by Roedy Green ©2002-2008 Canadian Mind Products
| Deficits | World Population Growth |
| Unemployment | Missing Trillions |
| Job Creation | Bankruptcy On Purpose |
| Military Spending | Books |
| Per Capita Military Spending | Links |
| Why Have an Empire? |
The 2005 deficit was $400 billion.
In addition, because of outsourcing, the USA, a former net exporter, had a $800 billion trade deficit in 2005. It imported $800 billion more than it exported. In 2006 this is projected to grow to $1 trillion. This shortfall is one of the factors causing the buying power of the US dollar to collapse.
To keep up with population growth, in his first term, Bush needed to create jobs for 12 million new people. He had a net job loss the first time since the great depression and Herbert Hoover.
Bush has the biggest deficits of any president in history and is the first president in over a century to actually destroy more jobs than he created.
“It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.”
~ George W. Bush, 2000-05-05
Military
spending has already bankrupted
the country in the sense that even future generations will not be able to
make good on the outstanding debt according to Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for
the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal
Reserve.
The USA has military bases in almost every country on earth. There are obviously not for defending the homeland, but for defending America’s economic interests abroad.
“Inequalities in consumption are stark. Globally, the 20% of the world’s people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures — the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%. More specifically, the richest fifth:Most Americans are astonished when academics such as Chalmers Johnson or Noam Chomsky explain to them they have a global empire in everything but name.Runaway growth in consumption in the past 50 years is putting strains on the environment never before seen.“
- Consume 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5%.
- Consume 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4%.
- Have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5%.
- Consume 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1%.
- Own 87% of the world’s vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1% .
~ Human Development Report 1998 Overview, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
The point of this empire is to support a lavish consuming lifestyle at the expense of the third world. The American military’s job is to pressure foreign governments to give American businesses what they want. How else could it be that Americans manage, with under 6% of the world population, to consume about a 40-60% of the planet’s resources? How is it possible that people in other parts of the world accept a $0.06 a hour wage to produce goods for Americans. That is less than slave wages. Slaves, like livestock, at least had their food and medical bills covered, and even a form of retirement.
“Calculations show that the planet has available 1.9 hectares [one hectare is 2.47 acres] of biologically productive land per person to supply resources and absorb wastes — yet the average person on Earth already uses 2.3 hectares worth. These “ecological footprints“ range from the 9.7 hectares claimed by the average American to the 0.47 hectares used by the average Mozambican.”Like a French aristocrat of old, the modern American believes he fully deserves his privileged position as a right of birth. He deserves it for being American, one of God’s chosen people. He vaguely imagines that his industriousness or other innate virtue fully explains the economic disparity. He labours under the delusion that those in the rest of the world are happy to work in American sweat shops. It never enters his head that such extreme inequality can only be maintained by global military oppression and state-sponsored political corruption to bribe and threaten world leaders to act in the interests of American business rather than the interests of their own countries.
~ WorldWatch.org
The main difference in the outcome of WWII was the language we speak. The economic neocolonialism is the same as had the Nazis won. Just as Nazis saw themselves as innately superior and deserving of special privilege, so do Americans. They don’t recognise that their superiority complex is just as odious to others and leads them to just as evil deeds.
“The price of empire is America’s soul, and that price is too high.”
~ J. William Fulbright
You can see from this graph of world population growth the incredible extra burden we are putting on the earth’s carrying capacity, especially in Asia and the Pacific. source. There are ever more people fighting for a dwindling supply of resources.
“According to the Comptroller General of the United States, there are serious financial management problems at the Pentagon, to which Mr. Cooper alluded.Note that neither Mr. Jonas nor Mr. Rumsfeld dispute this in the transcript.
Fiscal Year 1999: $2.3 trillion missing.
Fiscal Year 2000, $1.1 trillion missing.
~ Cynthia McKinney, Rep, 2005-03-11
2005-03-11.
2005-03-24.
McKinney did a day long probe into 9/11 and related issued on 2005-07-22, broadcast on 2005-09-11. Perhaps that will reawaken in interest in the missing trillions.
8.8 billion dollars earmarked for the Iraq war have also been embezzled, or in Bush speak is “improperly accounted for”. And of course Iraq’s own oil money is up for grabs as well.
The war has caused record deficits. Bush has improperly raided the social security fund to partly cover up his spending bloat.
| Bush raids on Social Security | ||
|---|---|---|
| Taken | Amount | Source of Information |
| Social Security 2001 | $34 billion | USA Today, Washington Post |
| Social Security 2002 | $455 billion | OMB |
| Federal Employee Retirement System 2002 | $42 billion | Wall Street Journal 2002-06-13 |
| Civil Service Retirement Disability Fund 2002 | $2 billion | Wall Street Journal |
| Estimated pending withdrawals from Social Security to cover deficits by 2010 | $845 billion | Washington Post |
“We must create a [economic] crisis in order to ensure that there is no alternative to a smaller government.”
~ Jeb Bush, Imprimis Magazine 1995
This may explain why brother George seems to be intentionally attempting to tank the economy.
“To bring about a genuine political realignment, Republicans must kill the Government Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs — the very Goose they have fought so hard and long to possess.”
~ Jeb Bush, Imprimis Magazine 1995
In other words, Jeb wants to stop the functions of government that create prosperity. The man is either nuts, or has the same problems with English as his brother.
“We mustn’t assume that we are going to deinvent government solely from inside the Beltway or within one or two sessions of Congress. We will do it one step at a time, in one community at a time – at the local level and through local institutions like churches, nonprofit and volunteer organizations, and families.”Tom Delay, who was House Majority Leader at the time, echoes his desire to bankrupt the US federal government in this video,
~ Jeb Bush, Imprimis Magazine 1995
Jeb wants to destroy democratic government and hand the reigns to private corporations, much the way society was organised in the 1800s, without any regulation on the robber barons. He must have been impressed by the 1975 sci fi movie, Rollerball, starring James Caan.
If they had their way, you would have to use Fedex for all your mail, since there would be no US postal service. You would have to send your children to private schools since there will be no more public schools. You will have to hire your own security guards, since there will be no more police. There will be no more Medicare, Medicaid, welfare or social security pensions. There will be no federal drug, meat, food or aviation safety inspection. There will be no regulations on commerce, drugs or prostitution. There will be no licensing of dentists, doctors or surgeons. It sounds a bit like the world of Mad Max and the Thunderdome. Delay imagines he will be an Auntie Entity. Why does this appeal to him? The rich will pay even less taxes than now. They don’t care that life would be gritty or that it would cost them more than now, they resent supporting others so strongly with their taxes. That is what matters most to them, avoiding helping others.
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recommend book⇒Imperial Ambitions : Conversations on the Post-9/11 World [American Empire Project] | |||||||||||||||||
| paperback | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ISBN10: | 0-8050-7967-X | |||||||||||||||||
| ISBN13: | 978-0-8050-7967-8 | |||||||||||||||||
| publisher: | Metropolitan | |||||||||||||||||
| published: | 2005-09-15 | |||||||||||||||||
| by: | Noam Chomsky, David Barsamian | |||||||||||||||||
| As usual this book has the right spitting angry, spouting ad hominems, but not a word to counter a thing Chomsky says. It covers American imperialism from Kosovo to Iraq. | ||||||||||||||||||
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