1
1
1
Debasement
The supply of foodstuffs in the cities declined. The people in the cities were forced to go back to the country and to return to agricultural life. Consequently, the emperors made laws against this movement. There were laws preventing the city dweller from moving to the country, but such laws were ineffective. As the people did not have anything to eat in the city, as they were starving, no law could keep them from leaving the city and going back into agriculture. The city dweller could no longer work in the processing industries of the cities as an artisan. And, with the loss of the markets in the cities, no one could buy anything there anymore.
Ludwig von Mises -- Human Action
The Military Complex Lessons from ancient Rome regarding the cost of maintaining a far-flung empire have been ignored. Today, U.S. boots stomp on the ground of over 117 countries. Even the use of mercenaries, in the form of thousands of Blackwater guards and other private contractors filling roles formerly left to the military, has become commonplace.
Economist Ludwig von Mises argued that flawed economic policies played a key role in the impoverishment and decay of the Roman Empire. He contended that interventionist economic policies, including price controls that resulted in prices substantially below their free-market equilibrium levels, ultimately led to inflation.
Further, Rome was spending more than it could afford. The free food rations for the poor of Rome and Constantinople -- as well as the many entertainments -- were costing a fortune. The purchasing of exotic spices, silks, and other luxuries from the Orient bled Rome of its gold, gold that didn't return. Soon Rome didn't have enough gold to produce coins. And so it debased its coins with lesser metals until there was no gold left.
To cover the trillions it is spending each year propping up its empire, the U.S. government is now increasingly forced to rely on printing and borrowing the funds to do so, steadily debasing the currency in the process.
But the nation's currency debasement is nothing new. Rather, it began in 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve. It accelerated when FDR confiscated all the gold in the country in the 1930s. When Richard Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard in 1971, the show really got on the road, as that freed the Federal Reserve to print unlimited amounts of dollars. As a result, the dollar has lost 93% of its value versus gold since 1970.
Using military assets to pursue political goals, as is the norm in empire building, has led to unintended consequences and wasted opportunities.
One of the most egregious of those lost opportunities came following the bankruptcy and collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States had won the Cold War, but failed to recognize the cautionary signs on the path ahead.
As the only remaining superpower on earth, America fell into the same trap that has befallen previous empires. Instead of concentrating on proactively confronting domestic challenges, such as unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities, and developing a comprehensive energy plan to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, we continued to intervene in costly foreign adventures.
Including, among many others, supplying both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein with weapons and money during their fights against our enemies, leading to unintended consequences we live with to this day.
Seeking to maintain its widespread interests and to defend itself from the many enemies created by building and protecting those interests, the American military complex has grown to the point where it now spends an amount equal to 44% of all taxes collected from its citizens.
Since 1991 alone, the U.S. has interceded in Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, among others. In no case has Congress fulfilled its obligation of declaring war. Instead, it has delegated sole responsibility for waging war to the president, weakening the structure of our three-branch government. Over that period of time, the U.S. has spent $7 trillion on defense.
