Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

[jpatter666]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

While I'd agree Hitler, Imperialist Japan's culture and the rest were direct influencers of WWII, certainly the 30s economy aided in bringing them to power.

But I also do not expect major military conflict. Nuclear weapons make conflict between major powers unthinkable and unwinable. But as we have seen in Iraq (and many other smaller conflicts) technology has allowed for an individual to inflict unprecedented damage on an occupying force. Wars have become battles of attrition.

I wonder about two possible paths:
1 ) Sniping attacks as referenced above, hits on economic targets but more to force an agreement, access to resources than to gain actual territory. I view this as most likely for the major powers.
2 ) A return to savagery. Full-scale attacks with mass executions of the conquered populace.

[WildspitzE]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

To put today's events in historical perspective, during December 1982 Guatemalan President Rios Montt met with U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Honduras. Reagan dismissed reports of human rights abuses in the region and lifted an arms embargo to resume sales to the nation’s military rulers. Four days later a Guatemalan government massacre wiped out the village of Dos Erres. Eighteen years later in 2000 two witnesses gave evidence that 300 men, women and children were killed, tortured and raped by specialists called “kaibiles.”

...

How to halt debt deflation and induce demand creation in a world of over-capacity and over-indebtedness without war? ...

I'm not sure how the first paragraph I quoted fits in the picture. Is it meant to show what sort of bellic initiatives we should expect to prop up our economy (ie arms deals, etc)? If so, I thought that we've been doing that ad nauseam all over the world already. As a side note, I grew up in Guatemala and El Salvador during the 80s and 90s. If you are curious about those times in such countries give me a holler EJ/Fred.

As to the second quote - I've been mulling this topic myself. My understanding of how WWII got us out of the depression is not only limited to the comparative productive advantage we developed vs. others, especially after their industrial infrastructure was blown up. This was obviously key, and most important in the post war boom. But, that during the war, the war justified the following:

- mass inflation,
- wartime wage controls (combined with patriotism, persuaded people to work at below market wages. thus, created "demand" for workers)
- draft (further reduce unemployment at home by sending 12MM of them abroad, not to mention that some would be killed)
- deficit spending on the build up of productive instrastructure

Given our ability and habit to go back to the same bag of tricks, I postulate that we should seek to analyze the different potentialities under the same broad objectives/initiatives. Namely:

- What event or initiatives will put us in a position of comparative productive capacity vs others?
- What event or initiatives would silence the critics of mass inflation (which we're getting now, but I'm sure that they believe it could be more)?
- How do we trick people into accepting lower wages and rationing/price controls at the same time mass inflation takes place?
- Is a draft politically achievable? Is it even truly necessary? Look at what happened after 9/11 (That said I understand that things were messed up afterwards from a credibility perspective, LOL).

I'm sure I'm missing some things, and perhaps fellow itulipers can add to the framework of objectives ( so that we can flesh out possible events or initiatives).

Without war, I tend to revert to things like the Green Bubble you and others propose. Creating an emergency for the world, become the leader in such technology (and production of such technology), inflate and spend [deficit spending] on infrastructure, attempt to create demand through carbon taxation, etc.

That said, I tend to believe that the US will follow a two prong approach (e.g. creating a Green Bubble & War).

[don]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

A couple of ex-spooks have their say on the war question:

Will He Sell Himself Into His Own Defeat?

Obama and the Empire

By BILL and KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
Various people have asked recently, “What are the implications of the global economic crisis for US policies in the Middle East, and will Middle East countries lean more or less toward the US as they suffer their own economic crises?” Not simple questions, but here, presented very briefly, are our first shots at them.

Let’s start by discussing what US policies affecting the Middle East may emerge in coming months. A preliminary point that is necessary to make is that present policies inherited from the Bush administration are a mess. Practically everyone of every nationality who lives in the Middle East -- and elsewhere for that matter -- believes that the economic crises now moving in on the world were largely caused by the US’s own extreme version of capitalism with its massive emphasis on privatization and on elimination of regulations that might have provided some protections for ordinary people. At the minimum, there are widespread feelings of Shadenfreude over the pain the US is now suffering, and at a political level there is intense dislike of the US for policies that are seen, correctly, as arising from US and Israeli colonialism and empire-building and that are blamed for the economic woes and inequalities now affecting nations everywhere.

There are two major scenarios of how US Middle East policies may develop in the next year or so. Even now, no one knows enough about President Obama to know which scenario or variation on it might be likely.

