http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2616.shtml

 

The American empire is falling with the dollar

By Paul Craig Roberts

Online Journal Guest Writer

 

 

Nov 8, 2007, 01:00

 

 

 

The US dollar is still officially the world's reserve currency, but it cannot purchase the services of Brazilian super model Gisele Bundchen. Gisele required the $30 million she earned during the first half of this year to be paid in euros.

 

Gisele is not alone in her forecast of the dollar's fate. The First Post (UK) reports that Jim Rogers, a former partner of billionaire George Soros, is selling his home and all possessions in order to convert all his wealth into Chinese yuan.

 

Meanwhile, American economists continue to preach that offshoring is good for the US economy and that Bush's war spending is keeping the economy going. The practitioners of supply and demand have yet to figure out that the dollar's supply is sinking the dollar's price and along with it American power.

 

The macho super patriots who support the Bush regime still haven't caught on that US superpower status rests on the dollar being the reserve currency, not on a military unable to occupy Baghdad. If the dollar were not the world currency, the US would have to earn enough foreign currencies to pay for its 737 oversees bases, an impossibility considering America's $800 billion trade deficit.

 

When the dollar ceases to be the reserve currency, foreigners will cease to finance the US trade and budget deficits, and the American Empire along with its wars will disappear overnight. Perhaps Bush will be able to get a World Bank loan, or maybe one from the "Chavez bank," to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Foreign leaders, observing that offshoring and war are accelerating America's relative economic decline, no longer treat the US with the deference to which Washington is accustomed. Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, recently refused Washington's demand to renew the lease on the Manta air base in Ecuador. He told Washington that the US could have a base in Ecuador if Ecuador could have a military base in the US.

 

When Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez addressed the UN, he crossed himself as he stood at the podium. Referring to President Bush, Chavez said, "Yesterday the devil came here, and it smells of sulfur still today." Bush, said Chavez, was standing "right here, talking as if he owned the world."

 

In his state of the nation message last year, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that Bush's blathering about democracy was nothing but a cloak for the pursuit of American self-interests at the expense of other peoples. "We are aware what is going on in the world. Comrade wolf knows whom to eat, and he eats without listening, and he's clearly not going to listen to anyone." In May 2007, Putin criticized the neocon regime in Washington for "disrespect for human life" and "claims to global exclusiveness, just as it was in the time of the Third Reich."

 

Even America's British allies regard President Bush as a threat to world peace and the second most dangerous man alive. Bush is edged out in polls by Osama bin Laden, but is regarded as more dangerous than Iran's demonized president and North Korea's Kim Jong-il.

 

President Bush has achieved his dismal world standing despite spending $1.6 billion of hard-pressed Americans' tax money on public relations between 2003 and 2006.

 

Clearly, America's leader and America's currency are poorly regarded. Is there a solution?

 

Perhaps the answer lies in those 737 overseas bases. If those bases were brought home and shared among the 50 states, each state would gain 15 new military bases.

 

Imagine what this would mean: The end of the housing slump. A reduction in the trade deficit. And the end of the war on terror.

 

Who would dare attack a country with 15 new military bases in every state in addition to the existing ones? Wherever a terrorist turned, he would find himself surrounded by soldiers.

 

All of the dollars currently spent abroad to support 737 overseas bases would be spent at home. Income for foreigners would become income for Americans, and the trade deficit would shrink.

 

The impact of the 737 military base payrolls on the US economy would end the housing crisis and bring back the 140,000 highly paid financial services jobs, the loss of which this year has cost the US $42 billion in consumer income. Foreclosures and bankruptcies would plummet.

 

If this isn't enough to turn the dollar around, President Bush's pledge not to appoint an attorney general if Michael Mukasey is not confirmed offers more promise. If the Democrats will defeat Mukasey's nomination, there are other superfluous cabinet departments that can be closed down in addition to the US Department of Torture and Indefinite Detention.

 

The American empire is being unwound on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. The year is two months from being over, but already in 2007, despite the touted "surge," deaths of US soldiers are the highest of any year of the war.

 

The Taliban are the ones who are surging. They have taken control of a third district in Western Afghanistan. Turkey and the Kurds are on the verge of turning northern Iraq into a new war zone, another demonstration of American impotence.

 

Bush's wars have endangered America's puppet regimes. Bush's Pakistani puppet, Musharraf, is fighting for his life. By resorting to "emergency rule" and oppressive measures, Musharraf has intensified his opposition. When Musharraf falls, thanks to Bush, the Islamists will have nukes.

 

American generals used to say that the wars Bush started in the Middle East would take 10 years to win. On Oct. 31, General John Abizaid, former commander of US forces in the Middle East, put paid to that optimistic forecast. Speaking at Carnegie Mellon University, Gen. Abizaid said it would be 50 years before US troops can leave the Middle East.

 

There is no possibility of the US remaining in the Middle East for a half century. The dollar and US power are already on their last legs, unbeknownst to Democratic leaders Pelosi and Reid who are preparing yet another blank check for Bush's latest request for $200 billion in supplementary war funding.

 

There isn't any money with which to fund Bush's lost war. It will have to be borrowed from China.

 

The Romans brought on their own demise, but it took them centuries. Bush has finished America in a mere seven years.

