By Paul Craig Roberts
October 10, 2009 - Original Article
The US has every characteristic of a failed state.
The US government’s current operating budget is dependent
on foreign financing and money creation.
Too politically weak to be able to advance its interests through
diplomacy, the US relies on terrorism and military aggression.
Costs are out of control, and priorities are skewed in the
interest of rich organized interest groups at the expense of
the vast majority of citizens. For example, war at all cost,
which enriches the armaments industry, the officer corps and
the financial firms that handle the war’s financing,
takes precedence over the needs of American citizens. There
is no money to provide the uninsured with health care, but
Pentagon officials have told the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee
in the House that every gallon of gasoline delivered to US
troops in Afghanistan costs American taxpayers $400.
"It is a number that we were not aware of and it is worrisome," said
Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the subcommittee.
According to reports, the US Marines in Afghanistan use 800,000
gallons of gasoline per day. At $400 per gallon, that comes
to a $320,000,000 daily fuel bill for the Marines alone. Only
a country totally out of control would squander resources in
this way.
While the US government squanders $400 per gallon of gasoline
in order to kill women and children in Afghanistan, many millions
of Americans have lost their jobs and their homes and are experiencing
the kind of misery that is the daily life of poor Third World
peoples. Americans are living in their cars and in public parks.
America’s cities, towns, and states are suffering from
the costs of economic dislocations and the reduction in tax
revenues from the economy’s decline. Yet, Obama has sent
more troops to Afghanistan, a country half way around the world
that is not a threat to America.
It costs $750,000 per year for each soldier we have in Afghanistan.
The soldiers, who are at risk of life and limb, are paid a
pittance, but all of the privatized services to the military
are rolling in excess profits. One of the great frauds perpetuated
on the American people was the privatization of services that
the US military traditionally performed for itself. "Our" elected
leaders could not resist any opportunity to create at taxpayers’ expense
private wealth that could be recycled to politicians in campaign
contributions.
Republicans and Democrats on the take from the private insurance
companies maintain that the US cannot afford to provide Americans
with health care and that cuts must be made even in Social
Security and Medicare. So how can the US afford bankrupting
wars, much less totally pointless wars that serve no American
interest?
The enormous scale of foreign borrowing and money creation
necessary to finance Washington’s wars are sending the
dollar to historic lows. The dollar has even experienced large
declines relative to currencies of third world countries such
as Botswana and Brazil. The decline in the dollar’s value
reduces the purchasing power of Americans’ already declining
incomes.
Despite the lowest level of housing starts in 64 years, the
US housing market is flooded with unsold homes, and financial
institutions have a huge and rising inventory of foreclosed
homes not yet on the market.
Industrial production has collapsed to the level of 1999,
wiping out a decade of growth in industrial output.
The enormous bank reserves created by the Federal Reserve
are not finding their way into the economy. Instead, the banks
are hoarding the reserves as insurance against the fraudulent
derivatives that they purchased from the gangster Wall Street
investment banks.
The regulatory agencies have been corrupted by private interests.
Frontline reports that Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Larry
Summers blocked Brooksley Born, the head of the Commodity Futures
Trading Commission from regulating derivatives. President Obama
rewarded Larry Summers for his idiocy by appointing him Director
of the National Economic Council. What this means is that profits
for Wall Street will continue to be leeched from the diminishing
blood supply of the American economy.
An unmistakable sign of Third World despotism is a police
force that sees the public as the enemy. Thanks to the federal
government, our local police forces are now militarized and
imbued with hostile attitudes toward the public. SWAT teams
have proliferated, and even small towns now have police forces
with the firepower of US Special Forces. Summons are increasingly
delivered by SWAT teams that tyrannize citizens with broken
down doors, a $400 or $500 repair born by the tyrannized resident.
Recently a mayor and his family were the recipients of incompetence
by the town’s local SWAT team, which mistakenly wrecked
the mayor’s home, terrorized his family, and killed the
family’s two friendly Labrador dogs.
If a town’s mayor can be treated in this way, what do
you think is the fate of the poor white or black? Or the idealistic
student who protests his government’s inhumanity?
In any failed state, the greatest threat to the population
comes from the government and the police. That is certainly
the situation today in the USA. Americans have no greater enemy
than their own government. Washington is controlled by interest
groups that enrich themselves at the expense of the American
people.
The one percent that comprise the superrich are laughing as
they say, "let them eat cake."
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Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of
the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing
Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny
of Good
Intentions.
Paul Craig Roberts can be emailed
here
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