Peace with Honor

Peace with Honor

 

Seven thousand American troops have been killed, and another fifty-four thousand have been injured, in the post-9/11 wars. 

-       Why It’s So Hard for America to End Its Wars, The New Yorker

 

By JM Hamilton (4-17-2021)

 

Somewhere in the heavens, the infernal regions, or in the ether, Osama bin Laden is looking on and thinking, Mission - Truly - Accomplished.  The 9-11 criminal mastermind’s aim, all along, was to lead America, and the West, into bankrupting Middle East wars, and OBL exceeded all expectations (after he reprised the CIA’s & Mujahideen's playbook against the Soviet Union).  Of course, OBL had a lot of help in bankrupting America…  namely, from the US Foreign Policy establishment, hawks at the DOD, armchair warriors in think tanks (who have never stepped onto a battlefield), cowards & warmongers in the Congress, and lobbyist for military contractors, who make billions off the US taxpayer.  You know, the failed American crew, who -- even now, and especially now, after President Biden agreed to pull the US out of Afghanistan this week -- will ramp up the rhetoric, to be echoed by a complicit MSM, as to all the reasons America must stay at war in Afghanistan and the Middle East. 

 

In the coming weeks and months, the warmongers and imperialists, the generals and politicians - wrapped in flags - will all tell us that we must have peace with honor, that America cannot lose face, we must protect the hard-won gains for Afghanistan’s women, and of course, they'll play the fear card … that the terrorists are winning, and the United States is setting itself up for another attack. 

 

What you won’t hear from the fearmongers and talking head experts is that America’s response to 9-11 was: little more than a profit making venture for stockholders in the military industrial complex, as well as Big Oil & Gas; America’s forever wars made the United States and its citizens less safe; and that the establishment sent America’s finest – the women & men in uniform – to die on the cross of empire and commercial/multinational interests.  Moreover, what you won’t hear is America’s response, per the usual, was exponential overkill and destined to fail.  After all, all empires eventually fall under the weight of their own hubris and megalomania.  That the US, finally, has a President in the White House that appears willing to end the Afghanistan charade, and take power back from a maniacal & unelected Deep State, is nothing short of blessing for the nation.  And a reminder, if Biden pulls it off, that miracles do happen. 

 

The JMH blog, of course, does not tow the party line, nor repeat the lies offered up by the US Foreign Policy establishment.  Lies and propaganda that are dutifully - and unquestionably - reported as fact, by far too many members of the MSM.  So here then, the counter-narrative you are not likely to read anywhere else. 

 

 

 

 

 

Peace with honor?  What is honorable about sending seven thousand US troops to their deaths in endless 9-11 wars, with another 54,000 injured & maimed, under the pretense of fighting terror, when all it took was a single round and small platoon of men to eliminate OBL?  What is dishonorable was the manner in which the American taxpayer was milked, endlessly, to finance the profit center that is the military industrial complex.  Honorable?  The US is now $7,000,000,000,000 deeper into debt, approximately 25% of the national debt.  There is no honor in bankruptcy.  There is no honor in not being able to defend a nation, at some future date, because the US Foreign Policy establishment – via fear tactics – has squandered the nation’s treasure, exorbitant privilege, and America’s goodwill abroad on endless wars.  Wars fought abroad, to enrich and provide US taxpayer funded security services for oil rich dictators & commercial interests, do absolutely zero for America’s moral standing. 

 

Afghanistan women… will forever have my empathy and sympathy.  But before the US can go gallivanting around the globe - like a nation-state Don Quixote - it must first save itself and not the least among us, American women.  Last I checked, the US is in the middle of a She-cession, that is an exceptionally nasty recession aimed at women.  Last I checked, domestic abuse is on the rise. Gender pay disparity, along with wage and wealth inequality, is both abysmal & sickening (as is the patriarchy that profits from overt sexism and underwrites it). 

 

But where are US war hawks’ concerns for American women, when they shed crocodile tears for Afghanistan women… ?  

 

Answer: Nowhere to be found, just as the warmongers will not bring up any concern for the women trapped in the multitude of dictatorships America arms to the teeth every god damned day. 

  

And the fear card… nothing sucks Americans into an unaccountable, money pit war like the fear card.  And if there isn’t a legitimate enemy or foe, the establishment will manufacture one in a false flag event:  See Gulf of Tonkin, see WMD in Iraq, and see the budget crippling & wholly disproportionate response to OBL. 

