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THOUGHTS ON THE FOREVER WAR by Doug Casey
I hope I'm totally wrong on this, but I've got a feeling what's brewing is the biggest thing since at least World War II. The historical clock looks to me like it's at about 1936. Straws in the wind are starting to signal a brewing hurricane.
The current U.S. military budget is $396 billion, and it's expanding rapidly. That's roughly $5000 for every household in the U.S. But what's more relevant is how it stacks up relative to other countries. The fact is, it's significantly more than the combined budgets of every other country in the world, which is even more bizarre when you consider that the U.S. has only 4% of the world's population.
For your reference, here are the next largest military budgets: Russia $60 billion; China $42 billion; Japan $40.4 billion; United Kingdom $34 billion; Saudi Arabia $27.2; France $25.3 billion; Germany $21 billion; Brazil $17.9 billion; India $15.6 billion; Italy $15.5 billion; South Korea $11.8 billion; Iran $9 billion; Israel $9 billion; Taiwan $8.2 billion.
Israel, which is actually surrounded by enemy states while simultaneously fighting a guerrilla war within its borders, only spends $9 billion. France and Britain, which have close historical connections to scores of ex-colonies who are a constant tribulation (e.g., the Ivory Coast), together only spend a fraction of the US budget. Where does the money go? I don't think anybody has actually figured it out. But 75% of it would be totally unnecessary if the U.S. government recalled the troops from well over 100 countries around the world where they're antagonizing the natives. The U.S. is, in effect, in an arms race against itself. And the problem of having a powerful military is similar to that of having a big hammer: pretty soon, everything starts looking like a nail.
Of course, not all U.S. military spending goes directly to the U.S. military.
The U.S. gave $1 billion in aid to Somalia before its disastrous "peace-keeping" mission in 1991 - including $154 million in weapons. It's estimated that the U.S. Government gave the Taliban and other Afghan rebels about $3 billion in military aid to fight the Soviets. And you certainly won't hear Bush admitting that in 2001 alone, before the 911 attacks made the Afghans the Devil of the Month, the U.S. government gave the Afghan regime $125 million in aid. I haven't seen the numbers for the amount of support to Saddam while Iraq fought the Iranians during the 80s. But the Iranians were armed almost exclusively with American weapons left over from the Shah's regime. It might be called "the boomerang effect."
Passing out weapons to repressive regimes on the principle that "my enemy's enemy must be my friend" is a proven formula for disaster.
Americans have often wondered where the Germans were able to recruit all the people who staffed the Gestapo and the SS. The fact is, however, that sociopaths, sociopath sympathizers, the weak-kneed, and the easily-led form a standard distribution across all societies, in all times. We have just as many in America now as the Germans did in the 1930s. Maybe even more, since Americans have been corrupted by welfare and programmed by the public schools and the mass media for several generations more than were the Germans of that time. Your local TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) snitch might report that you "fail to display sufficient respect for authority." Or maybe he'll write down that you "laugh upon hearing the phrase 'homeland security'." Think I'm kidding? Try making a (homeland security) joke in an airport.
Just for the record, look at the Cabinet level departments created over the last 40 years. Why should Homeland Security ($37 billion budget) be any different from any of these disasters - except that it's got a lot more power, and its employees carry guns:
1965, Housing and Urban Development, budget $31 billion, which is mainly responsible for the creation of vertical ghettos, and the destruction of the inner cities in general....
1966, Transportation, budget $61 billion, the bane of the transportation industry....
1977, Energy, budget $19 billion, which has never produced a barrel of oil....
1979, Education, budget $48 billion, the running dog of the NEA trade union, whose creation coincides with a collapse in the education system....
1988, Veterans Affairs, budget $52 billion, the agency every veteran would like to launch an air strike against....
I know some pundits are saying this is already the longest bear market in history - which is nonsense. And I'm not just talking about the 12 year Japanese bear market. Entirely apart from that, bear markets historically tend to linger for about half the length of the proceeding bull, which was 18 years in this case.
Explosive 1000 point rallies are evidence there's actually still a lot of bullish sentiment out there. I don't think it's going to be over until we see 6- 8% dividend yields everywhere, a great decline in the number of mutual funds, and low trading volumes. And not only won't there be bullish articles in McPaper [USAToday], there won't even be bearish articles. There won't be any articles on stocks, because nobody is going to want to hear about stocks at all.
People's attention is likely to be much more focused on news from the latest front in The Forever War.
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