Back in the hoary days of Antiquity, 2001, when a large share of the world’s population wasn’t yet born, Osama bin Laden figured out how to destroy the United States.  The attack on the Twin Towers of New York City on 9/11 was just a kick in the shins, but it initiated a whole train of events that is inexorably destroying the United States, and my belief is that Osama bin Laden understood exactly what he was doing.  I am sure that he is laughing in his grave now, watching his plan unfold brilliantly beyond his wildest dreams.  

     China understood long ago, along with a few other visionaries, that Power is no longer measured in bombs and military might ~ it is measured in Money.  Back in the old days, before the Bomb, the nation with the largest army and the best weapons usually prevailed.  This rule was, of course, modified by the caliber of the commanders, whether we are talking about Alexander the Great or Napolean on the one hand, or General George Armstrong Custer or Donald Trump on the other, but, in general, the more military might you could bring to the field, the greater the likelihood that your side would prevail.  

     But those days are over, and they’re not coming back.  The only time anyone is going to light off a nuclear bomb is if they are so badly defeated that they have no further hope of survival anyway, so, like the suicide bombers, they want to bring as much of the world down with them as they go.  That line is not intended to offer any comfort ~ the likelihood of just such an inglorious end to this beautiful little wandering planet of ours is all too great.  They don’t call blocking the Strait of Hormuz the “nuclear option” for nothing !  “Push us too hard, and we will just destroy the world’s economy” (or the world, depending on what point we have reached in the race to the bottom).  

     I have been shouting into the wind about the collapsing financial foundation of this stupid country for as long as I have been publishing essays on my website (about thirty years).  While China cleverly reinvests its money in ever greater enterprises, world-wide, building practically everything that the rest of the world needs or wants, the United States, under the astute leadership of that incomparable genius Donald Trump, the Peace President who really should have won the Nobel Peace Prize, has been sinking ~ not its wealth, because it doesn’t have any, but its debt ~ into wars and rumors of wars, enriching the arms industry (in faithful repayment of Trump’s political debts), but impoverishing everyone else, including the country itself, and generations who may never be born.  

     I used to be amazed when even professional economists would say that the debt is meaningless ~ it doesn’t represent anything real, and there is no reason why it can’t just go on spiraling off into the stratosphere forever.  But I respectfully disagree.  The debt can just keep on growing exponentially, until it can’t.  (“If something can’t go on forever, it won’t”)  If Donald Trump thinks he can blithely ratchet up the Pentagon’s annual military budget to $1.5 trillion, and then add another $200 billion on top of that, for his “little excursion” into Iran, he could be very rudely awakened one of these awful mornings, before or after his impeachment.  As this country becomes increasingly insolvent, and as the Chinese yuan replaces the holy petro-dollar, investors will lose interest in buying any more Treasury bonds, so the yields will inexorably increase (meaning that it will cost more and more for the U.S. to borrow money), and inflation will reach levels not seen since the Zimbabwe miracle.  When the United States needs more money, it can simply print up some more.  What could possibly go wrong ?

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