 

Of course, the biggest threat to America’s freedoms comes from no outside Army, or band of terrorists, but rather, from billionaires, war profiteers, C-suites, the American war lobby, Wall Street, and politicians… all of whom appear perfectly willing to bankrupt this nation with never ending corporate welfare, tax avoidance, and war. 

Lincoln said it well: “At what point then is the approach of danger expected?  I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring from amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.  As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

And another President, Madison, nailed it: “Of all the enemies of public liberty war is, perhaps, the most dreaded… War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debt and taxes; and armies, debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

 

And yet, that’s exactly what failed neocons have delivered to America, continual and aimless war, and indentured servitude for all citizens (via the national debt).  And a 2001 AUMF ensures a complete lack of accountability.  The 2001 AUMF, an unaccountable Congress, Presidents who kicked the can down the road… now, these are things Americans should genuinely fear. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So how to put an end to the insanity that is the twin evils of endless war (have you noticed, always against nations with no real ability to defend themselves, that is nations without nukes) and nation building?

 

While I would never want to see a United States without its own currency, I often wonder if an America without the world’s fiat currency might make for a less warlike country and a safer world.  No exorbitant privilege means no unlimited war budgets, it’s really that simple. It means the neocons & vampires are contained by the power of the purse. And that would be a good thing, since our elected leaders, presently, clearly have zero self-control when it comes to waging war. 

 

The US should join the International Criminal Court, posthaste, and let the chips fall where they may.  A couple of presidents in the docket, and future American leaders may think long and hard about when to pull the trigger on another war. 

 

The authorization for use of military force needs to be passed by Congress, by a recorded vote, per politician, annually. No more coasting on a two-decade old authorization. 

 

Eliminate profiteering from war.  The US government should buyout the defense contractors, eliminate MIC stocks, and the running of the arms industry should come under the exclusive domain of the government.  Given the incompetence demonstrated by the private sector, the government surely couldn’t do worse, and the moral hazard would be mitigated. 

 

Last but not least, Americans deserve a study on how it came to be, that the US is armed to the teeth, with a military budget that exceeds the next ten nations combined… and yet, Americans are afraid of their own shadow?  And how, America has come to dishonor its soldiers with endless wars and failed nation building?  A citizen draft and compulsory two years military service - for all twenty-one-year-old Americans - may provide additional assistance in ensuring peace with honor for future generations.  (If compulsory service is good enough for Israel, it's good enough for the United States.)

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021

The Private Sector: A Bad Return on Investment

The Private Sector: A Bad Return on Investment

 

The U-6 rate, also known as the underemployment rate, declined to 10.7% from 11.1%. It is often thought of as a more inclusive measure of unemployment than the headline figure because it also accounts for those who stopped looking for a job because they were discouraged about their prospects and those working part-time but desiring a full workweek.

 

 

-       Job Growth in U.S. Topped 900,000 in March as Hiring Broadened - Bloomberg

 

By JM Hamilton (4-3-2021)

 

One of the key investment ratios of finance -- so as to determine whether or not an investment is producing a reasonable return, vis a vis, competing or alternative investments -- is the return on investment ratio (or ROI).  Adjusted for inflation or the time value of money, financial types might look at a real return on investment ratio or net present value analysis. 

 

JMH brings this up because it crossed my mind recently, who is looking out for the taxpayers’ ROI?  It’s a very serious question, because since the 2008 financial crisis, and going back to 9-11… the US taxpayer has dumped trillions into Forever Wars and Wall Street bailouts.  More recently, Congress passed $4.4 trillion in Wall Street welfare, under the CARES Act, March 2020. 

 

So what exactly have Americans received with the trillions they’ve invested in Endless War, Wall Street crises, corporate welfare, and tax cuts for the rich?  The simple answer is: not a hell of a lot.  In fact, such welfare has been highly detrimental to the nation, national security, the economy, and American labor/consumer.  By way of example, has US national security been made any more durable by dumping trillions into the Middle East and Afghanistan, or our global empire?  The simple answer is assuredly not. 

                                                                                                            

Has Wall Street in any manner become less dangerous, any less leveraged, as a result of the 'no strings attached,' taxpayer funded welfare, showered upon banks, financiers, insurance companies, and hedge/mutual funds?  

