Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-up

[bpwoods]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

Mohammed Mosaddeq

Now there's a name to conjure up

So he was replaced by the SHAG (sic) who was replaced by ... ... Methinks MM's ghost is alive and well in You-Know-Where and the US of A is getting a long due comeuppance.

Brian P

[Guest]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

At its core the issue is the same: capture of the economies in question to support a foreign entity. Exactly as Michael Hudson states: taxation without representation.

One would think that Michael Hudson was inventing the wheel with this discovery eh? Of course Hudson's thesis, that this represents some sort of tumor upon the world likely is even so - but it has dozens of precedents throughout history. And another clue from history, what was the complexion of the world in the intervals between these "empires". The intervals were fragmented highly dangerous periods in history comprised entirely of jockeying by the secondary powers to produce the "next" hegemon. The paradox, which scrambles the moralistic view of the world and turns it's conclusions upside down in strange ways, is that the periods of greatest peace (of the kind lasting 100 years or more) have quite often been precisely those which curiously overlapped periods of imperial hegemony.

This is not an endorsment of empires. Those who insist on concluding this is just an endorsement of empires are missing a demonstrable point from history here. Responsible people should look carefully at what comes after throwing off the yoke of an empire - particularly in the immediate aftermath - and "immediate" here means minimum 20-30 years thereafter? Look there, to see what history's typical outcomes have shown. History shows these intervals or "vacuums" created by imperial collapses, to be full of uncertainty and treacherously shifting alliances which amplify war. To conclude automatically that the aftermath of any empire is better contains at least a risk of being naive in that much. Is Michael Hudson "adequately" cynical to this question, or is he "idealistic / naive" to this question, in his pursuit of a more ideal world order?

Some people here may conclude that Starving Steve's and Medved's comments are of the reactive variety - but reality as endorsed by history actually leans towards what they point out likely to follow, doesn't it?

As far as the topic of this thread - and Hudson's point that the dollar glut is financing this now directly - of course, that sounds 100% correct. Which illustrates the point that like it or not, we are about to discover the benefits of a US in full retreat from this imperial overstretch. Kind of like watching a 400 foot giant redwood start to tip over. Lot of surrounding foliage and even other large trees adjacent are likely to get "taken down" in the process. Of course the imperial overstretch is destroying the US from within and has become toxic to the empire itself as the imperial tithing mechanism has gone into a sickly and cancerous metastasis. Unsustainable.

When Rome fell and the Pax Romana ceased to be, no person or place was safe for centuries. So it might also be if America and the Pax Americana goes down.” Maybe so, maybe not. Maybe you get something better? Let's roll the dice, shall we?

[touchring]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

No different than the people in any other world power. The Germans and Japanese thought they were doing great things in the 30s and 40s. The British though they were doing great things before them. Im sure the Romans thought they were doing great things as well.

100 years from now, some other country will be a world power, lording it over everyone else, and the people there will think they are doing great things.

Of course, you already knew that but couldn't pass up an opportunity to bash Americans.....

And china had probably thought they were doing great like for the 13th or 14th time in maybe the last 100 generations.

The hegemony of China is well known, the people of Vietnam have hated the chinese for at least 2000 years.

[laphroaig]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

that is typical populist dribble. the leaders of these countries understand two things about us military spending: it is only what, 3-5% of gdp? so the premise is false to begin with;

In 2008 US military spending was $762bn, 5.3% of GDP.

You may not think that's much, but it amounts to 30.7% of the $2.5bn taken in taxes in 2008. Almost a third of government tax revenues was spent on the military. That sounds like quite a lot to me!


As for the other side of the equation, the US trade deficit in 2008 was $677bn. If that's mostly going into T-bills as Hudson suggests, then he's more or less correct that "the dollar glut is what finances America's global military build up".

Cut this $677bn out of the budget, and America would have had $85bn, or 0.6% of GDP left to fund its military, less than Ireland (0.9%), Austria (0.9%) or Japan (0.8%).

[flintlock]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

Precisely.

I see a lot of references to the US empire crumbling the same way the Roman empire did. People making this comparison should remember the rest of the story. The Roman empire was not perfect, but what followed was much worse. .

They didn't call 'em the "Dark ages" for nothing.

[medved]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

I think the part being forgotten in this dredging up of memories of the Prague Spring and tanks rolling in etc etc is that the covert financialization of the ROW is ultimately not much different than the overt occupation of parts of Eastern Europe.

