EUA

[suntsé]

Não sabe de nada.

Mas esse cara aqui manja muito.

Nossa, essa foi legal, hein.

Vou colocar la nos imortais.

[marcelo l.]

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/12/27/the- ... -debt.html

The history of public debt is the very history of national power: how it has been won and how it has been lost. Dreams and impatience have always driven men in power to draw on the resources of others—be it slaves, the inhabitants of occupied lands, or their own children yet to be born—in order to carry out their schemes, to consolidate power, to grow their own fortunes. But never, outside periods of total war, has the debt of the world’s most powerful states grown so immense. Never has it so heavily threatened their political systems and standards of living. Public debt cannot keep growing without unleashing terrible catastrophes.
Anyone saying this today is accused of pessimism. The first signs of economic recovery, harbingers of a supposedly falling debt, are held up to contradict him. Yet we wouldn’t be the first to think ourselves uniquely able to escape the fate of other states felled by their debt, such as the Republic of Venice, Renaissance Genoa, or the Empire of Spain.

The history of public debt is intimately tied to the evolution of the state itself. In the ancient empires—Babylon, Egypt, China—rulers must at least occasionally have found it necessary to borrow on the expectation of future conquests, harvests, or taxes. But it’s in Greece where the first known records of sovereign loans appeared in the 5th century B.C. With insufficient taxes and war booty to finance their military campaigns in the Peloponnesian War, the Greek city-states took to borrowing from the religious authorities, who had been hoarding temple offerings from the faithful. The debt habit quickly spread throughout the Greek city-states, and the hubris of debt played no small part in the erosion of Hellenic power and the rise of Rome.
Government borrowing continued, although during the entire first millennium A.D. it remained the exclusive right of princes, motivated—and reimbursed—mainly by warfare. Debt did not become truly “public” until national authority became something separate from the person of the prince. Once sovereignty finally became embodied as a state, an abstract and immortal entity, a nation’s debt could be carried over from one ruler to the next. This distinction, between the signer and the entity he represents, first appeared in Europe’s only stable organizations at the time: Christian religious orders. The first known institutional loan was contracted by the English monastery of Evesham in 1205.
The distinction proved useful and soon caught on in the Italian city-states. From the 13th to the 15th century, the princes and shipowners who governed Venice, Florence, and Genoa never stopped borrowing from merchants in order to finance their wars against one another for commercial supremacy. It was the Italians who invented the public treasury. In 1262, Reniero Zeno, Doge of Venice, explicitly allocated debt to the city, confiding its management to a specialized bureaucracy called Il Monte. His innovation quickly found imitators in rival Italian city-states and beyond.
With the rise of public treasuries came instruments for a more sophisticated management of public debt. Moratoriums, inflation, and defaults became stages of the debt cycle, and this inexorable pattern kept repeating itself, sometimes disrupted by revolutions, as in 18th-century France. Ruined by the Seven Years’ War and aid to the rebels in the American Revolution, the French kingdom was on the verge of bankruptcy. In 1787, public debt reached 80 percent of GDP and debt servicing accounted for 42 percent of state revenue. The taxpayers at the time—the bourgeoisie—took fright. What happened next is schoolbook history: finance minister Jacques Necker attempted a last-ditch effort to cut budgets and stabilize the deficit, Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General, and the French Revolution erupted.

