January 16, 2010

The Approaching Storm

As of the moment I write this, my Southern California home region is awaiting a week-long dousing by Mother Nature. To put it into some kind of a perspective for those of you who have never experienced the Pineapple Express, a one-hit-wonder named Hammond Albert wrote a song entitled IT NEVER RAINS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, later covered by Barry Manilow if you're into his music.

Contained in the chorus are the following lines:

It never rains in California

But girl, don't they warn ya

It pours man it pours.



He isn't kidding. It can and does happen. It's about to happen.

We are told by the Weather Service that we can expect up to 8 inches of rain in Downtown Los Angeles and a foot or more in the mountains over the next seven days. What this will produce is a lot of entertainment for the disaster ghouls who are getting a little bored with the Haitian Earthquake. You will get to see more Hollywood lib'ruls lose their multimillion-dollar Malibu mansions as the ground beneath them collapses from the water. You might even get to see some serious flooding inland, which tends not to happen very often. This storm is likely to affect as many conservative Orange County Republicans who live out the same foolish residential fantasies as their much-maligned political rivals up the coast.

The Populist Manifesto is a political commentary website. I don't provide this report about the coming weather unless there is a connection. The connection is: this nation is facing away from the approach of metaphorical storms which will cause as much havoc (allowing for variances equaling orders of magnitude) as either the Haitian Earthquake or The Great Southern California Flush.

The United States is so deep in debt that there is a realistic expectation that it can never be fully repaid. But the biggest single expenditure of the government -the military budget- isn't about to be touched, for it is needed to conquer the rest of the world and put it all under our national control for the benefit of the owners of the government - the private commercial sector. Everything else is subject to curtailment or elimination in order to facilitate this insane goal. You ARE expendable in this effort.

But while the American armor appears to be strong and shiny on the outside, the inner portion suffers from malevolent neglect. Our industrial base -vital to any nation at war- has been shipped across indefensible oceans, something that isn't a good idea as our military planners should have learned from our success against Japan in WWII. Despite the much-vaunted abilities of the US Navy, they were seriously surprised by an undetected Chinese sub surfacing about one mile away from a US carrier -a guaranteed kill, according to experts- during the conduct of an anti-submarine exercise which should have detected it. This incident tells us two things: We cannot protect our lines of supply. We cannot protect our means to wage war.

Another vital item necessary to conduct global war is money. This nation is broke. The entire economic output of the US -estimated as of the end of the third quarter of 2009 at $14,242.1 billion- wouldn't completely cover the amount of money that has been promised to back up the Wall Street banks which put the world's economy on the skids. The Federal Reserve admits to some $2 trillion being supplied to the banks by the taxpayers, but we don't really know because they won't reveal the true numbers. MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan claimed on his 1/15/10 episode that the amount promised to the banks to be closer to $24 trillion.

That would put the GDP at only about 60% of the amount promised to the banks. Or, every dollar generated by the US economy for almost TWO years is now seen by the Wall Street banks as promised to them. Who cares if you eat! There are executive bonuses to be paid lest we lose their talents to competitors! You ARE expendable in this effort!

It isn't that simple, however, for we officially already owe over $12 trillion to various nations and private entities for our governmental and private sector debt. Of this, about $3 trillion is owed by the government. Of this, about 24% is owed to China, and another 20% is owed to Japan. Both nations are in the middle of adjusting their banking policies, and are expected to tighten their lending standards. Chinese banks have already been ordered to increase their reserves, which means they have fewer funds available to buy little things like US Treasury Bills. Japan is worrying about slipping back into the recession they endured for over 15 years due to their fiscal imprudence - a path the US seems intent on following. They aren't going to have much to invest in US debt.

We won't go into the amount of debt that is held by other economic rivals. I think the point of how vulnerable the US economy is to foreign action to be clear.

Just like our ocean supply lines being indefensible, what are we to do if our international enablers creditors stop funding our wars of conquest due to domestic necessity if not political disapproval? We could print money like it is going out of style, but that didn't work for Weimar Germany nor for Zimbabwe. Eventually, Israeli Arms, Beretta, and the National Armory of Taiwan will hesitate to accept greenbacks for cases of full metal jackets, and domestic sources already struggle to catch up to the relatively small emergency orders placed by the Pentagon. How does one wage war with unloaded weapons?

There is an important lesson that the most ardent American GI Joe wannabee needs to understand: John Wayne is dead. We no longer have the means to wage war with impunity. That ability has been sold out to the lowest bidder to ensure the maximum profit by those who need defending the most - the corporate sector. Those foreign banks who now control the purse strings will at some point become less willing to tolerate our excesses, and could very well cut off their contribution to our ongoing blood lust. It may well prove to be in the interests of their own survival to do so.

That is when the storm hits, for Our American Way of Life will be threatened. We Americans would rather fight than switch - no matter how good for us switching would be. We just won't have much to fight with, and a lot to fight against. We can't go on pissing on the world and expect them to do our bidding when it's becoming clear to them that we have had our day as King of the Hill. They are all getting ready for the time when we get challenged for the lead. Are we?

If one were a student of Sun-Tzu, one would realize just how foolish our warrior leaders are. But who is the bigger fool? The one who makes foolish war plans ensuring defeat, or the fool who follows him blindly?

I guess we get to provide the answer to that with our future. You ARE expendable in that effort.

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