This notion about covert financialization (CF) “not much different” from overt occupation (OO) is exactly the reason why the “dredging up” is necessary. This notion can only be entertained by the people that did not experience OO. For some reason, there were a lot of people trying to exchange the OO for CF. Many of them risked (and lost) their lives. There was no opposite flow from CF to OO, and no Western government tried to stop it. Whoever succeeded in the CF->OO transition came to regret it very much.

The only good thing produced by the Prague Spring was incredible hockey rivalry between Chechoslovakia and the USSR. I have never seen this kind of hockey before or after.

But the present situation is far beyond reason.

I agree, but it is not a pure financial problem. Whatever disagreement exists between US and its vassals, they all agree, the gov’t has to be in control of everything. It is this agreement, that makes them all equally guilty, and creates taxation without representation.

Why is it still thought that the US will somehow revert to its previously benign state once it completes its present step of overtly taking over the world economy through printed dollars?

It will not. The previously benign state of the limited government is gone, and will not come back.

[Diarmuid]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

Quote:
Originally Posted by medved
Precisely.

I see a lot of references to the US empire crumbling the same way the Roman empire did. People making this comparison should remember the rest of the story. The Roman empire was not perfect, but what followed was much worse. .

Surely this statement must be taken relevant to the a particular point of view or circumstance - if you were a citizen of Rome or a senator or sustained a particular lifestyle from the "the milk" of the empire then surely yes what followed must have been much worse - however if your family was murdered raped and sold in to slavery for the benefit of the empire then it would be hard to argue that what followed was much worse from this perspective

And so it goes with our own present day empire which in my opinion is not just the American empire but the Western empire of which Europe is a full partner albeit junior - Europeans also suck off the tit either by tactit or overt compliance because the secondary benefits floww to European and derive a large part of our life style from the blood and sweat of large swathes of Africa (Congo being the most recent case in point), South America and Asia - IMO our American friends ain't the only cool aid drinkers! - I am sure many of the indigenous oppresses people accross the world if they truly understand how they have been raped will gladly welcome the fall of the empire and take their chances or "roll the dice" as you may say.

[laphroaig]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

They didn't call 'em the "Dark ages" for nothing.

They're called the "Dark ages" because comparatively little is known about them due to the absence of much written historical record.

The popular myth that Europe collapsed into an orgy of violence after the fall of Rome is probably some way from the truth. For centuries, the Romans had portrayed unconquered tribes as savage, vicious, animal-like barbarians. This was for the most part propaganda, used to justify their high levels of military spending. [as for whether there's a parallel here with modern day America, I couldn't say :rolleyes:]

The Romans left many more written texts than the non-Roman tribes, and so over the years their propaganda became the mainstream account of the history of the period. Historians who have sought out a wider variety of source materials have come up with a quite different account of the period.

Some excellent writings on this topic here.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=N...cad=0#PPA27,M1

[Guest]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

Very idealistic read of what is causing large swathes of developing nations to remain mired in poverty and injustice. Your assumption is that by sending all Western corporations and interests home these nations will rediscover something more equitable? And the analogy in the Roman empire you cite, where the entire empire was driven on slavery - you cite this as an example for why absence of empire would have spared the slavery. What you omit to mention is that you cannot divorce slavery from the ancient world. The Romans were preceded by the mass employment of slavery, and other instances of slavery or near slavery most certainly followed it. In effect you are extracting an ugly characteristic of that era and holding up for examination as one of the core attributes of the Roman imperium. It was, but it was so everywhere else as well. Meanwhile, that old Monty Python skit comes to mind, where the "Hebrew radicals" are having a clandestine meeting and trying to determine how oppressed they are under the Roman yoke.

Don't forget, along with their empire and their tithing, which slanted the benefits to their direction, they also brought a codified system of law, where a codified system had been far more fragmented before. Roman law *was* applied to the far flung regions of empire and protected many a small shopkeeper or tradesman of that era as well.

Here is an interesting and apt analogy on the "alternatives" to the yoke of European and American capitalist imperialism. In the early 1970's, Russia and the US were going "toe to toe" for client states in Africa at the apex of the cold war. Russia shortly thereafter began making inroads into Angola, and the Soviets established reciprocal commercial agreements with Angola. One of those agreements was "reciprocal fishing rights", where Russia gained preferred access to the rich fishing grounds and potential for oil fields off the Angolan coast, while Angola gained reciprocal fishing rights in the Barents sea. :rolleyes: This is the alternative and more just world you imply will quickly flower in the emerging nations as the rapacious Western capitalist corporations retreat?


