America Is Running Out Of Time

Gold9472

Tired...
Staff member
America is Running Out of Time

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts09262005.html

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
9/26/2005

George W. Bush will go down in history as the president who fiddled while America lost its superpower status.

Bush used deceit and hysteria to lead America into a war that is bleeding the US economically, militarily, and diplomatically. The war is being fought with hundreds of billions of dollars borrowed from foreigners. The war is bleeding the military of troops and commitments. The war has ended the US claim to moral leadership and exposed the US as a reckless and aggressive power.

Focused on a concocted "war on terrorism," the Bush administration diverted money from the New Orleans levees to Iraq, with the consequence that the US now has a $100 billion rebuild bill on top of the war bill.

The US is so short of troops that neoconservatives are advocating the use of foreign mercenaries paid with US citizenship.

US efforts to isolate Iran have been blocked by Russia and China, nuclear powers that Bush cannot bully.

The Iraqi war has three beneficiaries: (1) al Qaeda, (2) Iran and (3) US war industries and Bush-Cheney cronies who receive no-bid contracts.

Everyone else is a loser.

The war has bestowed on al Qaeda recruits, prestige, and a training ground.

The war has allied Iran with Iraq's Shi'ite majority.

The war has brought soaring profits to the military industries and the firms with reconstruction contracts at the expense of 20,000 US military casualties and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties.

The Republican Party is a loser, because its hidebound support for the war is isolating the party from public opinion.

The Democratic Party is a loser, because its cowardly acquiescence in a war that is opposed by the majority of its members is making the party irrelevant.

The latest polls show that a majority of Americans believe the US cannot win against the Iraq insurgency. The majority support withdrawal and the redirection of war spending to rebuilding New Orleans. Despite the clarity of the public's wishes, the Republican Party continues to support the unpopular war.

With the exceptions of Reps. Cynthia McKinney and John Conyers, Democrats fled the scene of the Sept. 24 antiwar rally in Washington DC. The cynical Democrats are apparently owned by the same interest groups that own the Republicans and are refusing the mantle of majority party that the electorate is offering to the party that will end the war.

The Bush administration is churning out red ink in excess of $1 trillion annually. The federal budget deficit is approaching $500 billion. The US trade deficit is approaching $700 billion.

The budget deficit is being financed by foreigners, primarily Asians who now hold enough US government debt to exercise power over US interest rates and the value of the dollar whenever they decide to use the power that Bush has placed in their hands.

The trade deficit is being financed by turning over the ownership of US assets and future income streams to foreigners, making Americans forever poorer from the loss of accumulated wealth.

For the time being, China is willing to accumulate US assets as a way of taking over our consumer markets, attracting US manufacturing industry with cheap labor subsidized by artificial currency values, and gaining our technology. China's strategy is to over-value the US dollar in order to encourage the transfer of US economic capabilities to China. China's strategy gives artificial value to the dollar and keeps US interest rates at an artificial low.

The values of US stocks, bonds, and real estate depend on the support that Asians' economic strategies provide the dollar and US interest rates. As Asia achieves its goal of preeminence in manufacturing, innovation, and product development, the strategy will change. Once China completes its acquisition of US capabilities, it will no longer have a reason to support the dollar.

When the dollar goes, it will affect costs, profits, interest rates and living standards in dramatic ways. Costs and interest rates will soar, and profits, living standards, equity values, bond prices and real estate will plummet.

These unpleasant events await only Asia's decision to curtail its support for US red ink. That will happen when this support no longer serves Asia's interest.

When Asia pulls the plug on the dollar, the US government will find that monetary and fiscal policy are powerless to offset the consequences.

Compared to US budget and trade deficits, terrorists are a minor concern. The greatest danger that the US faces is the dollar's loss of reserve currency role. This would be an impoverishing event, one from which the US would not recover.

An intelligent government sincerely concerned with homeland security would find a way to halt the global labor arbitrage that is stripping the American economy of high value-added jobs and manufacturing capability, thereby causing the US trade deficit to explode. The loss of tax base that results when US companies outsource jobs and relocate production abroad makes it ever more difficult to balance a budget strained by war, natural disasters, and demographic impact on Social Security and Medicare.

