Twisted Economics

The news today is filled with reports of Ben Bernanke’s concurrent fears about inflation and recession. Many economists say that “stagflation” is a better description of our current situation.

The banter back and forth about the effects of the mortgage crisis, the high price of oil, the fall of the dollar and the stalled incomes of the people as opposed to the continuously escalating cost of living.

But through it all, they largely ignore the elephant in the bank vault – the war.

Of course the price of oil keeps climbing. We shut off a good source when we blew into Baghdad and have completely aggravated Iran, not to mention Russia and Venezuela.

Of course the mortgage crisis is crippling us. We opened that marketplace up to abuse when the Congress threw out the restraining regulations that had kept the robber barons in check since the Great Depression.

Of course the dollar is falling. We have angered every nation on the planet in the face of the growing power of the European Union. We drove Saddam Hussein out of power partially because he called for the replacement of the dollar with the Euro as the currency in which oil is valued, but international sentiment, fed up with our arrogance, has continued to move in that direction and the dollar has weakened at least partially as a consequence. The other primary cause is the growth of our debt. As our apparent inability to repay that debt grows, the value of investment in our system wanes.

And at the base of it all lies the fact that we are mired in a war that is costing us astronomical numbers of dollars ($10 billion a month) we don’t have the Gross National Product to support.

A recent AP Poll shows that the American public recognizes the problem. In that poll 68% of Americans think that pulling out of Iraq would improve our economy. It’s interesting that only 18% of Republicans think that. What is it about their government throwing away $10 billion a month that they don’t understand?
Their idea is that a tax cut is the answer.

A tax cut!!! That’s like saying that if you are in a drought, the best thing to do is to throw away whatever water you have on hand! Where do they think the government gets its operating money? Besides arms deals – which are a major form of income – and interest from investment -- which these days is going out not coming in -- tax revenue is IT.

Another argument is that the war is a major contributor to the economy. “Do you realize,” they ask, “how many people would be out of jobs if we stopped the manufacturing and retrofitting that is necessary to support this war?”

Can’t they hear themselves? We have to keep killing Iraqis and putting our own children’s lives at risk. It contributes to our coffers.

Surely there is a better way. Surely our nation could find some constructive ways to fire up its manufacturing base. Surely we would be better off if we stopped the $10 billion monthly hemorrhage on a completely false war.

What would happen to our economy if we applied $5 billion a month to domestic development? How many people could we employ in the development of energy efficient technologies? How many people could we employ in the delivery of services to our own citizens?

What if we went hog wild and cut our military weapons development budget in half? We could do so much for ourselves and the world that we might just surprise everyone by once again becoming the world’s leader instead of being its most feared paraiah.

The first step is the election of a president whose idea of a hero is closer to Ghandi than the Duke.


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle