All through the 1990s, the Fed pumped up the essentially flat tires of our empire, managing to keep it on the road if not always in good working order. The fuel that ran that empire and industrial advanced nations everywhere was the dollar. In order to keep the machinery of the Imperium going, however, and keep our claim to international leadership, we destroyed the very basis of our hegemony: our economic good health, symbolized by the health of the dollar as the currency of choice worldwide. It was a steady and generous flow of dollars that bribed our satraps, like Mubarak, into doing our bidding. Those dollars also went to build up a military machine without rivals or precedent, one which could fight two major wars simultaneously, guard both Europe and Asia while policing the worlds sea lanes and chew gum at the same time. This meant an expenditure greater than the combined military budgets of all other nations on the planet.
This is unsustainable, along with all the other equally profligate institutions of the Welfare-Warfare State. Cuts in the military budget are opposed by Republicans, while Democrats are up in arms now that the pensions of Wisconsin prison guards and teachers (or do I repeat myself?) are no longer considered untouchable. The United States is headed for its own Days of Rage, as the spoiled brats who inherited the Republic established by the Founders wake up from their orgy of self-gratification and self-deception to find their inheritance is gone.
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