President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, warned us of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. Was he right?
The US spends more on “defense” than all other countries combined. According to official reports from 2003 and 2005, we have 737 military bases in 63 countries outside of the US and its territories.
This is intentionally misleading. Bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan are not counted. While there are ten Marine bases in Okinawa, official reports admit of only one. Not all troops are on bases. Personnel are stationed in 156 countries.
Those numbers are at least impressive, perhaps even stunning. Then there are the 6,000 plus bases in the US and its territories.
Domestically, the plethora of bases is not necessarily a factor of military considerations. Congressmen like to have the steady flow of tax dollars into their state or district that always seem to accompany military bases.
The number of military personnel has decreased significantly since my time. The bulk of the increase in military expenditures is in equipment. A few major conglomerates get the bulk of that bulk. Therein lies the trailing part of that complex. So, the taxpayers are shelling out gargantuan sums to a few corporations for unneeded “defense.”
Some people are getting fat off the government teat. Let’s just call them a part of the elite.
Banks were originally intended to provide funding for other businesses. Businesses need money for start up, to meet salaries, for inventory, for expansion. Banks should represent less than 5% of the economy. They now exceed 20%. Last year, over half of all profits went to banks. This represents a severe distortion of the economy. It is unsustainable.
These avaricious parasites with their fossilized ideology have created more debt than the sum total of all assets on Earth. They think of themselves as Masters of the Universe, even after their stupidities destroyed trillions of dollars in value around the world. Countries are going bankrupt. Families are being cast out on the street. They award themselves bonuses that would embarrass King Midas. Did you get a thank you card for your bailout?
We can’t forget the drug dealers and insurance companies. Our congressmen certainly didn’t forget them. You said yes when your congressman asked if you wanted to subsidize the memberships of PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) and AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans), didn’t you? You were awfully generous. They both have America in their names but don’t let that fool you. That’s not where their loyalties lay.
So What?
You knew all of that. Why bring it up again? Because I’m going to put it into historical perspective. I’ll use it to predict the future. Isn’t that worth the rehash? It’s going to be fun. Well, maybe fun isn’t quite the right word.
The invention of agriculture was a boon, at first. It allowed people to stay in one place long enough to build substantial shelter. They had time to do that because agriculture normally allowed for enough free time to devote to other pursuits; or, even a bit of leisure.
They were able to produce surpluses most years. However, an occasional drought or flood or locust could bring a famine. They soon decided to store some of their surplus for those lean times. From their own village, town or city there might be a bad person who stooped to theft. Thieves could come from neighboring populations. This required someone to be in charge of a granary; someone to care for it, watch it, dole it out when necessary.
It also made necessary such new inventions as police forces and armies. These people couldn’t devote the necessary time to farming but had to take some of the surplus to survive. The keepers of the granaries appear to have become chieftains, lords and, eventually, local kings. As the communities grew and the leaders became accustomed to special status, their appetites grew.
They became rulers. They wanted special clothing and other adornments. They had friends and relatives who deserved special treatment, as well. This required craftsmen who wouldn’t have time for farming either. They needed a share of that surplus.
The king needed a great wall or an impressive pyramid or something else to impress the people. So, it was necessary to impress them into corvée. This resulted in less surplus while the demands on the surplus grew. Sometimes the king needed to expand his kingdom. His ego needed a boost but for the people it just added to the load to be borne.
Those farmers who had a surplus and leisure time now were subsisting on what was left after the elite took all of the surplus, and more. Their leisure time was spent on required, unpaid labor for the gratification of the elite. What began as a boon became a burden.
It is interesting to find large numbers of stone knives in the Indus Valley when it was in the midst of its Bronze Age. While the elite had the advantages of metal implements and the soldiery had metal weapons, chariot parts and such, the common people were forcibly kept in the Neolithic Age.
The result of this mismanagement of resources was the demise of civilizations and disappearance of great empires. I haven’t analyzed every fall of empire but would rate this as the primary cause of most and at least a contributing factor in the remainder. There may be other factors even when this is the primary culprit.
