We see constantly in the media economic experts and pundits decrying the sorry state of the economies of several European countries __ Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland. Yet as this chart shows, Americans are individually responsible for more debt than any of the citizens of these troubled nations.
Japan is even worse. Its national debt last time I checked was 228% of their GDP. The Japanese are in hock up to their hairlines. But there is a big difference. 85% of that debt is owned by the Japanese people. They have invested in their own country and owe the money to themselves! American because of its borrowing spree owes everyone else in the world __ China, Germany, France, Japan. Next time you go to a Chinese restaurant, you might want to thank them for not foreclosing. Yet anyway.
I personally see no problem with a nation running constructive deficits. Under the current flawed relationships between banks and national economies, it is a necessary evil to both sustain and promote growth.
What is objectionable is having no genuine say in why we borrow. Granted that various social support and entitlement programs benefit us all. But the astounding and insulting truth to those of us who actually believe we live in a democratic country, is that America spends somewhere around $700 billion for war. Yet if you look at any unbiased polling, Americans don't want war. We want peace.
The defense spending of the U.S. nearly equals the total defense spending of all other nations in the world combined. Why do we spend so much to arm ourselves against real and imagined but all relatively weak, if not totally powerless enemies? Our leaders say its to protect our "national interests". This is but a euphemism for world domination and access to the resources of the countries we attack.
This investment in imperial control of the world comes at a price. It costs the lives of soldiers who go to fight pointless, self-destructive wars; it has eliminated the last shreds of credibility we once had in the world as a nation which stood for the most noble principles; it is sapping us of our national pride, the spirit that once drove the country's belief in its mission to spread democracy and lift the living standards of everyone on the planet.
We borrow for bombs.
We borrow to spread death.
We borrow to create enemies.
Someone has to pay for all of this. It's you and I. The invoice is in the mail. Soon it will be stamped 'Past Due'. Not long after that it will say 'Account Closed'.
To live in a country which has borrowed up to its eyebrows to build bombs and promote war is incarceration at its worst. It is living in the confines of a shameful and ruinous nightmare.
We truly live in a debtor's prison.
[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