Increasingly, though, it appears that in foreign affairs, he is not going to change very much. We hope this is wrong. At least on the central issue of Palestine-Israel, Obama made it clear from the start of his campaign, well before the election, that he will support the right-wing elements of the Israel lobby led by AIPAC. But there still is the question of how strong his support will be.

The first scenario is that Obama will just bumble along, changing as little as he can get away with from Bush’s policies, except for clearing away some of the roughest edges of Bush policies on torture. Obama is expanding the war in Afghanistan and continuing the war in Iraq longer than he said he would. Under this scenario, he will try to keep talking as long as possible over Iran and try to avoid fighting. He will try to keep supporting a civilian government in Pakistan, but would not really oppose a return to military dictatorship in that country, if Pakistan would continue supporting his Afghanistan and Iran policies.

That’s the first scenario. Although its support for empire and colonialism makes it an undesirable scenario, at least Obama would be trying to avoid a major war.

The second, much more militaristic scenario is far worse, possibly involving more wars, but it describes what Obama’s policies in the Middle East may well turn into as the remaining months of 2009 pass by.

Right now Obama is faced with domestic economic difficulties greater than he would have thought, during most of his campaign, could conceivably happen as rapidly as they did. But he is also faced with a military-industrial complex that is now pushing for ever larger military expenditures and more aggressive foreign policies, among other things as a way to help solve US economic difficulties. In addition to this, Obama is faced with the prospect of an Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu that is even more right-wing than the present one, supported by that portion of the Israel lobby led by AIPAC. This part of the lobby is probably the strongest ally of the military-industrial complex in supporting more wars and more aggressiveness in US Middle East policies. Obama showed his support for the lobby throughout his campaign and, most recently, did nothing to oppose the lobby’s successful trashing of Charles Freeman, a fine candidate for a senior intelligence position whom the lobby charged with being anti-Israel. Since a majority of US voters generally support Israel without thinking much about it, the disorganized justice and peace movement in the United States is not very effective in opposing either the military-industrial complex or the right-wing Israel lobby.

Obama has by now clearly shown that he does not want to be the American leader who loses the American empire. In general, most European governments, most of the Arab governments, and the Japanese government as well, will not oppose him. Public opinion in these countries, in contrast to the governments, will be somewhat stronger in opposing US policies of empire, but it is doubtful that the publics in these countries will be able to accomplish very much.

So the conclusion that one comes to if this second scenario turns out to be true is that we are facing a very dangerous period in world history. There are indeed forces in both the United States and Israel that want a clash of civilizations and are definitely not against further wars, and these forces are powerful. Obviously, the first nation to be affected by implementation of this scenario would be Iran. At this point it is impossible to know whether Obama will want to, or be able to, prevent these forces from dominating future US policies throughout the Middle East.

Bill and Kathleen Christison have been writing on the Middle East for several years and have co-authored a book, forthcoming in June from Pluto Press, on the Israeli occupation and its impact on Palestinians. Thirty years ago, they were analysts for the CIA. They can be reached at kb.christison@earthlink.net

[BiscayneSunrise]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

Militarism rose out of the great depression but all the allied powers were overextended and caught flatfooted. What is the exact figure? In 1941, the US military ranked something like number 12 in the world?

Today, the the answer on how to avoid major war is:

Pax Americana

The US military is so powerful that no other nation could stage any meaningful raid anywhere in the world without worrying about US response.

Barring a sneak attack in cyberspace shutting down the US military internet and satellite capabilities long term, Every nation has to include in their calculus the reaction of the US.

Sorry for the thread drift. Back to the matter at hand.

Greg

[chekre]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

Yes there will be a war but without bullets it will be a cultural war were normal people will take the leap to face the alienation of society and stand up and say I am not in your game any longer… when will you so-called intelligent people understand that culture is the problem the fed the government and its leaders are products of this culture…now a world culture that has as its preamble consume consume until you exhaust everything.

[bill]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/wa...tary.html?_r=1

Pentagon Rethinking Old Doctrine on 2 Wars
Published: March 14, 2009
WASHINGTON — The protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are forcing the Obama administration to rethink what for more than two decades has been a central premise of American strategy: that the nation need only prepare to fight two major wars at a time.
In an interview with National Public Radio last week, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made it clear that the Pentagon was beginning to reconsider whether the old two-wars assumption “makes any sense in the 21st century” as a guide to planning, budgeting and weapons-buying.
The discussion is being prompted by a top-to-bottom strategy review that the Pentagon conducts every four years, as required by Congress and officially called the Quadrennial Defense Review. One question on the table for Pentagon planners is whether there is a way to reshape the armed forces to provide for more flexibility in tackling a wide range of conflicts.
Among other questions are the extent to which planning for conflicts should focus primarily on counterinsurgency wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what focus remains on well-equipped conventional adversaries like China and Iran, with which Navy vessels have clashed at sea.
Thomas Donnelly, a defense policy expert with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he believed that the Obama administration would be seeking to come up with “a multiwar, multioperation, multifront, walk-and-chew-gum construct.”
“We have to do many things simultaneously if our goal is to remain the ultimate guarantor of international security,” Mr. Donnelly said. “The hedge against a rising China requires a very different kind of force than fighting an irregular war in Afghanistan or invading Iraq or building partnership capacity in Africa.”

