A Conservative Power

War pays, at least for those in the firepower industry. For everyone else, it is a curse. So far this century, the total cost of the Empire budget is roughly equal to US debt. The Fed must inflate.

Thursday, October 17^th, 2024 

Bill Bonner, writing today from Baltimore, Maryland 

​​τότε λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἀπόστρεψόν σου τὴν μάχαιραν εἰς τὸν τόπον αὐτῆς· πάντες γὰρ οἱ λαβόντες μάχαιραν ἐν μαχαίρᾳ ἀπολοῦνται.​ 

He who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword 

--Matthew 26:52 

The age-old evils — war and inflation — stalk the US empire. The warmongers and money printers have slipped their leashes... and now, a reckoning hangs over the country like an unsheathed sword. 

Not wanting to die by the sword, prudent nations leave their swords in their sheaths... taking them out only when absolutely necessary. But sometimes, the balance of power is so lopsided... and the temptation is so great... the swords come out and the heads come off. 

If a race of extraterrestrials, with much advanced technology, came down to Earth, they could erase all earthlings. They would not necessarily feel that ‘Black Lives Matter.’ White lives either.  

In Megapolitics, it’s the balance of power that matters. Morality? Maybe not so much. As if coming from outer space, Europeans of the 16th-19th centuries climbed off of their boats and had such a lead over the natives in Australia, New Zealand and the Americas, for example, that they were almost able to wipe them out. No international court of justice... nor tender feelings towards the indigenous peoples... stopped them.  

But most of the time the imbalance is not so stark... the combatants are more equal... and the swords change hands. 

Athens enjoyed a glorious empire... until it was conquered by Sparta and later leveled by the Roman general, Sulla. 

Rome itself reveled in a long period of matia

l victories... until it was overrun by barbarians in an orgy of killing, slavery and rapine. 

More recently, the sword switched hands quickly. Napoleon went on a rampage in the early 19th century. By 1815, France was occupied by foreign troops and Napoleon banished. 

Hitler swung a big sword too... beginning in September 1939, with an assault on Poland. By April 1945, Hitler was dead and the Thousand Year Reich was history.

Spanish forces under Hernan Cortes are defeated in ‘the Night of Sorrows’ in 1520 at the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan..

Today, the US enjoys a huge technological and economic advantage. It uses it to patrol and garrison much of the world... generally trying to tamp down anything that might challenge its “full spectrum dominance.” It is a ‘conservative’ power... trying to preserve the world order that it created — including the primacy of its money. 

Its money system — set up in 1971 — replaced real money with credit-based dollars, IOUs that could be manipulated any way the feds wanted. It gave the US an ‘exorbitant privilege,’ said Giscard d’Estaing. America could ‘print’ new money at essentially no cost. The rest of the world took it at par value. Deficits, that could be easily bridged with this ‘printing press money,’ no longer mattered.  

Even with honest money, the US would still be the world’s number one military power. But without the $35 trillion dollars’ worth of debt, added since 1971, its firepower industry would have been more restrained.    

Before 1971, the US could borrow money. But too much borrowing by the feds drove up interest rates. Money got tighter and the economy slowed, as private borrowers were ‘crowded out’ by the feds. 

The feds still ran deficits from time to time. But the big borrowing was only done on an ‘emergency’ basis. To pay for war, for example. War was an occasional thing... and an expensive one. In WWII, for instance, citizens pitched their savings to the feds to help win the war. After the war, they expected to be paid back fairly... with honest money. And, for the most part, they were. 

Today, the ‘emergency’ is permanent and deficits come routinely. US debt hit $400 billion in early 1972... accumulated over 181 years of fiscal operations by the US government. Today, the feds add $400 billion to the debt every 81 days. And war is almost constant. So far this century, US troops and their proxies have seen action in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Uganda, Niger, Syria, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Ukraine and Russia. 

The obvious reason for it — war pays. At least it pays for those in the firepower industry. For everyone else, it is a curse.  So far this century, the total cost of the Empire budget is roughly equal to US debt.  The Fed must inflate to keep up with it. 

But for now, the US is in the enviable position of being able to afford violence... and inflict it... without immediate harm to itself. Its bombs fall on much of the world, but not on the West.  Its money is still good…for now.  And its ‘defense’ contractors and their enablers in Congress, the White House, and the Deep State get rich.   

The US can live by the sword for the foreseeable future...  

Hell will have to wait.  

Regards, 

Bill Bonner