A Bankrupt Superpower

The Collapse of American Power

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

In his famous book, The Collapse of British Power (1972), Correlli Barnett reports that in the opening days of World War II Great Britain only had enough gold and foreign exchange to finance war expenditures for a few months. The British turned to the Americans to finance their ability to wage war. Barnett writes that this dependency signaled the end of British power.

From their inception, America's 21st century wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have been red ink wars financed by foreigners, principally the Chinese and Japanese, who purchase the US Treasury bonds that the US government issues to finance its red ink budgets.

The Bush administration forecasts a $410 billion federal budget deficit for this year, an indication that, as the US saving rate is approximately zero, the US is not only dependent on foreigners to finance its wars but also dependent on foreigners to finance part of the US government's domestic expenditures. Foreign borrowing is paying US government salaries--perhaps that of the President himself--or funding the expenditures of the various cabinet departments. Financially, the US is not an independent country.

The Bush administration's $410 billion deficit forecast is based on the unrealistic assumption of 2.7% GDP growth in 2008, whereas in actual fact the US economy has fallen into a recession that could be severe. There will be no 2.7% growth, and the actual deficit will be substantially larger than $410 billion.

ceebeebies!

Not if you watch In The Night Garden - that's fucking terrifying!

You have chosen to ignore all posts from: jon.

I had to pay 85p for a Mars bar the other day!

I had to pay 85p for a Mars bar the other day!

I had to pay 85p for a Mars bar the other day!

I think what we call Milky Ways are what you call Mars bars. We had Mars bars years ago, but they stopped making them. Not sure what our Mars Bars corresponded to.

The Mars Bar is a chocolate bar manufactured by Mars Incorporated. It was first manufactured in Slough in the United Kingdom in 1932 as a sweeter version of the American Milky Way bar which Mars produced in the USA (not to be confused with the European version of the Milky Way, which is a different confectionery).

A different chocolate bar with the same name was sold in the USA until 2002 when its name was changed to Snickers Almond Bar. It contained then, and still does, plain nougat, almonds, caramel and milk chocolate.

Youu've obviously too much money ... & were ripped off