 

Again, no. 

 

Tax cuts, worth trillions, showered upon billionaires and multinationals?  Did the recipients create more jobs, more opportunity, enhance the US economy, give their employees a long overdue raise … again, the answer is no. 

 

So what did Americans receive for the trillions wasted on the wealthy… well, they received: catastrophic national debt; debt, which is in turn, used by hypocritical & manipulative members of congress to withhold social spending directed at the public, in the name of austerity & budget control; we’ve seen gross wage and wealthy inequality… and wage stagnation; Americans have seen one in five children living in poverty; a decaying infrastructure; and the bottom half of American society living at a sustenance level of existence. 

 

Instead, the wealthy spent government/taxpayer largesse on: financial engineering; M&A/consolidation; stock buybacks; and feathering their own gilded nests. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reform?  Forget about it.  Wall Street is still neck deep in gambling with trillions and trillions in swap and derivatives; and there’s no sign that war profiteers need to worry one iota about POTUS Biden pulling out of Afghanistan or the Middle East. 

 

And, perhaps more detrimental…. Americans have to bribe monopolies with taxpayer dollars, the very companies often minting billions in profits, to do the right thing.  Whether its state aid to bribe Big Pharma into manufacturing taxpayer funded, vital vaccines, or a backdoor bailout for the airline industry, under the guise of saving jobs. Obamacare – not living up to medical cost containment expectations?  That’s okay, Congress will bailout failure and rapacious healthcare insurance companies, under the smokescreen of helping the uninsured buy healthcare coverage from the same unsavory US healthcare insurers. 

 

Despite endless failure, endless bailouts & corporate welfare, notice that nobody in power ever addresses, or questions, the failed neocon/neoliberal/globalist paradigm.  

 

It’s a racket, and many Americans have grown numb to it, because we’ve come to expect that the private sector is on welfare.  Americans expect that the wealthy are looting the Federal government, and that nobody in government – especially our elected leaders - is watching the government till on behalf of the disenfranchised voter.  Americans have come to expect that multinationals – who are the beneficiaries of the crony-economy & massive theft – are also exporting jobs and the US economy offshore.  American Private Equity destroys the economy, jobs, indeed, entire industries... is that a good return on tax dollars used to bailout the industry, under the CARES Act?

 

The private sector has become so lethargic, concentrated, greed based, & myopic … that it’s just assumed that the FED’s printing presses will be switched on, automatically, at the first hint of trouble, so as to spend trillions on Wall Street & C-suite robber barons, and in order to finance America’s Forever Wars.  Meanwhile, Americans receive a fourteen-hundred dollar check. 

 

But if we are truly honest, it’s time for Americans to realize that the trillions they are dumping on the private sector is an exceptionally bad investment… an investment that is bankrupting the nation, rewarding failure, encourages the private sector's shakedown of the public, and yields an extraordinarily poor rate of return for this and future generations.

 

The assumption that the private sector is a good public sector investment … has been crushed by the pandemic & climate change. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021

The United States Rewards Failure…

The United States Rewards Failure… 

 

We’ll never know what would have happened without the bailouts. The airlines say the government grants were crucial: As American Airlines put it, they “saved thousands of airline jobs, preserved the livelihoods of our hard-working team members and helped position the industry to play a central role in the nation’s recovery.”

 

-      The High Costs of the Airline Bailouts – NY Times 

 

By JM Hamilton (3-20-2021)

 

The United States has many problems, after suffering under four decades of failed neoliberalism, but its monopoly dominated economy and epic business failures – and subsequent bailouts – really standout. 

 

By now, we’ve all seen the playbook, repeatedly.  Industries, throughout the US economy, concentrate, becoming Too Big to Fail (TBTF) institutions.  Greedy boardrooms and C-suites – in the interests of meeting shareholder demands – loot the company’s credit lines, paying themselves unearned dividends and pumping up stocks with financed buybacks & cheap central bank cash… and then, when the inevitable crisis comes along, Congress bails out rogue management teams with no strings attached welfare. This is often done in the interest/political cover of preserving jobs… the same jobs that no one in power blinks an eye at losing, when job cuts are used to pay for the aforementioned financed buybacks & financed dividends or in order to sustain mountains of corporate debt.  Our stock trading Congress benefits too, in that they can front run an industry bailout by loading up on the stock that is about to become the recipient of billions in taxpayer funded welfare. 

