Today we have heard that even Alan Greenspan is suggesting that the US
government should bail out millions of fake “homeowners” created when he
was at the whelm of the agency very much responsible for the US fiscal
policies.
My objections to such a bailout are:
1.. People who have paid nothing or next to nothing for the houses into
which they have moved in are NOT the “homeowners” – they are just
borrowers.
The REAL owners of those homes are the financial institutions which HAVE
PAID for those homes. When those borrowers are thrown out of the homes
being foreclosed because they are not able to honor the contracts with the
financial institutions that did pay for those homes, the “homeowners” (or
rather the home-borrowers) are not the losers. The real losers are the
financial institutions which did pay for those homes and which now have to
sell those foreclosed properties at discounted “fire prices” in an attempt
to save at least a portion of their real estate investments. They are the
ones who need bailing out!
2.. If the government has to bail out the borrowers who have borrowed
more
of a real estate than they are able to pay for, then why not bail out
those
who borrowed from car-sellers more expensive cars than they can afford to
pay for? What about those who used their credit cards to buy bigger
diamonds or electronic toys for Christmas than they can afford? What
about
those who have incurred huge credit card debt eating habitually in more
expensive restaurants than they can afford? Shouldn’t we bail out ALL of
the irresponsible spenders who incur more debt than they can repay without
going into bankruptcy?
3.. Another interesting question is: who can bail out those
irresponsible
spenders? – The US government? This government (or at least its
Republican
incarnations) has been the most irresponsible borrower of them all! By
now
it has its own National Debt (I call it “Federal credit card” debt) of $9
Trillion on which we have to pay just in FY2007 about $430 Billion –
forget
about even starting paying the principal. The only way we can start
paying
the principal of the National Debt is by foreclosing the most expensive
and
the most useless of the toys which the US Administrations have been
creating
since WWII – the US Armed Forces.
4.. Really, since the beginning of the Cold War the US Administrations
have been throwing Trillions of US taxpayers’ (or, since Reagan, borrowed)
money to pay for the armed forces which they neither needed, nor could
afford. They created a phantom of an enemy out of the Soviet block and
forced that block into arms race spending which has at the end brought the
Soviet Union (as we knew it) into foreclosure. The only reason why the US
was able to avoid a similar foreclosure was that since the collapse of the
Bretton Woods system the US Administrations have been borrowing like crazy
and throwing literally tons of freshly printed “fiat money” dollar bills
into the world markets. Current Bush Administration has brought this game
of borrowing to a brand new level!!! Now, who will bail out the US when
it
will face a foreclosure as the buyers of our debt will stop accepting our
“fiat money”?
5.. The only feasible way to avoid such a foreclosure is to start
cutting
drastically our biggest legacy expenses – those we incur to maintain the
war
machine created during Cold War. Of course, the Republican “strategists”
who have huge vested interests in the stupendous military-industrial
complex
will call such a suggestion suicidal. Let us look, however, at some of
the
uses of our war machine since WWII: 1. The so-called Western front was
created not so much to crush Hitler’s army – by 1944 the Russians had been
doing that pretty much without any help from the West – but to stop spread
of Soviet influence to Western Europe; 2. 1947-49 – use of the US
military
to insure a victory for the far right in national “elections” in Greece;
3.
1948-54 – using US military to crush Huk revolt in the Philippines; 4.
1951-53 – using US military (over 36,000 Americans died, over 92,000 –
wounded) to take sides in inter-Korean conflict; 5. 1953 – overthrowing
of
democratically elected Mossadegh and restored the pro-American Shah to
power
in Iran (attempts to restore pro-American regime in Iran continue up to
this
day!); 6. 1950s-1975 – senseless Vietnam War; 7. 1954 - overthrowing the
democratically elected Arbenz and placed Colonel Armas in power in
Guatemala; 8. 1958 - Navy supported an Army occupation of Lebanon during
its
civil war; 9. Bay of Pigs invasions and using the Navy to quarantine Cuba
in
1961-62; 10. 1962 - Military occupied Laos during its civil war against
the
Pathet Lao guerrillas; 11. 1964 - Troops sent in and Panamanians shot
while
protesting the United States presence in the Canal Zone in Panama; 12.
1965 – orchestrating a military coup in Indonesia; 13. 1965-66 – deploying
troops during a national election in dominical Republic; 14. Green Berets
sent in to Guatemala; 15. 1969-75 - Military sent in after the Vietnam War
expanded into Cambodia; 16. Laos - 1971-75 - Americans carpet-bomb the
countryside during Laos' civil war; 17. 1973 - The CIA orchestrated a
coup,
killing President Allende who had been popularly elected. The CIA helped
to
establish a military regime under General Pinochet. …. The list goes on
and
on, and on – I can add to the list (at request) at least 20 other uses of
the US military machine up to Clinton’s stupid help to establish Muslim
rule
in Kosovo, wars of the two Bushes against Iraq, current war in
Afghanistan.
There is one common denominator, however, in ALL of those uses of the US
military machine: THE US HAS NEVER BEEN THREATENED BY ANYBODY.
The rhetoric of the current Administration’s propaganda has sold the
currently fought wars as the “response to 9/11.” However, anybody who is
still using the great matter located between his/her ears, has understood
by
now, that 9/11 is as the work of Muslim terrorists, as the burning of
Reichstag in Nazi Germany was the work of German communists! Both events
have been used to crush opposition to the militarization of the two
respective countries.
Once the military-industrial complex is created, it will continuously seek
and find reasons for its maintaining! Many European nations spend just a
fracture of their resources on their military – do they feel less secure
than most of Americans today?
Cut today’s military-industrial complex to the power of ten and you will
find resources necessary to start paying back the principal of our
National
Debt and, believe me, we will not be less secure!
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