capital basically served as a continuous intravenous
dose of 140 proof firewater that got the financial services industry
so drunk they went out and squandered the food money.
In the process, Americans have mortgaged their economic futures.
Now imagine that in 2001 the president had said, "We're going to need
hundreds of billions, nay, trillions of dollars to wage war on
Afghanistan and Iraq. You'll agree to this because of all the lying
reasons I'm going to feed you, in cooperation with a lap-dog Congress,
The New York Times and Washington Post, Fox News and CNN, the major
networks, and Colin Powell. You're going to give me blank checks to
bomb the crap out of these countries; test new weapons; irradiate the
environment, its populace, and our own soliders with uranium tipped
shells; get thousands of our own citizens killed and maimed and
mentally shattered; gain control of Iraq's oil for the major
transnational petroleum companies; and, oh yeah, cut veterans'
benefits and deny many of them health care. So can I have the money?"
If the past is any indicator, the response would be a resounding yes,
as it continues to be, if not among the public, then certainly among
our nation's decision makers.
But then a miracle happens.
Congress gives the president all this money for these wars.
And then the president turns around and says, "Surprise! Now that we
see all this money is available, I'm going to spend it on health care,
education, neighborhood renewal, the environment, and infrastructure!
I know I'd never be able to get this money out of you if I said that's
what it was for, but now that I have the money, this is what it's
going towards! Oh, and by the way, we're going to build the economy
one project at a time. It is no longer going to be fueled by
arbitrarily multiplying the number of dollars in circulation in a vast
Ponzi scheme. Even a house of good laminated cards is more stable than
a house of crumpled bills."
Every dollar spent at street level produces seven times more economic
activity than a dollar spent on weaponry.
The increase in public health and education brings more money into the
economy for teachers, nurses, service workers – millions of Americans.
Companies save money as worker absenteeism and health insurance costs
decline.
New industries are created from the investment in renewable energy, a
well-educated populace, and production of "super-materials" targeted
not for war but for constructive applications.
Subsidies for new energy technologies, family farms, and small
businesses create entirely new industries and vibrant economic
centers.
A moderate tax increase on the very wealthy helps reduce the national
debt.
Closing tax loopholes and going after off-shore accounts aimed at
avoiding hundreds of billions in taxes brings the U.S. government into
the black.
Renewing the infrastructure, which is on the verge of disintegration,
creates hundreds of thousands of well-paying construction jobs, which
restabilizes the housing market.
A reasonable trade policy protects economically strategic American
industries and manufacturing jobs post a modest recovery.
All these steps, and others similar in intent, may not create a
paradise, but they sure as hell would recirculate and expand our
national wealth so that it continues to produce more real wealth in
the form of affordable goods and services while improving the quality
of life for Americans and, in a ripple effect, the entire world.
Instead, we have had the most corrupt regime in U.S. history using our
wealth to fuel a bonfire of chaos and destruction and death.
That is the bottom line and that is what the presidential candidates
ordained by the media as the "frontrunners" continually ignore.
It is what most of the mainstream media's pundits and writers about
the economy continually ignore.
The money we are burning in war could have been used to build the
economy.
The loss is two-fold, embracing not just the money we've misspent but
the lack of investment in the economy and social services (health,
education, infrastructure) that has actually made those services
decline in value.
Every cost we've ignored for the past decade is a cost that has
multiplied several times in future spending – a stitch in time saves
nine and all that – and has piled more debt upon the American people
and added more fuel towards an upcoming inflationary – or
stagflationary - cycle.
The cost of war has never been more dire – in lives lost on the
battlefield and in the incinerated homes of a region in chaos, to be
sure – but also in the cost that Americans will continue to pay for
decades.
Maybe "it's the economy, stupid!", as James Carville reminded Clinton
campaigners in 1992.
But if we ask what's largely to blame for the state of the economy,
our answer would have to be, "It's the war! Time to wake up!"
____________________________________________________
Harry
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