 

We saw this scenario play out with Wall Street in 2008 and again, in a pre-emptive bailout for Wall Street, last March, with the passage of the CARES Act.  To the tune of 4.4 trillion dollars. 

 

And as reported in the NY Times, this week, we’ve seen it with the American airlines industry. The airlines grossly impaired their balance sheets with dividends and stock buybacks, and then when trouble came calling, in the name of a formidable & entirely foreseeable virus, these failed management teams went crying to Congress for free money; and Congress – rather than do their job – was only too happy to oblige with $50 billion in welfare and counting. The NY Times, in the aforementioned article, asked the rhetorical question or posed the following statement: “We’ll never know what would have happened without the bailouts.”

 

But we do know what would have happened, because business failures, particularly in the United States, happen, apparently, at record numbers all the time. 

 

The shareholders would have likely been liquidated. The management team sacked. The bondholders would have become the new owners, in exchange for debt relief.

 

And via the magic of bankruptcy courts a less encumbered airline – with possibly, a new management team & ownership – would have come out on the other side.   The airlines still need their employees to keep those planes aloft, and once the pandemic is over, employees would be put back to work.  

 

Congress, too, might have been forced to do their jobs, and investigate how an entire industry had been allowed to become so concentrated to such a large degree; Congress might also feel the pressure from the public to dig into why the airline management teams have been allowed to leverage up their companies, so at the first hint of change or trouble… the entire industry was crying out for taxpayer funded welfare. 

 

You see, the moral hazard surrounding chronic US business failures, and bailouts, is symbiotic.   Not only did Congress bailout the airline execs… but Congress also bailed out its own failure to provide oversight over our monopoly dominated economy, and the financial engineering that has turned one in five publicly traded companies into zombies.  

 

Nobody, in power, seemingly bats an eye at the rewarding of corporate failure, with trillions and trillions of taxpayer dollars… but the second a new administration wants to help ordinary Americans, the debt scolds, the inflationistas, and the Larry Summers of the world, as if on cue, appear to bang the gong of doom (amplified by the MSM).  The costs of bailing out commercial failure, neoliberalism, and America’s one percent, however, has very serious repercussions for the one in five (is it now, one in four?) children, who live in poverty. 

 

Amazing how that happens. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the US news is replete with story after story of similar failures.  Sticking with the aircraft theme, the NY Times also did an editorial on Lockheed’s F-35 (the biggest waste of taxpayer cash the military industrial complex has ever attached wings to).  Another monopoly, Boeing, and its 737 MAX and the Dreamliner aircrafts have faced groundings and notable failures (in the case of the MAX with substantial loss of life).  Both these defense contractors, Boeing & Lockheed, are on the public dole and are also - surprise, surprise – TBTF. 

 

All because Congress looked the other way, while industry after industry was allowed to concentrate into collusive cartels, or the ultimate in collusion, monopolies and utilities.

 

Of course, this is easy enough to turnaround… monopolies are made to be broken up, management teams are hired to be sacked, and bankruptcy court is almost always preferable to no strings attached welfare for stockholders and management teams. 

 

As a taxpayer, I’m tired of it… and I know my fellow Americans must be sick of it, too: 

 

The rewarding of failure and the insiders that do their best to undermine a fully functioning US economy & labor market every day… the very same cadre that sells America short.  The management & ownership, who view a company as a vehicle to loot, rather than an instrument to produce a superior product or service.  

 

And we wonder why younger Americans are ready to commit to socialism, instead of all the lies surrounding rugged individualism and bootstraps capitalism.  Young Americans know neoliberalism, like trickle-down, is a fraud, and they want what Northern Europe has… a world class mixed economy, with a strong social safety net. 

 

Laissez-faire or neoliberalism, the result is the same: the US is rapidly turning into a second-rate power, with half of Americans living at the subsistence level.  It’s a disgrace and an embarrassment… all so that the Washington duopoly can continue to tilt the scales in the oligarchy’s favor. 

 

As America and its empire continue to decline, remember it’s because the United States rewards failure in the C-suites and Boardrooms.  See our national debt ticking ever higher, as the bailouts and corporate welfare grow ever larger. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021