cross the Atlantic, meanwhile, the leaders of the newly independent United States of America were struggling to manage the consequences of their own revolution. The rebels had taken out loans to finance the War of Independence, and now the young federal state had to decide how to deal with the public debt. The matter was settled on June 20, 1790, over dinner in New York. Alexander Hamilton conceded the establishment of the national capital in a neutral location; in exchange, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison agreed to roll the individual states’ war debts into bonds to be underwritten by the new federal government. In a sense, Washington, D.C., and America’s public debt were twins.
The American and French revolutions opened a new phase in the history of debt. With power now in the people’s hands, state spending grew to cover a wide range of public services: transportation, communication, police, health care, education, even retirement. These new needs drove more and more borrowing, resulting in the creation of ever-more-sophisticated financial instruments. But trouble arose as the amount of borrowing spawned doubt about governments’ capacity to repay, leading markets to demand ever-larger returns. Faced with unsustainable debt, states often simply defaulted. Between 1800 and 2009, the world experienced more than 300 national defaults, some on all debt, others only on the debt held by foreigners. That mortal combat between states and markets is now transfixing the world. Each side is anxiously watching the other’s every move.
How do we break the deadlock? The first step is to recognize that the worst is possible. History provides lessons. The first concerns the very nature of public debt: it is an obligation handed down from the present generation to future ones. The latter must always pay, one way or another—which is why public debt is acceptable only under certain conditions. First, it is tolerable only if you anticipate that future generations will be large and rich. Second, it is legitimate only if it finances forward-looking investment. Public debt can encourage growth and help make future generations richer. But for that, one must parse unwise debt (debt that finances running costs) from intelligent debt (public infrastructure for energy, transport, health care, or education).
History also teaches that public debt must be handled carefully even when it’s intelligent debt and even when the borrowing is moderate. Nobody can predict what will trigger a sovereign debt crisis because in practice such crises arise more from a subjective loss of confidence than the crossing of any specific threshold. But history has shown that almost all excessively indebted states eventually default. France did it six times, including the notorious 1797 Bankruptcy of the Two Thirds, in which the government repudiated 67 percent of the national debt. Some states have actually collapsed under sovereign debt crises: Venice in 1490, Genoa in 1555, Spain in 1650, and Amsterdam in 1770.
Still, accumulating excessive debt is far too easy. Spending naturally rises faster than revenue. But once the fatal spiral begins, how can a state escape disaster? There are only eight options: (1) higher taxes; (2) less spending; (3) more growth; (4) more lenient interest rates; (5) worse inflation; (6) war; (7) external aid; or (8) default. All eight options have been used in the past, but only one of them is both plausible and desirable today: growth. A growing economy (which raises tax revenue) permits the absorption of debt and restores sustainable public finances. Then borrowing can resume—if it will encourage further growth. Responsible governments do not finance their everyday expenses by borrowing, and they keep their investments at a level they can repay.
History offers one final lesson. The power of sovereign states can foster a sense of impunity that encourages excessive debt. In the past, sovereign states have sometimes rid themselves of creditors by simply driving them out (as they did repeatedly with Europe’s Jews), by tormenting them, or by simply refusing to pay. When modern states borrow from a range of anonymous investors on global markets, sovereign immunity protects their assets against seizure—China cannot seize the White House as collateral for U.S. Treasury debt. But creditors can still negotiate, even with sovereign debtors. When a state loses the market’s confidence, the threat of a financial cutoff is a jolt back to reality. Just ask Greece, as its leaders scramble to reduce its public deficit as quickly as possible. The West needs to wake up now, shake off the yoke of public debt, and take the path of liberty. That path is long and difficult. It means balancing budgets and stabilizing the financial sector. But the great reward will be a return to confidence and growth—for those who put in the effort, and for those with the audacity to see it through.

[marcelo l.]

Quem tiver muito tempo...tem esse download aqui


The First Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR): Leading Through Civilian Power

http://www.state.gov/s/dmr/qddr/

[marcelo l.]

Bárbaros ameaçando Washington

[pafuncio]

É a Palin, né ????

[suntsé]

É a Palin, né ????

È ela mesmo, so agora que você falou é que me dei conta.-

[EDSON]

Deus tenha piedade do Mundo se ela chegar na Presidencia dos EUA.

[cabeça de martelo]

Já lá tivemos alguém tão burro quanto ela e o mundo não acabou...ok quase que ia, mas não acabou. Agora temos alguém bastante inteligente e alguém sentiu alguma diferença? Eu não.

[EDSON]

Uma gostosa maluca com 1200 ogivas na mão? Bem, acho que posso dormir tranquilo.

[suntsé]

Uma gostosa maluca com 1200 ogivas na mão? Bem, acho que posso dormir tranquilo.

Que preconceito em prezado Edison.

Para ser responsável tem que ser feia?

[Ilya Ehrenburg]

Uma gostosa maluca com 1200 ogivas na mão? Bem, acho que posso dormir tranquilo.

Essa conversa tá boa. Muito boa!

