Sorry, TheLiberalOC Blog, the economy ain’t improving

There is no instance of a nation profiting from prolonged warfare.

–Sun Tzu

TheLiberalOC.com Blog posted Obama’s weekly video address from YouTube.  The summary on the blog:

WASHINGTON – In this week’s address, President Barack Obama said the newly released GDP numbers are an indication that the Recovery Act is working, but that long–term investments in innovation are needed to ensure our nation’s long-term economic growth. By training the highest skilled workforce in the world, reforming the health care system to free business from spiraling costs, and building a green energy economy, we will create a new foundation that will encourage the innovation needed to move America forward.

The War, The War, The War

It’s understandable that liberals, such as TheLiberalOC, and other Democrats would hope for the best under Obama, and would believe his words.

But actually, the recession — really the Bush Depression — isn’t ending, and won’t end until Obama, or a successor, ends the massively expensive wars Bush started.

Wars are incredibly wasteful. George Stiglitz, a liberal Democrat himself and Nobel Prize laureate in economics, pegs the costs of the Iraq War at $3 trillion — and possibly up to $5 trillion. That’s $5,000,000,000,000.00.

The wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which Obama is vastly expanding, will cost trillions more.

Hey, TheLiberalOC, didn’t Obama win by running as the peace candidate?

Imperial Bankruptcy

Within living memory of many readers here and at TheLiberalOC, the Vietnam War bankrupted America, bringing on the “malaise” 1970s. The Soviet Union’s earlier Afghan War bankrupted them.

The Spanish Empire was bankrupted by the long Dutch Revolt, which the Dutch won. The British Empire was bankrupted by World War I and World War II. The French Empire was bankrupted by their involvement in Vietnam, ending in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu, and their troubles later that decade in Algeria, from which they also withdrew.

And here’s one analysis of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire:

The Roman Empire produced few exportable goods. Material innovation, whether through entrepreneurialism or technological advancement, all but ended long before the final dissolution of the Empire. Meanwhile the costs of military defense and the pomp of Emperors continued. Financial needs continued to increase, but the means of meeting them steadily eroded. In the end due to economic failure, even the armor of soldiers deteriorated and the weaponry of soldiers became so obsolete to the extent that the enemies of the Empire had better armor and weapons as well as larger forces. The decrepit social order offered so little to its subjects that many saw the barbarian invasion as liberation from onerous obligations to the ruling class.

Sound familiar?

It’s pathetic that South Korea, an outpost of the American Empire, still occupied by 30,000 U.S. tropps, can produce a car company like Hyundai, while General Motors and Chrysler go bankrupt. But that’s what happens when an Empire sends its capital overseas to support its legions, instead of at home on domestic industries.

Obama = Bush III

Obama promised “Change you can believe in.” But all he’s produced so far is More Bush You Can’t Believe In. He’s Bush III.

Another hallmark of crashing empires is an inability of the ruling elite to change, and to get somebody new in power who can make the necessary changes. That’s obviously what’s going on here.

Bush paid for his wars with inflation and wild domestic spending to buy support in Congress. When the crash hit hard in 2008, Bush panicked and gave us “bailouts,” the main ones of GM and Chrysler and the Wall Street banks, paid for by Main Street.

Obama is continuing the same disastrous policies, with GM now a part of the government, and Chrysler essentially given to Fiat, an Italian company. Both companies, basically, are dead. Hummer, that symbol of Yankee vehicular machismo, now is a Chinese company.

Like the antique Romans, we can’t even build our own goods. Even our flashy iPods are made in China, along with practically every doodad sold in Wal-Mart.

War bankrupts

Consider again the words at the top of this blog, from Sun Tzu, the greatest military strategist ever: “There is no instance of a nation profiting from prolonged warfare.” It’s too bad Obama, and Bush before him, seem never to have read Sun Tzu’s classic, “On War.”

Read it yourself and find out what war is really about. (My favorite translation is that by Thomas Cleary, highlighted at right. Amazingly, it’s ranked 1,206, as of this writing, on Amazon’s list of best-selling books. Not bad for a book written at least 2,500 years ago.)

As a result of our leaders’ ignorance, it’s looking like the only way the American Empire will end is a major shock to the system, a Dien Bien Phu in Afghanistan or Iraq: a catastrophic defeat of our overextended forces. If it happens on Obama’s watch, Republicans will blame him, and reap election dividends — even though Republicans remain the main culprits of American collapse because of their subservient support of Bush for 8 years.

Meanwhile, our domestic economy will keep collapsing. There is no recovery. There is only more of the Bush Depression.