255 comments on Monetary Policy and Weaseling Out of Debt
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"Empire of Debt" puts math to it. The problem with putting math to it is that you start to find out that the real numbers have been hiding behind the facade of sanity in the markets.
As long as we keep the argument rhetorical, we don't have to think about how bad it really is. Just like oil and food production.
Thanks, I see that this is a book by Bill Bonner. I will try to check it out.
This pitiful war in Iraq has increased military spending to levels similar to what was done during WWII in terms of percentage of GDP. It would be better to leave the Iraqis alone. Before Bush went making false accusations and guns blazing fire saying, "Bring them on." They had more peace, less torture, and integrated neighborhoods. A war of aggression is not a good return on investment for there might be hell to pay afterward.
There was once a balanced budget and it is time to try to get the government to be more responsible instead of some out of control leviathon going shopping and hiring more bloated beaurocrats on borrowed credit. In such times it is good to have some savings and paid for assets.
U.S. military spending is 3.7% of its GDP. In WWII, U.S. military spending peaked at 37.8% of GDP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
Nasguy,
Back in those days the US had a lock on manufacturing, now it has a lock on debt. That 3.7% GDP as well has greater leverage when the US is fighting a dirty war rather than one considered by the populous as morally right and noble.
Really how does the GDP then compare to the GDP now? Hurricane Katrina and putting the obese on life support is considered plus in the ledger book of GDP.
As well, I can't even begin to imagine what life would be like in the US if that 3.7% rose to 37.8 % ... maybe pretty good, with full employment and personal savings rising until the oil ran out and the world left a smoking ruin.
Remember, the liars are keeping the "war on terrorism" off-budget. The official budget is $500 billion, the war budget is over $100 billion, and parts of military obligations are hidden in the Department of Energy and the Department of Veterans Affairs - both of which will explode.
Finally, there's the vast amount of extra deficit spending over the decades from the military, which have been turned into permanent interest-bearing debt. And interest rates are heading up again. Figure it'll soon be $300 billion a year in added interest payments?
So this puts us at the levels of the Cold War, against an opponent so puny that it would be invisible against the mighty Soviet war machine that also turned out to be largely a fraud.
Unless what we're really paying for is the empire of bases in 130 countries that mostly pre-dated 9/11. Why didn't we close those down to concentrate on what "really" matters?