U.S. President Barack Obama calls the $3.8-trillion US budget he just sent to Congress a major step in restoring America’s economic health.
In fact, it’s another potent fix given to a sick patient deeply addicted to the dangerous drug — debt.
More empires have fallen because of reckless finances than invasion. The latest example was the Soviet Union, which spent itself into ruin by buying tanks.
Washington’s deficit (the difference between spending and income from taxes) will reach a vertiginous $1.6 trillion US this year. The huge sum will be borrowed, mostly from China and Japan, to which the U.S. already owes $1.5 trillion. Debt service will cost $250 billion.
To spend $1 trillion, one would have had to start spending $1 million daily soon after Rome was founded and continue for 2,738 years until today.
Obama’s total military budget is nearly $1 trillion. This includes Pentagon spending of $880 billion. Add secret black programs (about $70 billion); military aid to foreign nations like Egypt, Israel and Pakistan; 225,000 military “contractors” (mercenaries and workers); and veterans’ costs. Add $75 billion (nearly four times Canada’s total defence budget) for 16 intelligence agencies with 200,000 employees.
The Afghanistan and Iraq wars ($1 trillion so far), will cost $200-250 billion more this year, including hidden and indirect expenses. Obama’s Afghan “surge” of 30,000 new troops will cost an additional $33 billion — more than Germany’s total defence budget.
No wonder U.S. defence stocks rose after Peace Laureate Obama’s “austerity” budget.
Military and intelligence spending relentlessly increase as unemployment heads over 10% and the economy bleeds red ink. America has become the Sick Man of the Western Hemisphere, an economic cripple like the defunct Ottoman Empire.
The Pentagon now accounts for half of total world military spending. Add America’s rich NATO allies and Japan, and the figure reaches 75%.
China and Russia combined spend only a paltry 10% of what the U.S. spends on defence.
There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and 255,000 service members stationed abroad, 116,000 in Europe, nearly 100,000 in Japan and South Korea.
Military spending gobbles up 19% of federal spending and at least 44% of tax revenues. During the Bush administration, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — funded by borrowing — cost each American family more than $25,000.
Like Bush, Obama is paying for America’s wars through supplemental authorizations — putting them on the nation’s already maxed-out credit card. Future generations will be stuck with the bill.
This presidential and congressional jiggery-pokery is the height of public dishonesty.
America’s wars ought to be paid for through taxes, not bookkeeping fraud.
If U.S. taxpayers actually had to pay for the Afghan and Iraq wars, these conflicts would end in short order.
America needs a fair, honest war tax.
The U.S. clearly has reached the point of imperial overreach. Military spending and debt-servicing are cannibalizing the U.S. economy, the real basis of its world power. Besides the late U.S.S.R., the U.S. also increasingly resembles the dying British Empire in 1945, crushed by immense debts incurred to wage the Second World War, unable to continue financing or defending the imperium, yet still imbued with imperial pretensions.
It is increasingly clear the president is not in control of America’s runaway military juggernaut. Sixty years ago, the great President Dwight Eisenhower, whose portrait I keep by my desk, warned Americans to beware of the military-industrial complex. Six decades later, partisans of permanent war and world domination have joined Wall Street’s money lenders to put America into thrall.
Increasing numbers of Americans are rightly outraged and fearful of runaway deficits. Most do not understand their political leaders are also spending their nation into ruin through unnecessary foreign wars and a vainglorious attempt to control much of the globe — what neocons call “full spectrum dominance.”
If Obama really were serious about restoring America’s economic health, he would demand military spending be slashed, quickly end the Iraq and Afghan wars and break up the nation’s giant Frankenbanks.
Wars sending U.S. into ruin
Obama the peace president is fighting battles his country cannot afford
By ERIC MARGOLIS, QMI Agency
In fact, it’s another potent fix given to a sick patient deeply addicted to the dangerous drug — debt.
More empires have fallen because of reckless finances than invasion. The latest example was the Soviet Union, which spent itself into ruin by buying tanks.
Washington’s deficit (the difference between spending and income from taxes) will reach a vertiginous $1.6 trillion US this year. The huge sum will be borrowed, mostly from China and Japan, to which the U.S. already owes $1.5 trillion. Debt service will cost $250 billion.
To spend $1 trillion, one would have had to start spending $1 million daily soon after Rome was founded and continue for 2,738 years until today.
Obama’s total military budget is nearly $1 trillion. This includes Pentagon spending of $880 billion. Add secret black programs (about $70 billion); military aid to foreign nations like Egypt, Israel and Pakistan; 225,000 military “contractors” (mercenaries and workers); and veterans’ costs. Add $75 billion (nearly four times Canada’s total defence budget) for 16 intelligence agencies with 200,000 employees.
