Since WWII and the beginning of virtually free money for the US, we have embarked on one illegal war after another. Wars are always the most expensive item in any country's budget and for the US that has continued to be true. Our veracious appetite for everything the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) has to offer and then some, has caused suffering worldwide as well as an America with a crumbling infrastructure and a disappearing safety net for the less fortunate. For decades, the US has spent almost half of all world military expenses.
As more and more money went to invasions and destruction on nearly every continent, the US has found it much harder to maintain troops and wars abroad while trying to spend money on urgent domestic affairs. The fact that the rich pay a whole lot less in taxes (under Presidents Truman and Eisenhower the tax rate for the rich stood at over 90% while today it's only 35% and President Trump wants to lower it even further to 15%) which means that the government has even less money to work with while our MIC hegemonic obligations continue to rise at an alarming rate.
The Atlantic brilliantly points out the obvious in their article from September, 2016, entitled Fighting Terrorism With a Credit Card, "Since the 9/11 attacks, America has poured $3.2 trillion into its wars, according to a new study from Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs". And for 15 years now, the United States has been putting these wars on a credit card. Past U.S. wars were largely "pay as you go" affairs for which the government raised taxes, slashed non-military spending, borrowed money from the American public by selling war bonds, or chose some combination of these and other options, according to Neta Crawford, the author of the study and a political scientist at Boston University. The George W. Bush administration, by contrast, cut taxes in 2003, engaged in deficit spending after using up a budget surplus that it inherited from the Clinton administration, and sold only a small number of war bonds."
Signs are cropping up on a regular basis that the vaunted American Middle Class is shrinking at an alarming rate. The Alternet website's article from October, 2014, 7 Facts That Show the American Dream Is Dead, concluded: "Vacations; an education; staying home to raise your kids; a life without crushing debt; seeing the doctor when you don't feel well; a chance to retire: one by one, these mainstays of middle-class life are disappearing for most Americans. Until we demand political leadership that will do something about it, they're not coming back.
"Can the American dream be restored? Yes, but it will take concerted effort to address two underlying problems. First, we must end the domination of our electoral process by wealthy and powerful elites. At the same time, we must begin to address the problem of growing economic inequality. Without a national movement to call for change, change simply isn't going to happen."
Meanwhile, since 1996 the international trade done in renminbi, the name of the Chinese currency, has been growing by leaps and bounds. It's already being traded in over 100 countries. With the arrival of President Trump and his propensity to demean foreign leaders at a rate of 140 characters at a time, the Chinese, Europeans, Russians and Japanese have been seeking more and more commerce among them at the complete exclusion of the USA.
The effects of this major global trade shift could be catastrophic. As I wrote in my 2009 article on OpEdNews, US Dollar, Currency of Last Resort, "Even though the US dollar is still found aplenty around the world, countries could decide to use it ONLY within their commercial transactions with the United States, and ONLY when they purchase commodities from the US. They could even demand that the US start paying them in one of the other currencies for their goods and services.
"The flow of US dollars would suddenly become unidirectional. Dollars would continue to flow TO the US, but the US would be required to use pounds, euros or yen for their purchases of foreign goods and services. This would force the US to actually buy money to purchase goods for the first time since Bretton Woods. Rather than just firing up the printing press and creating trillions of dollars out of thin air, the US would be obligated to use its own goods and services to purchase currencies from other countries and then use those currencies to purchase goods and services from the rest of the world -- just like the entire rest of the world has been doing all along.
"At this point in time, the impact is incalculable. The US has not had to actually use foreign currencies to any reasonable extent for over 60 years. It has been given a free ride complete with twirling pole and attachable string. This free ride has been abused so many times by the US that entire sections of libraries are replete with authors' recounts of the horrors that have resulted. Military abuses, economic chaos and disasters, and hegemonic government policy has been job one for the US since WWII. From the overthrow of democratically elected presidents like Salvador Allende in Chile and elsewhere, to economic crises in Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia and beyond, and passing through war after war in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and others, the US has used its unique world status to dominate everyone else and crush any and all opposition.
"For these long 60 years there has never been a coordinated effort that could match the sheer strength or volume of the US economy, at least, not until now. The Chinese economy has been growing at a 10% clip for over ten years and this current crisis has only caused it to stumble a bit. It is now back on pace to continue its economic bullet train ride into the stratosphere."
We have all seen the images from the recent G20 meeting in Hamburg. While nearly every world leader there seemed to have a full agenda all the time, President Trump was filmed walking almost aimlessly around looking for his seat or asking strangers if he could join them. It looked sadly like a continuation of the last meeting of President Bush when not one leader acknowledged his presence and he stared at the floor rather than risk a glance at a scouring face. The writing is not only on the wall, it's writ large across the entire planet.
The ominous end of American hegemony is nigh as I suggested in my OpEdNews article in 2008, The Rise and Fall of the US Dollar, "By the mid-21st century, the United States will no longer be the world's largest economy. By then, China and India will have overtaken the United States, Western Europe and Japan, on purchasing power parity terms at least, which should represent where exchange rates are likely to be in the long run. Indeed, optimistic measures of sustainable growth in China and India suggest this will be the case in 20 years time. Ladies and gentlemen, within my lifetime, the dollar will start to lose its reserve currency status " to the renminbi.
"A closer look at (the reign of world currencies) reveals that they all lasted around 100 years. The centennial for the dollar will occur in about 20 years' time. If history is to repeat itself, that's when the renminbi " will officially surpass the US dollar as top dog."
Our election of President Trump has merely solidified and accelerated the inevitable.
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