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February 7, 2008
SouthAmerica: Here are just a few things to keep in mind.
1) At the end of the day, funding wars it is a very inflationary activity. I have not seen a single person since Michael Harrington in the 1970âs making the connection between heavy defense spending and inflation. In the 1970âs on his book âInflationâ he made the case that the high inflation that we had in the US in the 1970's it was the result of heavy defense spending related to the Vietnam War.
People think that they can piss away trillions of US dollars in defense spending and there is no consequences and a connection to the US economy. During the 8 years of the Bush administration the United States pissed away over $ 4 trillion US dollars in defense spending. (This time is even worse than during the years of the Vietnam War, because during the Bush administration years most of this money has been borrowed from foreign lands.)
This $ 4 trillion US dollars in defense spending represents about 20 percent of the total budget of $ 20 trillion US dollars budgeted for the 8-years of the Bush administration. This includes only the direct amounts related to defense spending that have been disclosed to the public, and if we include the indirect figures that were spent related to defense spending and national security then that figure should be even higher.
It is a lot of money to be pissed away in a very unproductive area of the US economy â and donât forget it is inflationary as well.
I donât know of any economist who is doing research on this area and is trying to connect the dots.
Instead of spending most of these borrowed money to fix the current infrastructure in the United States, and also creating new infrastructure to be able to compete with the rest of the world in the coming years â the US government spent most of this money in wars and did so much damage to the US reputation and prestige around the world that it is almost impossible to calculate in dollar figures the cost of such a fiasco.
2) The United States already has over $ 9 trillion US dollars in cumulative outstanding debt, and the latest budget proposal for year 2009 that George W. Bush just prepared it will guarantee that the red ink it will accumulate at the rate close to $ 500 billion US dollars per year. Who is going to finance this American orgy in the coming years?
This massive Bush administration red ink is assuming that foreign countries such as China have nothing else better to do with their hard earned money than keep sending their savings to the United States year after year to be pissed away and at the same time evaporate in value in terms of currency value and inflation.
3) Americans have grown complacent over the last 50 years and they have not noticed that today the world is changing at the speed of light, and many countries around the world are leapfrogging their economies into the future, as the United States mindset is frozen in the past on the years of the cold war or on its new version that someone has dream up such as "islamo-fascismo" or wherever they mean.
During the latest global transfer of power the rest of the world were saving money for a rainy day, and the United States were pissing away that money as fast the United States could borrow it.
The United States were able to borrow most of this money on its own currency because of the international monetary arrangement that the United States built after WW II. That arrangement served well the United States since 1946, but the world has changed a lot during that period and today it is changing faster than ever before since it is changing at the speed of light.
The international monetary system dominated by the US dollar of the 60 years have run its course and today it is at the edge of the abyss. When the meltdown will start it is anyoneâs guess â but the major central banks will intervene and they will try to interfere with the meltdown process. But at the end of the day, central bank intervention it will not be enough to change the mindset of all the players, because the global monetary system it is much too large, sophisticated, and complex for these central bankers to be able to contain the meltdown with damage control.
4) Today, we donât have many people who had actual experience and remember the Great Depression, and how the entire mess developed.
People are so naïve that they think that today we are immune to such a debacles such as the Great Depression, because we are a lot smarter today than they were in the 1930âs. We even have proof of how smart we are today and you donât have to look further than such fiascos as the savings and loans scandal of the 1980âs, Enron, Worldcom, Citigroup, the Dot.com meltdown, the current sub prime global mess which was created in the US, and so onâ¦.
The pundits and financial geniuses that we have on television programs â they will cheer and they will tell you the sucker how it is always the right time to invest your hard earned money. And most of these people think that there is only one way for the markets to go and that way it is up even when the long-term prospects for the economy it canât justify such a general wishful thinking.
You can bet that as we descend into the new Great Depression â a slow and painful process â the people in such places as CNBC Wall Street shows at every step of the way they will be telling you that we are about to turn the corner and every thing it will be wonderful.
In the meantime trillions of US dollar in Americans paper net worth it will disappear just like smoke.
In a Nutshell: When the global PANIC sets in and everything starts spinning out of control, a lot of things that most people have no idea how they work â the DERIVATIVES market comes to mind â and also including the US dollar based international monetary system is crashingâ¦Then you will find out and will understand what I am talking about.
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