The Afghanistan and Iraq wars ($1 trillion so far), will cost $200-250 billion more this year, including hidden and indirect expenses. Obama’s Afghan “surge” of 30,000 new troops will cost an additional $33 billion — more than Germany’s total defence budget.
No wonder U.S. defence stocks rose after Peace Laureate Obama’s “austerity” budget.
Military and intelligence spending relentlessly increase as unemployment heads over 10% and the economy bleeds red ink. America has become the Sick Man of the Western Hemisphere, an economic cripple like the defunct Ottoman Empire.
The Pentagon now accounts for half of total world military spending. Add America’s rich NATO allies and Japan, and the figure reaches 75%.
China and Russia combined spend only a paltry 10% of what the U.S. spends on defence.
There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and 255,000 service members stationed abroad, 116,000 in Europe, nearly 100,000 in Japan and South Korea.
Military spending gobbles up 19% of federal spending and at least 44% of tax revenues. During the Bush administration, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — funded by borrowing — cost each American family more than $25,000.
Like Bush, Obama is paying for America’s wars through supplemental authorizations — putting them on the nation’s already maxed-out credit card. Future generations will be stuck with the bill.
This presidential and congressional jiggery-pokery is the height of public dishonesty.
America’s wars ought to be paid for through taxes, not bookkeeping fraud.
If U.S. taxpayers actually had to pay for the Afghan and Iraq wars, these conflicts would end in short order.
America needs a fair, honest war tax.
The U.S. clearly has reached the point of imperial overreach. Military spending and debt-servicing are cannibalizing the U.S. economy, the real basis of its world power. Besides the late U.S.S.R., the U.S. also increasingly resembles the dying British Empire in 1945, crushed by immense debts incurred to wage the Second World War, unable to continue financing or defending the imperium, yet still imbued with imperial pretensions.
It is increasingly clear the president is not in control of America’s runaway military juggernaut. Sixty years ago, the great President Dwight Eisenhower, whose portrait I keep by my desk, warned Americans to beware of the military-industrial complex. Six decades later, partisans of permanent war and world domination have joined Wall Street’s money lenders to put America into thrall.
Increasing numbers of Americans are rightly outraged and fearful of runaway deficits. Most do not understand their political leaders are also spending their nation into ruin through unnecessary foreign wars and a vainglorious attempt to control much of the globe — what neocons call “full spectrum dominance.”
If Obama really were serious about restoring America’s economic health, he would demand military spending be slashed, quickly end the Iraq and Afghan wars and break up the nation’s giant Frankenbanks.
Wars sending U.S. into ruin
Obama the peace president is fighting battles his country cannot afford
By ERIC MARGOLIS, QMI Agency
Also;
Tasks Ignored During the Bush Reign of Horror
Unfinished Business
The last eight years can best be described as the illegitimate rule of deviant forces bent on enriching the few at the expense of the many. Poverty is up, real income is flat for the majority of citizens while the elite have "super sized" their holdings with a callous disregard for the nation and economic realities.
The phantom "Yellow Brick Road" has come to an abrupt end through an expression of will by the people. President-elect Obama won by a wide margin in the popular vote and an even wider margin in the Electoral College. He is their choice.
What Obama promised matters. What the people expect matters more. What matters most is the crucial statement of the people. This election was a resounding no vote on executive lying, misdirection, deception, fabrication, and non stop failures. It was also a clear no vote on the unrestrained exercise of power used to attack individual rights promised in the Constitution and the willful neglect of the collective needs of citizens made manifest by their daily struggles.
This election was a clear statement by many who expressed their revulsion at the pervasive, mind numbing propaganda from the masters of deception (a problem that predates Bush by decades). Citizens knew that we'd never find Bin Laden in Iraq. But the propagandists managed to turn the majority opposition in both parties into an invasion with marginal support by using the "n" word - nuclear weapons of mass destruction. When no weapons of mass destruction were found, opposition to the war returned to a solid majority and remained there.
The propagandists tried to tell us that the economy was doing just fine, growing by leaps and bounds. Citizens noticed that there were few new jobs created, except by federal expansion to meet "security" needs. They also noticed that the real levels of unemployment and inflation were crushing.
The propagandists told us that Wall Street provided a never ending stream of benefits that we'd all enjoy. Citizens were wary and then outraged when the financial system collapsed into a free fall of corporate ruin infecting the entire economy.
When these fatally flawed entities begged for a bailout, citizens spoke in numbers and with intensity rarely if ever seen by Congress. Prior to the first bailout bill, congressional offices received a torrent of calls and emails showing overwhelming opposition to corporate welfare.
On just this one occasion, Congress responded to the will of the people. The bailout was narrowly defeated in the U.S. House of Representatives. While it was passed a few days later, this statement left its mark. The people were finally fed up. They were willing to risk their own well being to see that the authors of the disaster were not rewarded.
There has been nothing but lies from start to finish during the eight year reign of horror with only a few brave politicians speaking truth to corrupt power. They were ridiculed and marginalized as a reward for their bravery.
Now it's over and there's unfinished business that requires our attention. This business includes the following and much more:
End the Iraq occupation. Assign responsibility and consequences. Put a stop the fantasies of empire and actions that will lead to more ruinous overseas adventures.
Care for the wounded. Admit the losses and provide for healing.
Admit that the planet is in peril. Acknowledge our role in causing the problem. Accept leadership in solving it and get to work.
Revive the economy based on real products and services and make sure everyone does well. End the looting by banks and other dubious enterprises and punish those responsible.
Rebuild the United States of America wherever needed.
Provide health care services to citizens and disregard the nonsense about not being able to afford it. It's only fair to ask those who say it can't be done to sacrifice their own health care until they find a solution.
A Solid Dose of Reality to Start: The Political "Numbers Racket"
The phantom "Yellow Brick Road" has come to an abrupt end through an expression of will by the people. President-elect Obama won by a wide margin in the popular vote and an even wider margin in the Electoral College. He is their choice.
What Obama promised matters. What the people expect matters more. What matters most is the crucial statement of the people. This election was a resounding no vote on executive lying, misdirection, deception, fabrication, and non stop failures. It was also a clear no vote on the unrestrained exercise of power used to attack individual rights promised in the Constitution and the willful neglect of the collective needs of citizens made manifest by their daily struggles.
This election was a clear statement by many who expressed their revulsion at the pervasive, mind numbing propaganda from the masters of deception (a problem that predates Bush by decades). Citizens knew that we'd never find Bin Laden in Iraq. But the propagandists managed to turn the majority opposition in both parties into an invasion with marginal support by using the "n" word - nuclear weapons of mass destruction. When no weapons of mass destruction were found, opposition to the war returned to a solid majority and remained there.
The propagandists tried to tell us that the economy was doing just fine, growing by leaps and bounds. Citizens noticed that there were few new jobs created, except by federal expansion to meet "security" needs. They also noticed that the real levels of unemployment and inflation were crushing.
The propagandists told us that Wall Street provided a never ending stream of benefits that we'd all enjoy. Citizens were wary and then outraged when the financial system collapsed into a free fall of corporate ruin infecting the entire economy.
When these fatally flawed entities begged for a bailout, citizens spoke in numbers and with intensity rarely if ever seen by Congress. Prior to the first bailout bill, congressional offices received a torrent of calls and emails showing overwhelming opposition to corporate welfare.
On just this one occasion, Congress responded to the will of the people. The bailout was narrowly defeated in the U.S. House of Representatives. While it was passed a few days later, this statement left its mark. The people were finally fed up. They were willing to risk their own well being to see that the authors of the disaster were not rewarded.
There has been nothing but lies from start to finish during the eight year reign of horror with only a few brave politicians speaking truth to corrupt power. They were ridiculed and marginalized as a reward for their bravery.
Now it's over and there's unfinished business that requires our attention. This business includes the following and much more:
End the Iraq occupation. Assign responsibility and consequences. Put a stop the fantasies of empire and actions that will lead to more ruinous overseas adventures.
Care for the wounded. Admit the losses and provide for healing.
Admit that the planet is in peril. Acknowledge our role in causing the problem. Accept leadership in solving it and get to work.
Revive the economy based on real products and services and make sure everyone does well. End the looting by banks and other dubious enterprises and punish those responsible.
Rebuild the United States of America wherever needed.
Provide health care services to citizens and disregard the nonsense about not being able to afford it. It's only fair to ask those who say it can't be done to sacrifice their own health care until they find a solution.
A Solid Dose of Reality to Start: The Political "Numbers Racket"
We've seen the rapacious looting of the U. S. Treasury by banks and other corporations that have failed miserably. In a state of panic, their Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, took the money we paid in taxes and gave it to these corporate failures. There are few strings attached and little to no accountability for Paulson's actions, a former Wall Street executive who has rewarded his old company, Goldman Sachs, with billions.
Since the bailout bill passed, he's already given away $350 billion without any oversight and the bag man, the Federal Reserve, refuses to tell Congress any details about where the money went.
