We constantly hear economic experts and pundits in the media decrying the sorry state of the economies of several European countries __ Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland. Yet as this chart shows, Americans are individually responsible for more debt than any of the citizens of these troubled nations.
Japan is even worse. Its national debt last time I checked was 228% of their GDP. The Japanese are in hock up to their hairlines. But there is a big difference. 85% of that debt is owned by the Japanese people. They have invested in their own country and owe the money to themselves! America because of its borrowing spree owes everyone else in the world __ China, Germany, France, Japan. Next time you go to a Chinese restaurant, you might want to thank them for not foreclosing. So far anyway.
I personally see no problem with a nation running constructive deficits. Under the current flawed relationships between banks and national economies, it is a necessary evil to both sustain and promote growth.
What is objectionable is having no genuine say in why we borrow. Granted that various social support and entitlement programs benefit us all. But the astounding and insulting truth to those of us who actually believe we live in a democratic country, is that America annually spends somewhere around $700 billion for war. Yet if you look at any unbiased polling, Americans don’t want war. We want peace.
The defense spending of the U.S. nearly equals the total defense spending of all other nations in the world combined. Why do we spend so much to arm ourselves against real and imagined but all relatively weak, if not totally powerless enemies? Our leaders say its to protect our “national interests”. This is but a euphemism for world domination and access to the resources of the countries we attack.
This investment in imperial control of Planet Earth comes at a price. It costs the lives of soldiers who go to fight pointless, self-destructive wars; it has eliminated the last shreds of credibility we once had in the world as a nation which stood for the most noble principles; it is sapping us of our national pride, the spirit that once drove the country’s belief in its mission to spread democracy and lift the living standards of everyone on the planet.
We borrow for bombs.
We borrow to spread death.
We borrow to create enemies.
Someone has to pay for all of this. It’s you and I. The invoice is in the mail. Soon it will be stamped ‘Past Due’. Not long after that it will say ‘Account Closed’.
To live in a country which has borrowed up to its eyebrows to build bombs and promote war against the explicit will of its own people is incarceration at its worst. It is living in the confines of a shameful and ruinous nightmare, a jail of bankrupting tyranny.
We truly live in a debtor’s prison.
Dennis Kucinich: Another Victim of Fragging
American politics conducts its own fragging. It shoots its leaders for political reasons. Usually that is tantamount to just wanting to win. It is the political assassination of a capable person by the opposing party or by the corporate media to eliminate a troublesome foe.
Dennis Kucinich is the latest victim. The gerrymandering of his district in Ohio has put his long and admirable career of outstanding public service in jeopardy. He will not be up for election to the next Congress.
We have seen this type of hatchet job before. It takes many forms. The controlling party in a particular political arena manipulates the rules to its advantage. Honor and fairness, even the health of our democratic system, play no role. It’s cage fighting. May the most vicious man win.
The media plays a big role. Al Gore was wooden. Ralph Nader a cranky old man. Ross Perot was ugly. Because these men were not Hollywood cool and beautiful, they were not fit for public office.
Under the current system, our best, most creative, most talented politicians can be sidelined and marginalized, eliminated altogether. That’s the way it works now. Apparently it’s the American way.
If you don’t like what someone is saying or the way he looks . . . blam!
And we wonder why America is in decline?
Or maybe we don’t.