 

Even as Gisele throws off the dollar's hegemony, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Columbia are declaring independence from the IMF and World Bank, instruments of US financial hegemony, by creating their own development bank, thus bringing to an end US suzerainty over South America.

 

An empire that has lost its backyard is finished.

 

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow?s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

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If in a 100 years I came back to Earth and the US was ruled by China, I would not be the least bit surprised.

Can Gisele do that!? She'll be making like an extra 10 million

She can do whatever she wants

 

She can have my checkbook

I agree with pretty much everything he said.

 

This foreign policy of unilateralism is going to cost us internationally for decades to come. There is no way that the next President will be able to solve this problem, even in two terms. Our image is badly tainted from Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other follies. Worse still, if one of the Republican candidates wins the Oval Office, our current foreign policy is likely to continue for another 4-8 years, which this country can't afford. Romney's claims of "doubling Guantanamo", and Rudy's of 'going on the offensive' against terrorism are worrying me a lot. Not to mention the fact that they seem to treat the whole waterboarding controversy as a joke.

 

This country absolutely cannot sustain the financial strain of the Iraq occupation, not to mention the military strain. Troops levels are almost certainly going to have to decrease in the next 4-6 months, as most military experts believe that the military will be broken if this is not undertaken.

 

We could save a lot of money by closing down most of our foreign bases, except the ones in key regions. We certainly have no need for European bases, or ones in places like Cuba (except to imprison people).

 

An article I just read yesterday showed that we have gone from a 60% favorable rating in Turkey to a 10% favorable rating in just 4 years. All of the moderate Islamic countries' ratings have gone the same direction, down.

 

No good is going to come out of this quagmire, mark my words.

This foreign policy of unilateralism is going to cost us internationally for decades to come.

 

The problem with the dollar is not based upon the above.

 

We need to stop cutting interest rates, we continue to increase the supply of money and therefore debase its value.

This foreign policy of unilateralism is going to cost us internationally for decades to come.

 

The problem with the dollar is not based upon the above.

I'm aware of that, but it was mentioned in the article, so I figured it was appropriate.

An article I just read yesterday showed that we have gone from a 60% favorable rating in Turkey to a 10% favorable rating in just 4 years. All of the moderate Islamic countries' ratings have gone the same direction, down.

 

Those numbers do not surprise me one bit which is a shame.

The Empire is not falling. Bush hasn't destroyed the country yet. We will recover. We went through something similar in the 1970's. But we need to act fast.

The Empire is not falling. Bush hasn't destroyed the country yet. We will recover. We went through something similar in the 1970's. But we need to act fast.

 

hmmmm. . . whatever man. I won't argue that Bush has done a terrible job, but this is the result of excess and a the wrong economic and monetary policy. Look at Alan Greenspan and the model that we have been under for the past 12+ years. . . .

 

There is a credit bubble, and we are going to pay for it. 99%+ of all houses are owned by banks. Credit card debt, savings being at all time lows, etc.

Over-spending, the huge deficit, and our protracted war in Iraq are at least partly to blame for these problems. Similarly, the Vietnam War in the late 60s and early 70s really hurt us economically. There is no doubt that Bush's foreign policy has nearly driven us into the ground. The truth of the matter is we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq that could have been spent to better educate our citizens, give them good health insurance, and just generally keep building our human capital.

 

Bush f***ed up. I am sorry, but he did. The incompetence of this administration is mind boggling. Just to give you an example, Richard Perle in the 1980's advocated an aggressive policy against Gorbachev because he believed Gorby would be the next Stalin. Fortunately, the Regan administration listened to others' advice instead. In other words, the man was as wrong as you could be. Nevertheless, he was appointed under the Bush administration and was one of the key architects of the war in Iraq. Tell me, does this make any sense? The Bush administration is more about ideology and less about pragmatism. He should have learned from his father and Reagan.

The neocons are insane, at least IMO.

 

If they had their way, we would have attacked/invaded Syria and Iran by now.

Adding insult to injury, please see the fake news conference held by FEMA. They don't appoint or hire professionals, they appoint and hire ideologues. No meritocracy. That's the real problem.

 

You have a bunch of dumbf***s making important decisions. Dumbf***s are dumbf***s because they f*** up.

 

I am a moderate Democrat, and almost voted for Bush in 2000. Although I disagree with him ideologically about many things, I also agree on a number of issues (lower taxes, free trade, a practical immigration policy), so don't think I believe this because I hate all things George Bush.

During the start of the Iraq occupation, the State Department was only hiring admitted Republicans to work in Iraq. As a result, the majority of the people in charge of rebuilding the country had virtually zero experience.

That's wrong. That's one of the major problems with this administration.

That's wrong. That's one of the major problems with this administration.

In just about everything they do, they have been putting politics ahead of the good of the country.

The neocons are insane, at least IMO.

 

Ofcourse they are.

I would like to put forth 2 things

 

regannomics doesnt work and this man really hurt the middle class

 

and this article is full of sh$$$

reagannomics doesnt work and this man really hurt the middle class

Not really breaking news, but it's very true.

 

However, when all is said and done, Bush's economic policies are probably going to turn out to be worse. He has done everything he could to give more and more money to big business. That has worked all too well.