QDR

Preparing for the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review:

Rebalancing the U.S. Defense Portfolio

http://www.avascent.com/Files/Public...ublication.pdf

[j4f2h0]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

Yes there will be a war but without bullets it will be a cultural war were normal people will take the leap to face the alienation of society and stand up and say I am not in your game any longer… when will you so-called intelligent people understand that culture is the problem the fed the government and its leaders are products of this culture…now a world culture that has as its preamble consume consume until you exhaust everything.

I respect what you are trying to say here, but i will answer your statement with a question. What happens to the laymen when they try to go against the status quo? The answer is the Gubment rolls out the national gaurd and squashes you. Not saying it shouldnt happen, but if u think people can take the course of action u described and there wont be blood and bullets you are mistaken!

[WildspitzE]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

QDR

Preparing for the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review:

Rebalancing the U.S. Defense Portfolio

http://www.avascent.com/Files/Public...ublication.pdf

Page 4, gotta love it - "green" weapon systems and platforms.

[FRED]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

Page 4, gotta love it - "green" weapon systems and platforms.

Here we call it "dis-infrastructure."

[Shakespear]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

The article above nicely meshes with the speech Mr. Brzezinski gave that is to be found here.

http://itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8766

I think he makes a clearly strong point that war with Iran will not solve anything and may instead lead to serious loss of control globally. However that is only his opinion.

The "global leadership" has recently shown us that it lacks long term vision and could blunder into this mistaken venture.

[Raz]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

I think the war talk is a bit in left field.
This is not the 1930's. I think nut cases like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and a whacked out Japanese imperialist culture had a lot more to do with WWII than any economic reasons.

I'm still buying a massive green solution to getting us out of this depression. China and the U.S. have a lot in common when it comes to their fossil fuel dependencies, and their lack of liquid fossil fuels. Another stimulus package with a lot more alt-E stimulus could be the signal of where the U.S. is heading. I would feel a lot more confident if the Administration were trying to pound a stake in the heart of the FIRE economy rather than giving CPR to a corpse.

I agree with you. But we are in a very dangerous period because both major political parties are indebted to the same group of bankers - even though they look to different special interest groups for votes:
(Democrats: Teacher's Unions, Trial Lawyers, Abortion Industry, Ethnic Minorities, Urban Tax Consumers, Radical Egalitarians, etc.; Republicans: Multinational Corporations, Insurance Companies, Doctors, Defense related industries, Farmers, Fundamentalist Christians, etc.)

IF they can re-start the FIRE economy (I doubt it) then we are yet to witness the truly catastrophic bust of the United States.

[goadam1]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

Be careful shorting the market this week. It is a triple witching week on options.

[chekre]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

Look I am sure you have good intentions but I never said “go Against” I meant a change in culture society I.E..[FONT='Arial','sans-serif'] consciousness…..I[/FONT] t seems democracy is on the verge to trip just as Marxism (Russia) did a while ago and will shortly again is in China….. we all know that China (also India) has more than enough people to sell to which means that you can understand why China is warning against a devaluation of the dollar that is until of course they can spend or borrow against our T-bills to do their infrastructure with our dollar then they will sell to their own people the crap they been selling us….so then where does that leave the U.S. when they don’t need to buy our T-bills…..bankrupt…… and guess what at that point China currency becomes the new standard (because they haven’t defaulted like us) and gold goes down again……

[goadam1]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

We are in a couple of wars right now. Building a robot and drone army for use in Afghanistan and Pakistan are obvious courses. Expect to hear something like "building a 21st century defense."

Wait this is the plot of "Star Wars episode 2."

[goadam1]

Re: Who stole my cheesy economy? - Eric Janszen

War won't happen during this administration. I think the more likely scenario is Obama carries the turd bag on the depression, gets voted out by your standard FIRE backers of a populist Republican who promises the usual blood, guts and tax cuts. HOORAAY!!