One of my dearest friends is a programmer with an excellent mind. He scours current affairs, news sources, reports on Government activities, and draws his information from every credible source. He also sends me really funny YouTube links, and some off-the-wall pieces of Americana that have me, a foreigner, smiling and shaking my head.
So it was no surprise that I got these links from him this evening via Skype. This is a two-part talk by Lawrence Wilkerson, who was assistant to Colin Powell from 1989, and worked with him through the first Gulf War when Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He stayed in that job, following Powell into the George W. Bush administration where Powell was secretary of State. Lawrence Wilkerson is a man with excellent Republican credentials.
I watched these two videos, and I think they are essential viewing for every American. They are particularly important for conservative or Republicans to watch, because Wilkerson today is a staunch Republican, and maintains close ties with senior Republicans on the Hill.
Wilkerson's predictions are very much in line with the future path I see for America. In the near term, the US will depart the Afghanistan and Iraq wars because it will simply run out of money. The entire economy is running on printed money, and sooner or later, the presses have to stop. There is no great underlying strength; manufacturing industry has been gutted and the infrastructure necessary for its resuscitation is gone.
[10:04:01 PM] Wayne: part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lDj9rGtioQ part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P8CzRbLnC4 it looks like there's supposed to be a part 3 that hasn't been posted yet
[10:43:15 PM] Richard: I just watched those two videos. I really like them, because they are good analysis, and would be good vehicles to reach the conservatives .. the historical vectors are well-drawn, and the miscues that the Bush/Cheney administration erroneously took from them in their bid for global control -- control of Middle East oil -- rather set the stage for the failed nation state that America is becoming.
I am quite sure that Europe, China, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong Malaysia, Australia, etc are all sitting down together working on a parachute -- a financial model that may be required in a post-American world in the near future.
This does not mean that America will become a third world country overnight. I think it will be a center of innovation, and creative people will still be fostered by the system, because the system (Government) will revere and appreciate them more. Well, if it doesn't, they will go live somewhere in the world that appreciates them more, and protects them better.
But there needs to be a growing recognition that Americans have not been creating wealth. They have been borrowing money, splitting it up and pretending it is income.
Think about the property market. A $500,000 house is built with $150,000 worth of materials on land that was essentially worth about $1,000. The added value is profit from the sale of the land, and the house, and is split up between the City, the County, the developer, the land owner, the realtor, the mortgage broker, the bank, the title company, and the State and Federal Government as taxes. But the $500,000 came from borrowing: the mortgage, that was securitized, traded, sold again and again, and sooner or later, creating this "wealth" out of borrowings has to stop. And when it does, the entire money-go-round stops: the income in the hands of the realtors, property valuers, title company employees, Governemt, and so on all stops getting spent on cars, groceries, restaurants, gasoline, hookers, strippers, travel, golfing, boats, and all the myriad things that people making $250,000 a year spend money on.
Collateral damage: I know a guy who has been a Cadillac salesman for about 25 years. He is now out of a job: has been for about a year. They have lost their boat, cars, house and beach home, and are living in an apartment on unemployment. His job is not coming back. Realtors aren't buying Cadillacs any more.
[10/27/2009 10:47:38 PM] Wayne: oh no, not the hookers!
[10/27/2009 10:47:56 PM] Richard: The hookers are for the politicians.
OK, night night. It's pumpkin time.
Stop Press: It is the next morning!
Overnight, the last video in this series was posted (confirming Wayne's conjecture that the series was not yet complete).http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=781b-xIJCrQ
Wilkerson's solution to the problem is to practise consistent, good leadership in the future. Prolem is, this requires voters who are educated in the issues, and able to make rational decisions that take into account the concerns and needs of everyone in both the US and the rest of the world.
Yeah? I doubt this can happen. Or happen in time to avert the coming storm. Americans are already fractious and angry in their communication between the Right and the Left, both driven by emotionally-charged belief rather than rational conclusions drawn from good investigation.
In the current crisis, Americans are already polarized and paralyzed.
The American press does not report the news. The coming financial cataclysm will arrive in a Unites States that has dumbed down to the point of no return, and the next decline is beginning, right now, in the last quarter of 2009.
America has not only run out of money, it has run out of time.
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