People regularly complain that the war in Iraq is costing the US too much, but compared to the amount of interest we pay on the National Debt, it's short money.
The Iraq War costs approximately $10 Billion a month, whereas interest payments on the National Debt are $19 billion amonth. SInce March, the Fed has created an additional 7 Trillion worth of debt. To get this into perspective, when Bush came to office, the National Debt was only $5 Trillion. The monthly interest expense will be going way up!
Resist your impulse to blame Bush; bust must follow boom. Clinton's inflated dotcom boom has created this bust. Calvin Coolidge presided over a booming stock market and surplus annual budgets, too. As soon as he left office, the ponzi scheme collapsed. The same thing has happened with Clinton and Bush.
9/11 and the war has made things worse, but you may recall that the economy was tanking before 9/11. The Fed is trying to prop up the economy by printing more cash. This Keynesian approach will not work. It didn't work last time, either.
So what happened? Blame the middle-class. Social Security was created because speculation destroyed the economy. But within a generation the middle-class was speculating again because 'Social Security wasn't enough to retire on.'
Sure, the fatcats on Wall Street deserve some blame, but they only hold the door open. It is the players that keep the game going. How many middle-class people don't have a 401K? The interest that the government is paying is the same money that others are collecting. In effect, we are paying more taxes so we can pay ourselves more interest.
Worse still, most people have a 401K and a mortgage simultaneously. They are collecting interest with one hand and paying it with the other. Orwell would call that financial doublethink. So if you are wondering why war is peace in our political diplomacy, take a look in the mirror. If you believe 2+2=5, then you are infected with doublethink.
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