Deficit Spending and Resource Allocations

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6110621/Our-quarter-century-penance-is-just-starting.html

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes:

"Our quarter-century penance is just starting: Never in modern times has there been such a flat contradiction between the euphoria of markets and the stern warnings of officialdom at central banks and financial watchdogs."

He continues:

"All that has happened over this crisis is that huge private losses have been dumped on society: but the losses are still there, smothering the economy"

Evans-Pritchard argues that taxes must rise to compensate for the bailout-driven deficit spending. I agree with his analysis but DISAGREE WITH HIS CURE.

Rather than raising taxes and cutting social benefits, the U.S. should stop bailing out insolvent and morally bankrupt financial institutions and should dramatically scale down military spending.

U.S. military spending should be dramatically pared down. Many of the weapons systems driving costs are irrelevant for contemporary warfare. Additionally, U.S. empire building through military means does not work. Vietnam, Iraq, Afhganistan are the obvious lesson plans. The current U.S. decision to build 7 or 8 military bases in Columbia simply turns public opinion in the rest of the continent against the U.S.

If the U.S. were to dramatically scale down its military spending it could productively re-allocate financial and scientific resources toward discovery and creation of new energy forms and infrastructures.

The U.S. unwillingness to disengage from a pointless and destructive military obsession will be the nation's undoing...