The Economics of Perpetual war
The Economics of Perpetual War“We might look at the inflation issue from another angle, in that economists have pointed out that periods of inflation seem to coincide with those of war. The causes of this confluence appear complex and may include price gouging by those who sell to the government, fear and panic which cause people to inflate prices to secure their economic position, a premium built into prices to compensate for a general atmosphere of economic uncertainty, or the sudden influx of new money due to precipitate government borrowing. Probably all these factors play a role. If we look again at the history of price inflation since 1915, we discern a pronounced increase in prices during the periods of World War I and World War II. This would tend to confirm the hypothesis of a link with inflation. But what about the wave of higher inflation since 1965? What is unique about this period is that the nation has been in a state of permanent war mobilization since the Vietnam conflict. A considerable amount of economic research would be needed to test the hypothesis that the high level of defense spending has in fact caused the high inflation, but such a study would be worthwhile.
Another hypothesis might be added which would be difficult to measure but which should also be considered. This is that money spent on permanent war mobilization is essentially non-productive in terms of producing goods and services of value to the larger civilian economy; i.e., it has a relatively low multiplier effect. Wartime spending may also be less able to call forth the type of scientific research and development needed to improve the economy in most aspects of everyday life. We never got the 'peace dividend' we were told would result from the end of the Cold War. Instead, the military-industrial complex pressed forward without missing a heartbeat until now the War on Terror and possible future wars against Iran and other nations offer new justification for perpetual war mobilization.” Inflation and the Federal Reserve by Richard C. Cook www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6966
When George W Bu$h was campaigning for the presidency in 2000 he spoke repeatedly of the need for enhanced military spending and defense. When I heard that I remember thinking to myself, “What is this man talking about? Why is there a need for more military spending now given the ‘Cold War’ is over?” Now every thing he said back then makes perfect sense. Bu$h was speaking in code to his fellow fascists letting them know what was coming down the pike. He or more importantly his handlers and the NeoCon warmongers were planning to implement their blueprint for the expansion of the AmeriKKKan Empire or what they called “The New American Century”. I suggest you review the documents of the Project For a New American Century’s goal for global hegemony entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses Strategy, Forces and Resources For A New Century at www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf. There you will see the class and ethnic megalomaniacal rationals behind AmeriKKKa’s current “foreign policies” that drive these psychopaths. When you couple this with Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force you can see why things are going the way they are. 9-11 was the timely and convenient pretext they used to launch a program of perpetual global resource wars, Middle Eastern geo-strategic power plays and imperialist Zionist sycophancy the Bu$h administration euphemistically calls The Global War on Terror.
To get the masses (the suckers and yahoos) to go along with their plans they would need a “catastrophic catalyzing event” to shock them out of their normal placidity and passivity and catapult them into a crazed state of senseless revenge. That event was 9-11. The false flag operation called 9-11 allowed them to ramp up an economy that was already top heavy in military spending with no oversight or outcries of dissent. “The major determinant of the world trend in military expenditure is the change in the USA, which makes up 47 per cent of the world total. US military expenditure has increased rapidly during the period 2002–2004 as a result of massive budgetary allocations for the ‘global war on terrorism’, primarily for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. These have been funded through supplementary appropriations on top of the regular budget. The supplementary appropriations for this purpose allocated to the Department of Defense for financial years 2003–2005 amounted to approximately $238 billion and exceeded the combined military spending of Africa, Latin America, Asia (except Japan but including China) and the Middle East in 2004 ($193 billion in current dollars), that is, of the entire developing world. Thus, while regular military spending has also increased in the USA as well as in several other countries and regions, the main explanation for the current level of and trend in world military spending is the spending on military operations abroad by the USA, and to a lesser extent by its coalition partners.” http://yearbook2005.sipri.org/ch8/ch8
Keep in mind that was a 2005 report. The military gets even more inordinate funding every year. As we see every year the Bu$h administration and the spineless Democratic go-alongs in Congress are willing to sink AmeriKKKa deeper and deeper in debt to keep their beneficiaries in the military-industrial-technology complex and the private bankers afloat. “While FY 2008 budget requests for US military spending are known, for most other countries, the most recent data is from 2005 (at time of writing). Using US spending at that time, we can compare US military spending with the rest of the world: The US military spending was almost two-fifths of the total. The US military spending was almost 7 times larger than the Chinese budget, the second largest spender. The US military budget was almost 29 times as large as the combined spending of the six ‘rogue’ states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $14.65 billion. It was more than the combined spending of the next 14 nations. The United States and its close allies accounted for some two thirds to three-quarters of all military spending, depending on who you count as close allies (typically NATO countries, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan and South Korea) The six potential ‘enemies,’ Russia, and China together spent $139 billion, 30% of the U.S. military budget.” www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/
In his booklet War Is A Racket published in 1935 Major General Smedley D. Butler said “WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.” http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
This is the pattern, this is the scam, it is a continuation of what has always happened after a major war. Since WWII the US ruling elites and their banker buddies decided to remain on a permanent war footing and have invented a series of bogeymen and enemies to keep the con game going. In his 1961 farewell speech President Dwight D Eisenhower warned about the insidiousness of what he called the Military Industrial complex. “But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.”
Too bad we didn’t heed Eisenhower’s warning. Today we see just how pernicious the military-industrial-technology-financial consortium really is. The ruling elites are out to make a fortune off of their warmongering. If you doubt what I’m saying look at the profits of the Carlyle Group! But ultimately a permanent war economy is self-defeating as a cursory review of all Western Empires will show. “Another hypothesis might be added which would be difficult to measure but which should also be considered. This is that money spent on permanent war mobilization is essentially non-productive in terms of producing goods and services of value to the larger civilian economy; i.e., it has a relatively low multiplier effect. Wartime spending may also be less able to call forth the type of scientific research and development needed to improve the economy in most aspects of everyday life. We never got the 'peace dividend' we were told would result from the end of the Cold War. Instead, the military-industrial complex pressed forward without missing a heartbeat until now the War on Terror and possible future wars against Iran and other nations offer new justification for perpetual war mobilization.” Inflation and the Federal Reserve by Richard C. Cook www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?
From the spiritual and sociological perspectives the war mongers are leading us all over an abyss. “Jayantha Dhanapala, former UN under secretary-general for disarmament affairs, says the rising global military expenditure is not just diverting precious financial, material and human resources from productive to non-productive pursuits, but also jeopardizing the environment and the prospects for social and economic development.” ibid.
This is where the world currently finds itself. Ths trend will continue until it causes a major implosion given the hubris of the ruling elites and the apathy and cowardice of the AmeriKKKan masses. “The economic question is whether a society permanently at war or always preparing for war has the ability to overcome the natural entropy that will make its production processes less efficient over time. If it cannot, then no amount of reform can solve its problems. We know that no culture in history which has had warfare as its main preoccupation has long survived, unless and until it has seen the error of its ways and changed, or unless it simply was destroyed. Ancient Greece never really recovered after the Peloponnesian Wars. The debt-riddled, socially-stratified Roman Empire exhausted itself in a blaze of military conflict, then saw defeat and dissolution. The British Empire went bankrupt in a single generation from 1914 to 1945. The U.S. is teetering on the edge of a major financial collapse right now. In fact, those with money are quietly trying to secure their wealth while the unfortunate ones who are heavily mortgaged or locked into inflexible retirement accounts may be left holding the bag. Can the American Empire survive the economic forces that doomed the empires of the past? Or will what some call the ‘New American Century’ turn into the ‘No American Century’?" Inflation and the Federal Reserve by Richard C. Cook http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6966
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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 8:23 PM
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