[media][/media]

Quote:
Originally Posted by medved
Precisely.

I see a lot of references to the US empire crumbling the same way the Roman empire did. People making this comparison should remember the rest of the story. The Roman empire was not perfect, but what followed was much worse. .

Surely this statement must be taken relevant to the a particular point of view or circumstance - if you were a citizen of Rome or a senator or sustained a particular lifestyle from the "the milk" of the empire then surely yes what followed must have been much worse - however if your family was murdered raped and sold in to slavery for the benefit of the empire then it would be hard to argue that what followed was much worse from this perspective

And so it goes with our own present day empire which in my opinion is not just the American empire but the Western empire of which Europe is a full partner albeit junior - Europeans also suck off the tit either by tactit or overt compliance because the secondary benefits floww to European and derive a large part of our life style from the blood and sweat of large swathes of Africa (Congo being the most recent case in point), South America and Asia - IMO our American friends ain't the only cool aid drinkers! - I am sure many of the indigenous oppresses people accross the world if they truly understand how they have been raped will gladly welcome the fall of the empire and take their chances or "roll the dice" as you may say.

[Diarmuid]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

"Very idealistic read of what is causing large swathes of developing nations to remain mired in poverty and injustice. Your assumption is that by sending all Western corporations and interests home these nations will rediscover something more equitable?"

I made no such assumptions in my previous post and do not persume that any possible collapse of the present financial system would lead to more equity or justice for the undelevoped part of the world - all I was saying was if if one has nothing to left lose then one will gladly take ones chances - it is a matter of perspective.

I believe this a far more realistic point of view as compared to using Monty Ponty Videos to make sphosist arguments

[Guest]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

OK sorry to tread on your toes Diarmuid - but to be fair all round, the argument is not entirely a question of sophistry. Any alternative "rent extracting non-imperialist" avenue over the past 30 years for a continent like Africa (just one example), may have been Soviet Russia, entering into brotherly agreements with half the developing nations of Africa. How much less exploitative do you imagine those would have been?

And in this century, with regard to exploiting the agricultural potential, something China is now increasingly interested in - sure you get some big China funded infrastructure projects going in, while they lock up multi hundred thousand acre farms whose produce is destined by 30 year contract to go to China maybe - but how vastly different is this from the market for African natural resources which has been exploited by Western Capitalist nations in the past 40 years? The distinctions become blurred.

Emerging markets enter into global trade by a process which inevitably includes some components of cheap labor arbitrage. That's merely an observation of the obvious - at least it has been in the world so far. Maybe you are referencing a fairer world which we have yet to see?

And at the purely political level, there are a lot of corrupt governments around Africa, do you think the majority of them would have been at least nominally democratic under a Pax-Rus as opposed to a Pax-Americana?

BTW, the Monty Python skit actually brings up a lot of very serious points as well as comedy. At the time it was issued this was considered a very "hot button" piece of comicry, precisely because it touches on, or "debunks" a lot of people's favorite notions - in all directions. Those Monty Python guys were a real bunch of anarchists at heart, weren't they?

"Very idealistic read of what is causing large swathes of developing nations to remain mired in poverty and injustice. Your assumption is that by sending all Western corporations and interests home these nations will rediscover something more equitable?"

I made no such assumptions in my previous post and do not persume that any possible collapse of the present financial system would lead to more equity or justice for the undelevoped part of the world - all I was saying was if if one has nothing to left lose then one will gladly take ones chances - it is a matter of perspective.

I believe this a far more realistic point of view as compared to using Monty Ponty Videos to make sphosist arguments

[fliped42]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

Maybe they could stop sterilizing their currencies so that as they produce wealth they encounter wage inflation. This will make their goods less attractive to americans so we will stop buying and start manufacturing here and thus create more manufacturing jobs which will lower the trade deficit and we will not need to sell as many bonds for sterilization purposes anymore. Then they will be able to go out and build their own military to defend their newly built industrial base from bordering countries who might not be as nice or play fair. I understand that there is a lot of negative feelings about america today but the rest of the world are not (ie China and Russia) innocent actors either. They can simply let their currencies rise against the dollar (buy not buying back the dollars and issuing soverign bonds but instead issuing soverign cash) and see how there economies compete on a level labor cost playing field. But they will not do this because they cannot compete on a level playing field due to lack of internal demand to meet the need for job growth. They need to sell to america as cheap as possible otherwise they will have no industry. Also as for the tax funding the military I agree with Lukester lets see what happens when the American military starts coming home. Let Germany, France and England defend the eastern borders with Russia. How well will that go when Russia shuts of their gas. Let Japan re militarize her navy to protect her trading lanes from China. (That turned out just great the last time that happened) Let all of the middle eastern countries fend for themselves when Saudi Arabia runs out of oil and decides it is a lot easier to take reserves from Kuait, UAE and Iraq then to give up Royal Power. Unless Iran gets it first. The world will be alot better if the central banks stopped buying US treasuries and America came home. At least in America!

