Imperial overstretch
Writing by abuhatem on Sunday, 12 of October , 2008 at 6:36 pm
… while we go bankrupt bailing out Wall Street. Here is the request, via CQPolitics.
In principle, if the money would be used for its proper use - defense - rather than offense, a strong national defense is not a bad thing at all. Its imperial overstretch, and the debt-based financing that goes along with it, that is counterproductive in our defense. Two great articles on this today, one in the New York Times, and the other by the great international relations scholar Paul Kennedy makes this clear in today’s Times of London:
The American republic, like the feckless kings of Bourbon France, has not been able to pay its way in the world from its own resources. For years the federal government’s expenditures have far exceeded its revenues. Each month that horrible gap has been covered only by the sale of treasury bonds (five-year, 10-year, 30-year promises to repay), chiefly to foreigners, chiefly nowadays to Asian governments and banks…
If that happens, further cracks will start to appear in the American imperial edifice. They will be patched up by congressional and presidential plasterwork in a desperate effort to keep this gigantic, alarmingly unbalanced road show on the tracks for a few more years at least. But the inner fissures will be there.
Category: American Politics, Economics, International Relations
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