[PRick]

Já lá tivemos alguém tão burro quanto ela e o mundo não acabou...ok quase que ia, mas não acabou. Agora temos alguém bastante inteligente e alguém sentiu alguma diferença? Eu não.

Ele liquidou com os EUA, ela pode liquidar com o mundo. Dois burros é demais até para os EUA!!

[]´s

[marcelo l.]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... an_decline

This time it's different. It's certainly true that America has been through cycles of declinism in the past. Campaigning for the presidency in 1960, John F. Kennedy complained, "American strength relative to that of the Soviet Union has been slipping, and communism has been advancing steadily in every area of the world." Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One was published in 1979, heralding a decade of steadily rising paranoia about Japanese manufacturing techniques and trade policies.

In the end, of course, the Soviet and Japanese threats to American supremacy proved chimerical. So Americans can be forgiven if they greet talk of a new challenge from China as just another case of the boy who cried wolf. But a frequently overlooked fact about that fable is that the boy was eventually proved right. The wolf did arrive -- and China is the wolf.

The Chinese challenge to the United States is more serious for both economic and demographic reasons. The Soviet Union collapsed because its economic system was highly inefficient, a fatal flaw that was disguised for a long time because the USSR never attempted to compete on world markets. China, by contrast, has proved its economic prowess on the global stage. Its economy has been growing at 9 to 10 percent a year, on average, for roughly three decades. It is now the world's leading exporter and its biggest manufacturer, and it is sitting on more than $2.5 trillion of foreign reserves. Chinese goods compete all over the world. This is no Soviet-style economic basket case.

Japan, of course, also experienced many years of rapid economic growth and is still an export powerhouse. But it was never a plausible candidate to be No. 1. The Japanese population is less than half that of the United States, which means that the average Japanese person would have to be more than twice as rich as the average American before Japan's economy surpassed America's. That was never going to happen. By contrast, China's population is more than four times that of the United States. The famous projection by Goldman Sachs that China's economy will be bigger than that of the United States by 2027 was made before the 2008 economic crash. At the current pace, China could be No. 1 well before then.

China's economic prowess is already allowing Beijing to challenge American influence all over the world. The Chinese are the preferred partners of many African governments and the biggest trading partner of other emerging powers, such as Brazil and South Africa. China is also stepping in to buy the bonds of financially strapped members of the eurozone, such as Greece and Portugal.

And China is only the largest part of a bigger story about the rise of new economic and political players. America's traditional allies in Europe -- Britain, France, Italy, even Germany -- are slipping down the economic ranks. New powers are on the rise: India, Brazil, Turkey. They each have their own foreign-policy preferences, which collectively constrain America's ability to shape the world. Think of how India and Brazil sided with China at the global climate-change talks. Or the votes by Turkey and Brazil against America at the United Nations on sanctions against Iran. That is just a taste of things to come.

Don't count on it. It is certainly true that when Americans are worrying about national decline, they tend to overlook the weaknesses of their scariest-looking rival. The flaws in the Soviet and Japanese systems became obvious only in retrospect. Those who are confident that American hegemony will be extended long into the future point to the potential liabilities of the Chinese system. In a recent interview with the Times of London, former U.S. President George W. Bush suggested that China's internal problems mean that its economy will be unlikely to rival America's in the foreseeable future. "Do I still think America will remain the sole superpower?" he asked. "I do."

But predictions of the imminent demise of the Chinese miracle have been a regular feature of Western analysis ever since it got rolling in the late 1970s. In 1989, the Communist Party seemed to be staggering after the Tiananmen Square massacre. In the 1990s, economy watchers regularly pointed to the parlous state of Chinese banks and state-owned enterprises. Yet the Chinese economy has kept growing, doubling in size roughly every seven years.

Of course, it would be absurd to pretend that China does not face major challenges. In the short term, there is plenty of evidence that a property bubble is building in big cities like Shanghai, and inflation is on the rise. Over the long term, China has alarming political and economic transitions to navigate. The Communist Party is unlikely to be able to maintain its monopoly on political power forever. And the country's traditional dependence on exports and an undervalued currency are coming under increasing criticism from the United States and other international actors demanding a "rebalancing" of China's export-driven economy. The country also faces major demographic and environmental challenges: The population is aging rapidly as a result of the one-child policy, and China is threatened by water shortages and pollution.

Yet even if you factor in considerable future economic and political turbulence, it would be a big mistake to assume that the Chinese challenge to U.S. power will simply disappear. Once countries get the hang of economic growth, it takes a great deal to throw them off course. The analogy to the rise of Germany from the mid-19th century onward is instructive. Germany went through two catastrophic military defeats, hyperinflation, the Great Depression, the collapse of democracy, and the destruction of its major cities and infrastructure by Allied bombs. And yet by the end of the 1950s, West Germany was once again one of the world's leading economies, albeit shorn of its imperial ambitions.

In a nuclear age, China is unlikely to get sucked into a world war, so it will not face turbulence and disorder on remotely the scale Germany did in the 20th century. And whatever economic and political difficulties it does experience will not be enough to stop the country's rise to great-power status. Sheer size and economic momentum mean that the Chinese juggernaut will keep rolling forward, no matter what obstacles lie in its path.

or now. As things stand, America has the world's largest economy, the world's leading universities, and many of its biggest companies. The U.S. military is also incomparably more powerful than any rival. The United States spends almost as much on its military as the rest of the world put together. And let's also add in America's intangible assets. The country's combination of entrepreneurial flair and technological prowess has allowed it to lead the technological revolution. Talented immigrants still flock to U.S. shores. And now that Barack Obama is in the White House, the country's soft power has received a big boost. For all his troubles, polls show Obama is still the most charismatic leader in the world; Hu Jintao doesn't even come close. America also boasts the global allure of its creative industries (Hollywood and all that), its values, the increasing universality of the English language, and the attractiveness of the American Dream.

All true -- but all more vulnerable than you might think. American universities remain a formidable asset. But if the U.S. economy is not generating jobs, then those bright Asian graduate students who fill up the engineering and computer-science departments at Stanford University and MIT will return home in larger numbers. Fortune's latest ranking of the world's largest companies has only two American firms in the top 10 -- Walmart at No. 1 and ExxonMobil at No. 3. There are already three Chinese firms in the top 10: Sinopec, State Grid, and China National Petroleum. America's appeal might also diminish if the country is no longer so closely associated with opportunity, prosperity, and success. And though many foreigners are deeply attracted to the American Dream, there is also a deep well of anti-American sentiment in the world that al Qaeda and others have skillfully exploited, Obama or no Obama.

As for the U.S. military, the lesson of the Iraq and Afghan wars is that America's martial prowess is less useful than former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others imagined. U.S. troops, planes, and missiles can overthrow a government on the other side of the world in weeks, but pacifying and stabilizing a conquered country is another matter. Years after apparent victory, America is still bogged down by an apparently endless insurgency in Afghanistan.

Not only are Americans losing their appetite for foreign adventures, but the U.S. military budget is clearly going to come under pressure in this new age of austerity. The present paralysis in Washington offers little hope that the United States will deal with its budgetary problems swiftly or efficiently. The U.S. government's continuing reliance on foreign lending makes the country vulnerable, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's humbling 2009 request to the Chinese to keep buying U.S. Treasury bills revealed. America is funding its military supremacy through deficit spending, meaning the war in Afghanistan is effectively being paid for with a Chinese credit card. Little wonder that Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has identified the burgeoning national debt as the single largest threat to U.S. national security.

Meanwhile, China's spending on its military continues to grow rapidly. The country will soon announce the construction of its first aircraft carrier and is aiming to build five or six in total. Perhaps more seriously, China's development of new missile and anti-satellite technology threatens the command of the sea and skies on which the United States bases its Pacific supremacy. In a nuclear age, the U.S. and Chinese militaries are unlikely to clash. A common Chinese view is that the United States will instead eventually find it can no longer afford its military position in the Pacific. U.S. allies in the region -- Japan, South Korea, and increasingly India -- may partner more with Washington to try to counter rising Chinese power. But if the United States has to scale back its presence in the Pacific for budgetary reasons, its allies will start to accommodate themselves to a rising China. Beijing's influence will expand, and the Asia-Pacific region -- the emerging center of the global economy -- will become China's backyard.

ot really. One reason why the United States was relaxed about China's rise in the years after the end of the Cold War was the deeply ingrained belief that globalization was spreading Western values. Some even thought that globalization and Americanization were virtually synonymous.

Pundit Fareed Zakaria was prescient when he wrote that the "rise of the rest" (i.e., non-American powers) would be one of the major features of a "post-American world." But even Zakaria argued that this trend was essentially beneficial to the United States: "The power shift … is good for America, if approached properly. The world is going America's way. Countries are becoming more open, market-friendly, and democratic."

Both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton took a similar view that globalization and free trade would serve as a vehicle for the export of American values. In 1999, two years before China's accession to the World Trade Organization, Bush argued, "Economic freedom creates habits of liberty. And habits of liberty create expectations of democracy.… Trade freely with China, and time is on our side."

There were two important misunderstandings buried in this theorizing. The first was that economic growth would inevitably -- and fairly swiftly -- lead to democratization. The second was that new democracies would inevitably be more friendly and helpful toward the United States. Neither assumption is working out.

In 1989, after the Tiananmen Square massacre, few Western analysts would have believed that 20 years later China would still be a one-party state -- and that its economy would also still be growing at phenomenal rates. The common (and comforting) Western assumption was that China would have to choose between political liberalization and economic failure. Surely a tightly controlled one-party state could not succeed in the era of cell phones and the World Wide Web? As Clinton put it during a visit to China in 1998, "In this global information age, when economic success is built on ideas, personal freedom is … essential to the greatness of any modern nation."

In fact, China managed to combine censorship and one-party rule with continuing economic success over the following decade. The confrontation between the Chinese government and Google in 2010 was instructive. Google, that icon of the digital era, threatened to withdraw from China in protest at censorship, but it eventually backed down in return for token concessions. It is now entirely conceivable that when China becomes the world's largest economy -- let us say in 2027 -- it will still be a one-party state run by the Communist Party.

And even if China does democratize, there is absolutely no guarantee that this will make life easier for the United States, let alone prolong America's global hegemony. The idea that democracies are liable to agree on the big global issues is now being undermined on a regular basis. India does not agree with the United States on climate change or the Doha round of trade talks. Brazil does not agree with the United States on how to handle Venezuela or Iran. A more democratic Turkey is today also a more Islamist Turkey, which is now refusing to take the American line on either Israel or Iran. In a similar vein, a more democratic China might also be a more prickly China, if the popularity of nationalist books and Internet sites in the Middle Kingdom is any guide.

Don't be too sure. Successive U.S. presidents, from the first Bush to Obama, have explicitly welcomed China's rise. Just before his first visit to China, Obama summarized the traditional approach when he said, "Power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another.… We welcome China's efforts to play a greater role on the world stage."

But whatever they say in formal speeches, America's leaders are clearly beginning to have their doubts, and rightly so. It is a central tenet of modern economics that trade is mutually beneficial for both partners, a win-win rather than a zero-sum. But that implies the rules of the game aren't rigged. Speaking before the 2010 World Economic Forum, Larry Summers, then Obama's chief economic advisor, remarked pointedly that the normal rules about the mutual benefits of trade do not necessarily apply when one trading partner is practicing mercantilist or protectionist policies. The U.S. government clearly thinks that China's undervaluation of its currency is a form of protectionism that has led to global economic imbalances and job losses in the United States. Leading economists, such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and the Peterson Institute's C. Fred Bergsten, have taken a similar line, arguing that tariffs or other retaliatory measures would be a legitimate response. So much for the win-win world.

And when it comes to the broader geopolitical picture, the world of the future looks even more like a zero-sum game, despite the gauzy rhetoric of globalization that comforted the last generation of American politicians. For the United States has been acting as if the mutual interests created by globalization have repealed one of the oldest laws of international politics: the notion that rising players eventually clash with established powers.

In fact, rivalry between a rising China and a weakened America is now apparent across a whole range of issues, from territorial disputes in Asia to human rights. It is mercifully unlikely that the United States and China would ever actually go to war, but that is because both sides have nuclear weapons, not because globalization has magically dissolved their differences.

At the G-20 summit in November, the U.S. drive to deal with "global economic imbalances" was essentially thwarted by China's obdurate refusal to change its currency policy. The 2009 climate-change talks in Copenhagen ended in disarray after another U.S.-China standoff. Growing Chinese economic and military clout clearly poses a long-term threat to American hegemony in the Pacific. The Chinese reluctantly agreed to a new package of U.N. sanctions on Iran, but the cost of securing Chinese agreement was a weak deal that is unlikely to derail the Iranian nuclear program. Both sides have taken part in the talks with North Korea, but a barely submerged rivalry prevents truly effective Sino-American cooperation. China does not like Kim Jong Il's regime, but it is also very wary of a reunified Korea on its borders, particularly if the new Korea still played host to U.S. troops. China is also competing fiercely for access to resources, in particular oil, which is driving up global prices.

American leaders are right to reject zero-sum logic in public. To do anything else would needlessly antagonize the Chinese. But that shouldn't obscure this unavoidable fact: As economic and political power moves from West to East, new international rivalries are inevitably emerging.

The United States still has formidable strengths. Its economy will eventually recover. Its military has a global presence and a technological edge that no other country can yet match. But America will never again experience the global dominance it enjoyed in the 17 years between the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 and the financial crisis of 2008. Those days are over.

[marcelo l.]

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... broke.html

Explaining why America is broke is rather simple. All we have to do is look at two separate and distinct problem areas: public unions and defense spending, then generalize the problem. Let's start with a look at defense spending.

Here's an article on Foreign Affairs magazine by William Pfaaf making a solid case How Militarism Endangers America . The article is subscription, but a decent sized synopsis and lead-in follows:

Summary:

The United States has built a worldwide system of more than 1,000 military bases, stations, and outposts -- a system designed to enhance U.S. national security. It has actually done the opposite, provoking conflict and creating insecurity.

WILLIAM PFAFF wrote a syndicated column that appeared in the International Herald Tribune from 1978 to 2006 and contributed political "Reflections" to The New Yorker from 1971 to 1992. His latest book, The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America's Foreign Policy, was published in June.

[Article Start]

It is time to ask a fundamental question that few government officials or politicians in the United States seem willing to ask: Has it been a terrible error for the United States to have built an all-but-irreversible worldwide system of more than 1,000 military bases, stations, and outposts? This system was created to enhance U.S. national security, but what if it has actually done the opposite, provoking conflict and creating the very insecurity it was intended to prevent?

The most compelling arguments for opposing this system of global bases are political and practical. U.S. military bases have generated apprehension and hostility and fear of the United States, and they have facilitated futile, unnecessary, unprofitable, and self-defeating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and now seem to be inviting enlarged U.S. interventions in Pakistan, Yemen, and the Horn of Africa. The 9/11 attacks, according to Osama bin Laden himself, were provoked by the "blasphemy" of the existence of U.S. military bases in the sacred territories of Saudi Arabia. The global base system, it seems, tends to produce and intensify the very insecurity that is cited to justify it.

AN ACCIDENTAL EMPIRE

The United States' present global military deployment does not seem to be the product of conscious design, nor was it assembled absent-mindedly. In part, it is the natural result of bureaucracy left unchecked. At the end of World War II, a precipitous dismantling of the U.S. wartime deployment was halted only by the outbreak of the Cold War. The United States' intervention in Vietnam brought some base expansion in Southeast Asia, but after its failure in Vietnam, the U.S. military was determined to have nothing further to do with insurgencies and quickly returned to reorganization and retraining for what it still considered its primary mission: classical warfare in Europe in the event of a Soviet invasion. This eventually led to the brilliant blitzkrieg against Iraq in the first Gulf War, fought under the Powell Doctrine of popular support, overwhelming force, focused objectives, and rapid withdrawal.
America's Misdirected Missile

I am 100% in agreement with the synopsis and prelude as presented above. Here is a second article on the same subject. This one is courtesy of the Business Spectator.

Please consider America's Misdirected Missile by Alexander Liddington-Cox.
The latest WikiLeaks scoop for The Age is a cable from the United States embassy in Canberra expressing concern to Washington about Australia's ability to meet its purchases of military equipment. Australia's defence budget currently sits at around $22 billion a year and, apparently, US diplomats were left unimpressed by the efforts of Australia's Defence Materiel Organisation chief Stephen Gumley to explain how Australia would meet its aims to increase military spending, as laid out in the White Paper. While the article didn't reveal whether or not the cable's author appreciated the irony of a US official lecturing anyone about measured military spending, this graph should really be passed on to them – just in case.

While this graph puts the US defence budget at $US711 billion in 2009, that doesn't include a number of "off-budget" items that, on some estimates, push US defence spending above $US1.3 trillion. And yet, America continues to drown in debt with only modest efforts to reign in how much it puts towards guns, tanks and missiles. Now, being the world's superpower invariably comes with a large military budget and sure some cash can go missing. But in 2002, then Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted that on some estimates the Pentagon had lost track of $US2.3 trillion in transactions and there was no way of ascertaining how the money was spent. How long will it be before the US really does something about its own military spending problems?



For a complete graph and additional commentary, please see the article.

There is no rational reason for such spending. So how does it happen? The answer is the same way we are stuck with collective bargaining and absurd public union wages and benefits. Let's compare.

Public Unions

In the case of public unions, union members lobby vociferously for untenable wages and benefit packages. Greedy politicians willing to accept bribes to get reelected, go along. On any threat of reduction in benefits, union organizers get out the vote with massive fear-mongering campaigns promising ruin if they do not get what they want. At election time unions donate massively to candidates willing to back union sponsored agenda. Over time, school boards, city halls, and legislative bodies in general get packed with politicians accepting bribes (campaign contributions) from the unions.

Warmongers

Greedy politicians willing to accept bribes to get reelected, support massive defense budgets. Defense contractors as well as those receiving handouts from defense contractors label anyone not in favor of wars and massive military spending as "soft on defense". With massive fearmongering campaigns, including pictures of nuclear bombs going off, those organizations are able to whip up public sentiment to do whatever they want, which essentially is to spend more on defense. Every soldier in another country is another soldier that needs to be equipped. At election time defense contractors donate massively to candidates willing to waste more money on needless wars that do not need to be fought. Over time, legislative bodies in general get packed with politicians accepting bribes (campaign contributions) from warmongers.

Unfortunately, "compromise" is such that taxpayers get stuck with the worst of both. We have baseless wars and untenable defense spending. We also have untenable collective bargaining rules, untenable social handouts, and untenable union wages and benefits.

General Terms

It's easy to generalize the above example. I received this email from reader "Kevin" after I wrote the above but before I posted it. Kevin had seen the union example above as I had used it previously. Kevin writes ....
Hello Mish

Here is the corporate lobbyist problem in a nutshell:

Organizations of all types lobby vociferously for untenable subsidies and tax breaks. Greedy politicians willing to accept bribes to get reelected, go along. On any threat of reduction in subsidies or increase in taxes, the organizations get out the vote with massive fear-mongering campaigns promising ruin if they do not get what they want. At election time organizations donate massively to candidates willing to back their agenda. Over time, board of directors, city halls, and legislative bodies in general get packed with politicians accepting bribes (campaign contributions) from the organization.
Kevin had written "corporations" but I changed it to "organizations" to be more broad-based. The above describes quite nicely what happened with health care legislation and it sure helps explain earmarks as well.

In case you missed it, please see Interactive Map Showing Where $130 Billion in Earmarks Went, by State, District, and Politician.

The big problems are military spending, public unions, and entitlements. However, problems big and small are everywhere you look, and the process of buying votes and seeking special favors is generally smack in the midst of it all.

Republicans keep campaigning for "small government". It certainly would be nice if they delivered for a change. Unfortunately, Republicans will not give in on military spending (nor will Obama quite sadly), and Democrats won't budge on entitlements.

[Brasileiro]

Se os EUA não estivessem em duas frentes de batalha esses valores seriam bem menores, perto da metade disso.

Os gastos da China e da Rússia são gastos de países que estão em paz e sem nenhuma tropa ou navio mobilizado fora de suas fronteiras.


abraços]