This is nothing new. They've just "kicked it up" to a much higher level of theft. It's the latest in a series of betrayals by the "masters of the universe" who clam to produce the wonders of our economic system. It's been largely smoke and mirrors. Citizens are right when they complain about exported jobs, free trade that punishes U.S. workers and businesses, and the difficulties of simply getting by in a rough economy. At the same time, we are confounded and confused by the propagandists and their Matrix version of the economy which claims "it's all good." It isn't. In fact, the economy is much worse than we've been told for decades.
Political adjustments to measures of unemployment began in the 1960's followed by distortions of inflation shortly thereafter. When a downturn occurred, the numbers were adjusted and distorted further as an obvious "opiate for the masses." It worked to keep interest rates low, spur housing booms, and even wilder schemes, while denying Social Security beneficiaries' real adjustments in their payments.
This "numbers racket" also clouded common sense judgments by the public. How bad can it be? Look at those unemployment figures! Maybe it's just me?
If the numbers don't fit, just adjust the assumptions, change the rules of the game, and create a parallel reality. The first targets in the unreal representation of the economy were unemployment and inflation rates. The blue line represents the rate of inflation by the pre 1980's standards. No wonder times are tough.
When Alan Greenspan, an architect of this change, said that we had conquered inflation, he was about as accurate and truthful as he was when he said that home equity lines and adjustable rate mortgages were a great way to take equity out of your home so you could put it in the stock market.
Since the bailout bill passed, he's already given away $350 billion without any oversight and the bag man, the Federal Reserve, refuses to tell Congress any details about where the money went.
This is nothing new. They've just "kicked it up" to a much higher level of theft. It's the latest in a series of betrayals by the "masters of the universe" who clam to produce the wonders of our economic system. It's been largely smoke and mirrors. Citizens are right when they complain about exported jobs, free trade that punishes U.S. workers and businesses, and the difficulties of simply getting by in a rough economy. At the same time, we are confounded and confused by the propagandists and their Matrix version of the economy which claims "it's all good." It isn't. In fact, the economy is much worse than we've been told for decades.
Political adjustments to measures of unemployment began in the 1960's followed by distortions of inflation shortly thereafter. When a downturn occurred, the numbers were adjusted and distorted further as an obvious "opiate for the masses." It worked to keep interest rates low, spur housing booms, and even wilder schemes, while denying Social Security beneficiaries' real adjustments in their payments.
This "numbers racket" also clouded common sense judgments by the public. How bad can it be? Look at those unemployment figures! Maybe it's just me?
If the numbers don't fit, just adjust the assumptions, change the rules of the game, and create a parallel reality. The first targets in the unreal representation of the economy were unemployment and inflation rates. The blue line represents the rate of inflation by the pre 1980's standards. No wonder times are tough.
When Alan Greenspan, an architect of this change, said that we had conquered inflation, he was about as accurate and truthful as he was when he said that home equity lines and adjustable rate mortgages were a great way to take equity out of your home so you could put it in the stock market.
Unemployment statistics were conveniently adjusted since the 1960's when those seeking a job for more than a year were simply removed from the jobless figures. There were still unemployed but their inconvenience to the propagandists was eliminated by "disappearing" them into the background of a shadow economy.
Kevin Phillips summed it up succinctly when he said:
"If Washington's harping on weapons of mass destruction was essential to buoy public support for the invasion of Iraq, the use of deceptive statistics has played its own vital role in convincing many Americans that the U.S. economy is stronger, fairer, more productive, more dominant, and richer with opportunity than it actually is." Numbers Racket: Why the economy is worse than we know. Harpers, May 2008.
How can we make rational judgments without a real picture of the world around us?
How can we judge leaders if they don't have to answer for the reality that they create?
It's time to take care of unfinished business. As that process goes forward, whatever your priorities might be, it is important to see the pervasiveness and absolute necessity of the "official" lies for the liars and those they serve.
We need to seize the opportunity that we have as citizens to push through these fictions and create our own reality as we address the business left unfinished by those who promised us so much and delivered nothing but degradation and hardship.
Kevin Phillips summed it up succinctly when he said:
"If Washington's harping on weapons of mass destruction was essential to buoy public support for the invasion of Iraq, the use of deceptive statistics has played its own vital role in convincing many Americans that the U.S. economy is stronger, fairer, more productive, more dominant, and richer with opportunity than it actually is." Numbers Racket: Why the economy is worse than we know. Harpers, May 2008.
How can we make rational judgments without a real picture of the world around us?
How can we judge leaders if they don't have to answer for the reality that they create?
It's time to take care of unfinished business. As that process goes forward, whatever your priorities might be, it is important to see the pervasiveness and absolute necessity of the "official" lies for the liars and those they serve.
We need to seize the opportunity that we have as citizens to push through these fictions and create our own reality as we address the business left unfinished by those who promised us so much and delivered nothing but degradation and hardship.
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