How the wars in the Middle East led to the current economic crisis by James Robyn
(libertarian)
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Right now there is a lot of attention being placed on the economy. In the last few weeks we have seen the "bail out" of various Financial Institutions by the Federal Reserve.
True a lot of it has to do with sub prime mortgages, junk bonds, and other unwise investment but the major problem happens to the wars we are involved in that are being fought on two fronts and may be going into a third soon.
There are two things that make wars unpopular and painful to the public. The first is conscription, the draft or as it rightfully should be called servitude or slavery. This sort of thing has been unpopular for a long time, especially when you have an unpopular war or in this case wars which these ones are. The other one is taxation. It so happens that wars are expensive to fight, they cost money. Traditionally in the past the cost has been transfered to the public by means of taxation.
These are two reasons why George Bush hasn't really been opposed as violently as Johnson and Nixon were in the sixties. In other words he has managed to get away with two wars. One obviously based on outright lies and cooked intelligence about non existent "weapons of mass destruction" and the other based completely on pretext, which I'll explore in another article.
The draft as we know was abolished back in the early seventies, though oddly the mechanism used for selective service wasn't. For some strange reason the selective service board and registration still exists. In fact in many states refusing to register can prohibit one from acquiring a driver's license. However, despite evidence of a pro forma draft. The draft itself is pretty much dead, though there has been the occasional hew and cry from both sides of the isles to reinstitute in order "democratize the armed services". Whatever that means?
Also the Army itself is not interested in a draft. Understandably, they don't want to return to the days when their commissioned officers were being "fragged" by their draftees and other problems with discipline such as massive desertions and drug abuse. They therefore prefer a volunteer army. though with such things as "stop loss", also called a back door draft. It is doubtful many are there on their own accord. However, with things like the offer of green cards, a fully paid education and other incentives, they've really had no problem raising an army.
Taxation, has been "solved" by borrowing the money to fight these wars from the Federal Reserve and therefore increasing the national debt, which seemed to work fine while the economy remained stable and the banks where making interest on mortgages and unsecured debt.
Now the excrement hasn't hit the fan on consumer debt just yet but it will and it will dwarf the current mortgage crisis. Till then we can only watch the mortgage crisis unfold as foreclosures rise like a thermometer in the Arizona dessert.
The reason for this is that due to the instability in the Middle East being caused by these wars has caused gas and fuel prices to soar thus causing other prices to soar because the cost of shipping them has increased. This has put the average home owner in a tight spot, either they can pay their mortgage or buy food and gas. If you where in their position what would you chose?
The wars therefore have caused an inevitable domino effect and has led to the fact that Americans will in reality be taxed to fight these war whether they know it or not they are "bailing out" these same institutions who aided and abetted the push for war.
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