Debt and Power - Michael Hudson
Undermining public finance to drive privatization
FED’s $10 Trillion Defends Assets of the Rich – Michael Hudson
https://michael-hudson.com/2020/07/a-battle-plan-so-subtle-it-sends-you-to-sleep/
Can we still spend more than $2 billion a day on the military while citizens go homeless and hungry? Subsidize incredibly wealthy corporations like Boeing with billions in grants? Allow politicians to load up appropriations bills with pork projects?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/13/time-to-face-and-plan-for-our-very-different-future/
Military contractors are in ALL 50 states and every political district to ensure that the huge military budget keeps going to private contractors. It's the biggest corporate-state spending system on Earth. Not to mention the $22 trillion that got stolen from other government agencies for military black budget projects. The problem is that military spending is a very inefficient means of job creation and the US Empire with 900 military bases in other countries is way over extended - the rate of return on investment (with $1 million spent on each soldier/mercenary) is way too low. So there's no way the military spending will be reduced - in fact both political parties gladly increase the spending. https://www.warresisters.org/resources/pie-chart-flyers-where-your-income-tax-money-really-goes so https://www.warresisters.org/sites/default/files/fy2021piechart.pdf 47% of government spending is to the military as the economy.
yes Professor Michael E. Hudson has the best understanding of the US economy as an Imperial PetroDollar. So yes 50% of the US economy is government spending but mainly for military contractors to prop up the PetroDollar and cheap labor abroad for US corporate profits (also hidden abroad).
Until you interview katherine austin fitts from the Solari report or watch her presentation https://youtu.be/w0mimIp8mr8 you will only understand a very small amount of what the us government spent all those trillions on. Her group found over 21 trillion of off balance sheet spending at the pentagon an d.o.d. the federal reserve has an unlimited balance sheets. I said sheets their is a rumor that there is second balance sheet that only a few have seen. 40 to 90 trillion on it possibly. Katherine austin fitts was the under sec to the head of H.U.D during Bush 1. Lockheed Martin always gets paid. Never forget that.
yes even the Military which is the biggest socialist system in the world - now relies on importing mercenaries from abroad as cheap labor. So racial preference is not just for liberals - well unless you mean Cold War Liberals which is what most liberals are - of the Hubert H. Humphrey lineage. We have 900 military bases in other countries since US corporations make most of their profits in OTHER countries. Liberals support the NAFTA global slave labor system but propping up the socialist ($1 million per soldier) system is just too inefficient. Same thing happened to the Roman Empire, etc. Just over extended - so now we have Imperial Implosion.
The ponzi scheme of inflated asset prices that existed in 2008. "It’s nearly $14 trillion pyramid of super leveraged toxic assets was built on the back of $1.4 trillion of US sub-prime loans, and dispersed throughout the world" All the Presidents Bankers, Nomi Prins. When this little lot lost almost all its value overnight, the Western banking system became insolvent. Western taxpayers had to recapitalise the banks and make up for all the losses the bankers had made on bad loans they had made to inflate asset prices.
1929 – Wakey, wakey time In the 1930s, they pondered over where all that wealth had gone to in 1929 and realised inflating asset prices doesn’t create real wealth, they came up with the GDP measure to track real wealth creation in the economy. The transfer of existing assets, like stocks and real estate, doesn’t create real wealth and therefore does not add to GDP. The real wealth creation in the economy is measured by GDP. Inflated asset prices aren’t real wealth, and this can disappear almost over-night, as it did in 1929 and 2008. Real wealth creation involves real work, producing new goods and services in the economy.
yes Lincoln's Greenbacks and JFK attempted a similar plan but now we have the opposite direction with the Private Fed actually directly buying up private debt and the debt of Federally issued mortgages (Freddie/Fannie). So California is trying to set up a public state bank as North Dakota already has but the FED relies on the US Empire. So the goal is to keep the dollar stronger against 900 military bases in other countries dependent on buying oil in US currency and thus getting their loans also in US currency and thereby having to payback their debts in US currency and thereby investing their extra US dollars back into the US treasury or Wall St. So the FED really doesn't care about the US proper since most US corporations make most profits in OTHER countries. The word "empire" doesn't get mentioned much in regards to the US on the news. Kind of funny.
Since FED assets are so high already that means the FED can NOT raise interest rates so therefore the Treasury rates are so low. So traditionally the interest rate on Treasury bonds is supposed to be 6% long term. That is what the FED is supposed to pay themselves. The "agreement" is for the FED to reinvest their profits back into buying more US Treasury bonds. YES foreign governments now own more US treasury bonds as they need to spend their US dollars as the US empire is based on the global Petro-Dollar. But with the FED already almost doubling their assets by printing money and buying up bad debt - whether it's government or private - this means its completely impossible for the US dollar value to go up. Because if the US dollar value goes up then the Treasury interest rate is too high to pay off the bonds.
So as a private bank the FED tries to make a profit by purchasing more private assets off Wall St. now which previously was not what the FED did - so the commercial Mortgage securities bonds are now being bought up by the FED and this is creating a big concern of Deflation of the Real Estate market as another bubble as the loan rates are being kept close to zero. So there is really no way out of the Debt Deflation problem since the FED has just created so much money out of nothing and then the Private Sector has just used that money to prop up the Wall St. Welfare system of stock prices as financial speculation. Stock Buybacks used to be illegal but now they are the primary means of increasing stock values - so none of it is the "real" economy. The US government primarily spends the money on the military which is a very inefficient means of creating jobs or even extracting wealth anymore.
Debt Deflation is because the increased money supply is going to financial speculation assets NOT the real economy. HyperInflation would be if labor was getting paid more but in fact real wages have barely increased in the past 40 years while rents (financial prices) have skyrocketed. So for example with the recent "stimulus" money it was discovered that it did not cause inflation since most people spent it on basic needs without increasing any consumer demand (gas, food and rent).
US corporations make more profits OUTSIDE the US. It's an Empire. That's why the CIA is the biggest drug dealer (through assets), etc. Yep - http://arctic-news.blogspot.com soon it will be too hot for photosynthesis on Earth.
yes
"Under the Budget Control Act, this spending should have been capped at $630 billion. The $761.7 billion proposed for the 2020 budget is, however, only the beginning of the story."
debt spending costs and past military costs - which is another half of the military costs. That's just the reality of it.
Veterans’ Benefits $236 billion• Interest on national debt $460 billion (80% est. to be created by military spending)
Non-DoD Military Spending:*• Retiree Pay/Healthcare $95 billion• DoE nuke weapons/clean-up $28 billion• NASA (50%) $12 billion• Internl. Security Asst. $13 billion• Homeland Secur. (military) $41 billion• State Dept. (partial) $8 billion• FBI military $12 billion• Treas/Sec Serv/other $11 billion
The military budget was covered up after Vietnam. "America’s Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You Think Each year, Congress approves hundreds of billions of dollars for the US defense budget—but the real number exceeds $1 trillion." https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/tom-dispatch-america-defense-budget-bigger-than-you-think/
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