QUOTING: Foreigners see the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization as Washington surrogates in a financial system backed by American military bases and aircraft carriers encircling the globe. But this military domination is a vestige of an American empire no longer able to rule by economic strength. US military power is muscle-bound, based more on atomic weaponry and long-distance air strikes than on ground operations, which have become too politically unpopular to mount on any large scale. On the economic front there is no foreseeable way in which the United States can work off the $4 trillion it owes foreign governments, their central banks and the sovereign wealth funds set up to dispose of the global dollar glut. America has become a deadbeat –a militarily aggressive one — as it sruggles to hold onto the immense power it once earned by economic means. The problem for the rest of the world is how to constrain its behavior. Yu Yongding, a former Chinese central bank advisor now with China’s Academy of Sciences, suggested that US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner be advised that the United States should “save” first and foremost by cutting back its military budget. “U.S. tax revenue,” he said, “is not likely to increase in the short term because of low economic growth, inflexible expenditures and the cost of ‘fighting two wars.’” counterpunch.org/2009/06/15/the-ending-of-america-s-financial-military-empire/
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:20:14 +0000
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