Global labor arbitrage is rapidly dismantling the ladders of upward mobility and thereby endangering American political stability. This threat is far greater than any Osama bin Laden can mount.

Time is running out for Republicans and Democrats to escape from the distraction of a pointless war and to focus on the real threats that endanger the United States of America.

Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: [email protected]
 
Yup... Karl Schwarz actually sent me the article... (Karl Schwarz is a questionable 9/11 Truther who happens to be a nice guy)
 
I've been saying that losing our manufacturing ability is more of a threat to national security that terrorism ever will be. Our great manufacturing base is what won two world wars for us, more than anything else.
 
beltman713 said:
I've been saying that losing our manufacturing ability is more of a threat to national security that terrorism ever will be. Our great manufacturing base is what won two world wars for us, more than anything else.

Absolutely... I think the statistic was that less people die a year from "terrorism" than they do from lightning strikes... Bush has bankrupted this country... in every way...
 
This statement though... "With the exceptions of Reps. Cynthia McKinney and John Conyers, Democrats fled the scene of the Sept. 24 antiwar rally in Washington DC." is inaccurate... Maxine Waters, Raul M. Grijalva were there as well.
 
Also keep in mind that Maxine Waters was listed as one of the top 13 Corrupt Politicians... I don't get it... she always seemed sincere to me... just... maybe I was wrong...
 
And also keep in mind he's probably writing this article based on the news reports which said only Conyers, and McKinney were going to be there... so he's not "wrong".
 
I just wrote the author a very simple email...

Mr. Roberts...

I just read your article "America Is Running Out Of Time". What can we do? BTW... Maxine Waters, and Raul Grijalva showed up. I know you probably got your information from the newspaper reports... anywho... what can we do?

Thank you...

Jon Gold
www.yourbbsucks.com
 
Gold9472 said:
Yup... Karl Schwarz actually sent me the article... (Karl Schwarz is a questionable 9/11 Truther who happens to be a nice guy)

why is he 'questionable'?
 
Did some time ago

Umm, I think it's pronounced Federal Reserve Act (about 1913 or so- Wilson's reign?) Then the Bushes jumped in bed with the Nazis in WW2 and FDR pulled an IgNORAD with the relatively-new radar at Pearl Harbor. [I believe they demolished the original radar installation on the north shore of Oahu, I can look for the link that shows the concrete foundations out in the jungle if needed]

Shoot a president in the head in Dallas, Gulf of Tonkin, USS Liberty, USS Scorpion, Cold War, Vietnam, Opium Trafficking, yada yada...

Which brings us up to the current crop of pathological PNAC douchebags you all know and love like Cheney/Rumsfeld who've basically been plaguing us since the Nixon/Ford administration.

The quiz will be next week class... JK
 
Whoops

Better not forget the National Security Act of 1947- that would take several chapters... Get a copy of James Bamford's "Body of Secrets" and "The Puzzle Palace". Mark Zepezaur's "The CIA's Greatest Hits" is a tiny little illustrated book that outlines much of this history (chapters are only 2 pages long).
 
Umm, I think it's pronounced Federal Reserve Act (about 1913 or so- Wilson's reign?)
Wilson later admitted he had ruined the country for doing that.
 
Where's my refund

Admission? Apology? Fuck that! I want our gold back!
 
I never understood gold as a medium of exchange. What good is it? So 3000 years ago a race was obsessed with it. So it sparkles. Can you eat it? Granted it has some electrical properties that are above average. Beyond that who gives a shit...
 
I know

I was playing a little "Bad Cop" there- I agree on the barter/exchange idea (been doing it all my life). I think it is sometimes called "marriage" too.

AFA gold's electrical properties- silver and platinum are better. I'd take the platinum since it is a KILLER catalyst for water hydrolysis and for fuel cells that we've been talking about. Silver is used to inhibit microbial growth in medical tubing, and it stores oxygen like a sponge (part of its "tarnish" problem). The Navy and aerospace industry are pretty fond of gold for electrical connections. Aside from that, I'm agreed on the precious metals' "value". I am pretty fond of my diamond files, saws, and knife sharpeners though (cheap "industrial" diamonds there)...
 
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