It happened in the Indus Valley. It happened to Sargon the Great and his successors. It happened to at least two, perhaps three, of Pharonic Egyptian civilizations. It happened to the Mayan, possibly their predecessors, the Olmec, and likely their successors.
Sometimes the end comes by just a total collapse. More often, a neighboring power provides the coup de grâce. These usurpers would not have the capacity to bring down the great, over-the-hill power had it not destroyed its own power, its own economy. In a nutshell, the elite overreached. Their own egos and pleasures blinded them to the reality of how vulnerable was the house of cards upon which their delusions were based.
Does that sound familiar?
My late wife died in 1974. She never had to work outside the home. A single income was sufficient. But, 1973 was the peak for average income in the US, adjusted for inflation.
As a bank supervisor in Los Angeles, we scraped by. Moving to Atlanta, our prospects improved. From 1966 to 1973 we bought three new houses; each larger than the previous one. We bought three new cars. We went on multiple foreign trips each year. Sure, I worked for Delta and the flights were free but the hotels and car rentals weren’t. I also began taking flying lessons; acquiring my commercial license with instrument and multi-engine ratings. I also returned to college. The money was always there.
That was not bragging. That was just to remind you of how our economy used to be. The jobs I had at Delta were ramp rat, passenger service agent, auditor of the caterer and meal planner for all flights out of Atlanta and computer programmer. What happened to the average income earner?
There was an oil embargo in 1973. There was another in 1979. They caused a considerable hiccup in the economy. Then came St. Ronny.
He gave us Supply Side and Trickle Down economics. He also gave us Arthur Laffer’s curve and Milton Friedman’s calcified theories. David Stockman, Reagan’s economic guru left the administration in due time and wrote a book. In that book he admitted that it really was Voodoo economics and that they knew it while they were selling it.
We went from the largest exporter of manufactured goods to the largest importer; from the largest importer of raw materials to the largest exporter; from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor. All this transpired from 1981 to the end of the last administration. Without a major war or extraordinary economic trauma, Reagan increased the debt by 189%. Those who remember those years fondly should remember that they were paid for by credit card. The bill has come due.
The simpletons that followed in the Clinton administration were of the same ilk and, though the numbers show a modest improvement, it was nothing to be proud of. Rubin, Summers, Greenspan and Gramm provided the finishing touches. The present administration’s economic team belongs to the same club. Does it seem odd that the malefactors that brought us this latest disaster get trillions of tax dollars while aid to the poor for heating oil is cut? Multi-billion dollar bonuses for the elite while the dedicated teacher of your children is taking a cut?
While we were becoming a 3rd-world country and tax breaks were given to corporations for exporting jobs, the income and wealth differential of the elite and the bottom 80% grew almost exponentially. The signs and portents of demise that the elites of the great civilizations and empires of the past ignored have been ignored by our very own special people.
What comes next? One guess. When will it happen? I don’t want to spoil your fun by giving the exact date. You might run out and sell every US equity short.
Have a nice day.
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When you see states such as Wisconsin and here in Ohio trying to take away collective bargaining rights of public employees, it brings home what you are saying. I am admittedly biased because my daughter is a teacher, but I, too, hate to see teachers’ salaries being cut while the shysters in the financial community are getting oscene bonuses for actions that are destroying our economy. At least part of the problem is the different jurisdictions involved. The Wall Street shysters are supposedly regulated by the Federal government. Teachers are paid by local communities and regulated by the states. The… Read more »
Taking away collective bargaining rights isn’t an answer. It’s a further attempt to destroy the middle class, to put down everyone not of the elite. While old Harry S. Truman is commonly given the credit, it was George Santayana who told us, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I guess History is not a required subject in those Ivy League schools. Everyone, repeat, everyone has benefited from the unions. They fought for 40-hour weeks, vacations, livable wages, holidays and a host of other things we have gotten used to. They fought against child labor… Read more »
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