[c1ue]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

This notion about covert financialization (CF) “not much different” from overt occupation (OO) is exactly the reason why the “dredging up” is necessary. This notion can only be entertained by the people that did not experience OO. For some reason, there were a lot of people trying to exchange the OO for CF. Many of them risked (and lost) their lives. There was no opposite flow from CF to OO, and no Western government tried to stop it. Whoever succeeded in the CF->OO transition came to regret it very much.

The only good thing produced by the Prague Spring was incredible hockey rivalry between Chechoslovakia and the USSR. I have never seen this kind of hockey before or after.

A lot of those people had historical conflicts with Russia, made bets with the Nazis, and lost. I hardly cry for them.

Furthermore just because we haven't seen CF BECOME OO, doesn't mean it cannot happen. After all, the world is replete with examples of benevolent governments that turn nasty.

I agree, but it is not a pure financial problem. Whatever disagreement exists between US and its vassals, they all agree, the gov’t has to be in control of everything. It is this agreement, that makes them all equally guilty, and creates taxation without representation.

I think it is safe to say that not all the vassals are in agreement any longer. That China and Russia at a minimum don't think the arrangement is satisfactory, and as lenders of last resort they have cards in the game.

It will not. The previously benign state of the limited government is gone, and will not come back.

So this means you agree that CF can become OO? :confused:

[Diarmuid]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

Lukester thank you for the concilatory note but I must disagree on the Pax-Americana vs Pax-Rus question or any other Pax for that matters. For the victims it seems to me it is analogous to the question would you perfer to be shot by the Mafia or the Triad? I think the correct answer to this question is neither thank you

Regards

OK sorry to tread on your toes Diarmuid - but to be fair all round, the argument is not entirely a question of sophistry. Any alternative "rent extracting non-imperialist" avenue over the past 30 years for a continent like Africa (just one example), may have been Soviet Russia, entering into brotherly agreements with half the developing nations of Africa. How much less exploitative do you imagine those would have been?

And in this century, with regard to exploiting the agricultural potential, something China is now increasingly interested in - sure you get some big China funded infrastructure projects going in, while they lock up multi hundred thousand acre farms whose produce is destined by 30 year contract to go to China maybe - but how vastly different is this from the market for African natural resources which has been exploited by Western Capitalist nations in the past 40 years? The distinctions become blurred.

Emerging markets enter into global trade by a process which inevitably includes some components of cheap labor arbitrage. That's merely an observation of the obvious - at least it has been in the world so far. Maybe you are referencing a fairer world which we have yet to see?

And at the purely political level, there are a lot of corrupt governments around Africa, do you think the majority of them would have been at least nominally democratic under a Pax-Rus as opposed to a Pax-Americana?

BTW, the Monty Python skit actually brings up a lot of very serious points as well as comedy. At the time it was issued this was considered a very "hot button" piece of comicry, precisely because it touches on, or "debunks" a lot of people's favorite notions - in all directions. Those Monty Python guys were a real bunch of anarchists at heart, weren't they?

[Jay]

Re: Hudson - Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-u

Im sure the Romans thought they were doing great things as well.

I'm not here to defend the imperialist policies of the US, however, the Dark Ages were the result of the fall of the Roman Empire. Hopefully, technology, especially the ease of attaining information and knowledge through the internet, and, if we are lucky, the lack of a war of great destruction, will help us avoid a modern repeat of such societal collapse when America's grip on the world wanes, whenever that may be. The tentacles of debt, the fundamental underpinning of dollar hegemony and an extension of American power, run very, very deep and touch most nations on the earth. None of the mainstream solutions proposed so far attempt to deal with this fundamental issue. If collapse comes this time around, due to a lack of will or foresight by the important players, or just from plain greed and the self preservation instincts of the financial oligarchy, it could be extensive.