City on a Hill? Leader of the Free World? Defender of Freedom? How about a mass of delusional crazies?See? It's not just us saying this.
Publius Tacitus gets the economics wrong about borrowing by the currency issuer in its own currency and public debt, but his background is either military or intel, or both, so it is not in his realm of expertise.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Our Grand American Delusion
Publius Tacitus
31 comments:
" so it is not in his realm of expertise."
It's not any of ours either supposedly....
I have actually confronted some of these folks on this, and their response is that it seems fringe and they will believe the "experts." I don't blame them either. Who has time to pursue every fringe view around.
I almost blew MMT off when I first heard about it in a comment somewhere by Ramanan. But he was very articulate and provided references. So I changed my mind and decided to consult some of the references, which I no longer remember either.
Then I started reading the blogs and one day I asked Warren in his comments whether it was possible to have everything we wanted based on this understanding. He said, sure.
Tom your point here about this guy is laughable.... the guys whole point is that we owe all this munnie, etc blah blah... were spending more that we are bringing in blah blah
Why do you continue to intellectually respect people like this?
"That's money we have borrowed from other countries or our future"
C'mon ... please......
Why do you continue to intellectually respect people like this?
Because these know more about military strategy and tactics, and intel, than you are I ever will, since they they have hands on experience with it.
The correct interpretation of what he says economically and financially is that US wasted a huge amount of capacity on delusional boondoggles that could have been directed to real priorities instead of flushed, not to mention the extensive damage done in many directions in these misguided adventures based on delusions resulting from lust for power and greed for control of ME oil and gas.
Take Iraq. Gen Shinseki told them that it would take 500, 000 boots on the ground to occupy Iraq successfully, so they fired him and put someone in that agreed with their delusional plan based on Iraqis greeting us with flowers.
Now the US is promoting Saudi and Israeli objectives based on more delusion.
Tom your point here about this guy is laughable Which guy is that, Matt?
I am INCAPABLE OF CREATING PARAGRAPH BREAKS ON THIS MOTERFUCKING BLOGGER SITE for some unknown reason. Anyone know why? I'm on a Mac.
Opportunity cost.
Look
at
all
these
paragraph
breaks!
MRW the author where Tom gives him a pass on the "economics" for whatever reason...
This is his wrap up "Content to keep drinking the lethal mixture of war and debt."
Implying we're going bankrupt etc... without his believing in this entire false economic narrative he couldn't even write the article.. ,
You can debate the foreign policy.... leave out the false....
This would be no different than posting up some libertarian Darwinian crap about why we should cut subsidies,etc.... and saying "well this libertarian guy gets the economics wrong but it's still survival of the fittest blah blah...."
@ MRW
I am on a Mac, too, and hitting the return works fine for paragraphing.
@ Matt
I agree that his argument based on econ/finance is ill-conceived, and it gives the impression that this is what he is concerned about. But if familiar with his work and other things he says in the post, he is talking about delusional policy and failed strategy and tactics based on it.
The US is not failing militarily because it is going in debt. It hasn't won a peace anywhere it has used the military option since WWII and it has/t achieved its policy objectives either.
He could have written a similar article with the same point without mentioning $.
But on the other side of it Tom the foreign policy is based on false economic beliefs too like we need the cheap oil, or wtf... like we can't afford to implement a new energy policy that allows us to be free of MENA oil, etc... like TINA...
Why are we even there?
It's not because we value those people over there imo.... like Trump says "take the oil..." (implying F those people...)
The false economic CONCEPT that "were out of money!" foments bad foreign policy as well as bad domestic policy....
The stupid doesn't just magically stop at the borders...
Go easy on the out-of-paradigm-ers or there'll be little left to read.
Vs a true economic CONCEPT that 'we're not out of money"...
So you have two opposing CONCEPTS.... one true one false... how do you adjudicate this?
Via good science.... it's the only way...
We have to be exposing ALL of these people as unqualified... sorry but including this guy here even if you agree with his foreign policy observations.... which even if true observations don't offer any depth of understanding...
@ Matt
It's like Obama said: Stop doing stupid stuff.
There's a lot more to stupid than a wrong understanding of econ and finance.
Give the Pentagon less and less money and the stupid will solve itself.
We've been warring since first recorded history.... even back under numismatic systems in centuries BC.... get over it....
Can't fight wars nowadays without munnie. No munnie, no equipment, no mercenary pay.
Bob wait till they figure it out .... it could easily go either way...
Matt, [and others]
But on the other side of it Tom the foreign policy is based on false economic beliefs too like we need the cheap oil, or wtf... like we can't afford to implement a new energy policy that allows us to be free of MENA oil, etc... like TINA...
There’s another reason, Matt.
James Schlesinger, the SecDef during the 1973 oil embargo and later America's first Secretary of Energy, told my extraordinarily well-connected friend the following in a private conversation in DC in 1989 after the SecDef retired:
According to Schlesinger, national security policy since 1973 has been that oil is National Security Issue #1. Fuck US homes. Fuck US cars. Fuck US food transportation. When the oil embargo hit in 1973, our troops, ships, planes, and overseas bases were left with, max, one to two days of fuel. Worldwide. Nobody in the military expected this. It was pandemonium. And devastating to them.
They (the military) were so shocked that it completely changed national policy at the highest level (hence our friendship with the Saudis). Ever since that day, the policy has been (1) to secure our national gas and oil, and (2) take it from everyone else first—all oil-producing countries—before we use up our own.
When you consider US actions under this light, things make sense.
This was actually clear post WWI. Since then, geopolitics has been dominated by control of energy resources.
Then why was the military caught completely off-guard in 1973 if it had already been "clear" and the policy "dominated?"
Btw it is "Energy Week"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-25/trump-to-call-for-u-s-dominance-in-global-energy-production
MRW that was Cold War situation... Today it is mostly gwot ... and we have developed precision strike so we can put anything right where we want it anytime don't need the big numbers of equipment for saturation bombing...
Also seems like it's all going drones.... different military situations today...
Hopefully 'energy week' will be more successful than 'infrastructure week'.
MRW that was Cold War situation... Today it is mostly gwot ... Trucks still gotta roll, Matt. Especially in Afghanistan and Okinawa.
MRW that was Cold War situation... Today it is mostly gwot ... Troop still gotta eat. Propane runs those stoves.
Troops.
Then why was the military caught completely off-guard in 1973 if it had already been "clear" and the policy "dominated?"
Don't know the details but I assume they believed they already had a deal. They did, sort of, but then Nixon devalued the dollar in their eyes so that deal was off. Also recall that US domestic oil production had peaked out in 1971 and the US became dependent on imported oil after that.
Hopefully 'energy week' will be more successful than 'infrastructure week'.
Don't hold your breath... there is more to successful material systems outcomes than promotion ....
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