Empire of Debt E-Book

William Bonner

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Agora Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 659

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

In Empire of Debt, maverick financial writers Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin provide you with the first in-depth look at how the American character has shifted to accommodate its new imperial role; how we have abandoned the private virtues of personal liberty, economic freedom, and fiscal restraint; and how the government has gained control of public life and the economy.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

THE THEME OF THIS BOOK IN A NUTSHELL

I - IMPERIA ABSURDUM

Chapter 1 - Dead Men Talking

LESSONS OF THE FOURTH CRUSADE

THE TYRANNY OF THE LIVING

WISDOM OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS

THE SECOND REICH

SECRETS OF THE NEAR DEAD

DEAD PRESIDENTS

Chapter 2 - Empires of Dirt

THE HUNS ARE COMING!

THE GREAT KHAN

WHERE HAVE ALL THE DEAD EMPIRES GONE?

THE ROMAN EMPIRE

THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA

Chapter 3 - How Empires Work

THE HISTORY OF EMPIRES

BACK TO THE FUTURE

IN PRAISE OF EMPIRES

AUSTRO-HUNGARIANS

THE MAKING OF AN EMPIRE

THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

Chapter 4 - As We Go Marching

MILITARY ADVENTURISM

II - WOODROW CROSSES THE RUBICON

Chapter 5 - The Road to Hell

THE BEST PRESIDENTS

WILSON CROSSES THE RUBICON

THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA

THE GREAT WAR

WILSON’S WAR

ARMISTICE DAY

MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY

PAYING FOR WAR

Chapter 6 - The Revolution of 1913 and the Great Depression

WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM

AMERICAN CAESARS

NEW MONEY

A SAFETY NET

PANEM ET CIRCENSIS

STUFFING THE COURT

TEN THOUSAND COMMANDMENTS

Chapter 7 - MacNamara’s War

MACNAMARA’S WAR

FACING THE ENEMY

Chapter 8 - Nixon’s the One

PAYING THE PRICE

PAX DOLLARIUM

III - EVENING IN AMERICA

Chapter 9 - Reagan’s Legacy

ORIGINS OF SUPPLY SIDE

REAL BOOMS VERSUS THE PHONY VARIETY

FUNNY NUMBERS

FORGETTING TO DUCK

MARX’S REVENGE

SUNRISE, SUNSET

A WORLD OF DEBT

Chapter 10 - America’s Glorious Empire of Debt

HOW THE PUBLIC DEBT INCREASED

MAESTRO’S PERFORMANCE

FLIGHT TO HAZARD

FRUGAL TO A FAULT

THE OWNERSHIP SOCIETY

Chapter 11 - Modern Imperial Finance

GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

TAKE IT AWAY, MAESTRO

WHAT HATH ALAN WROUGHT?

Chapter 12 - Something Wicked This Way Comes

THE GREAT CONCEIT

WHENCE COMETH THE TRADE DEFICIT?

IV - THE ESSENTIAL INVESTOR

Chapter 13 - Welcome to Squanderville

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

BUBBLE MANIA

THE SAGE OF THE PLAINS

DELUSIONS OF MEDIOCRITY

AMERICANS GET POORER . . .

THE COMING CORRECTION

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO AMERICANS’ DEBTS?

THE DEMISE OF THE DOLLAR

Chapter 14 - Still Turning Japanese

WHAT ABOUT INFLATION?

Chapter 15 - The Wall Street Fandango

AN INSIDER’S GAME

AMPLIFIED SENTIMENTS

’TIL DEATH DO US PART

Chapter 16 - Subversive Investing

THE ESSENTIAL INVESTOR

THE MYTH OF CAPITAL GAINS

SUBVERSIVE INVESTING

THE POWER OF GOLD

SPECULATIONS

Appendix - The Essentialist Glossary

Notes

Index

Copyright © 2006 by William Bonner. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Bonner, William, 1948-

Empire of debt : the rise of an epic financial crisis / Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin. p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-471-73902-9 (cloth) ISBN-10: 0-471-73902-2 (cloth)

1. Financial crises—United States. 2. Debt—United States. 3. United States—Economic conditions—2001- I. Wiggin, Addison. II. Title.

HB3722.B658 2006

336.3’4’0973—dc22

2005023682

Introduction: Slouching toward Empire

The will of Zeus is moving toward its end.

—The Illiad

One day in early spring 2005, we traveled by train from Poitiers to Paris and found ourselves seated next to Robert Hue, head of the French Communist Party and a senator representing Val d’Oise. He sat down and pulled out a travel magazine, just as any other traveler would. Aside from one Bolshevik manqué who stopped by to say hello, no one paid any attention. A friend reports that he was on the same train a few months ago with then Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who was accompanied by only a single aide.

Many years ago, when the United States was still a modest republic, American presidents were likewise available to almost anyone who wanted to shoot them. Thomas Jefferson went for a walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, alone, and spoke to anyone who came up to him. John Adams used to swim naked in the Potomac. A woman reporter got him to talk to her by sitting on his clothes and refusing to budge.

But now anyone who wants to see the president must have a background check and pass through a metal detector. The White House staff must approve reporters before they are allowed into press conferences. And when the U.S. head of state travels, he does so in imperial style; he moves around protected by hundreds of praetorian guards, sharpshooters on rooftops, and thousands of local centurions. When President Clinton went to China in 1998, he took with him his family, plus “5 Cabinet secretaries, 6 members of Congress, 86 senior aides, 150 civilian staff (doctors, lawyers, secretaries, valets, hairdressers, and so on), 150 military staff (drivers, baggage handlers, snipers, and so on), 150 security personnel, several bomb-sniffing dogs, and many tons of equipment, including 10 armored limousines and the ‘blue goose,’ Clinton’s bulletproof lectern.”

Getting the presidential entourage and its armada of equipment to China and back, the Air Force flew 36 airlift missions on Boeing 747, C-141, and C-5 aircraft. The Pentagon’s cost of the China trip was $14 million. Operating Air Force One alone costs over $34,000 an hour.

Today, the president cavalcades around Washington in an armored Cadillac. The limousine is fitted with bullet-proof windows, equally sturdy tires, and a self-contained ventilation system to ward off a biological or chemical attack.

The Secret Service—the agency charged with preserving the president among the living—employs over 5,000 people: 2,100 special agents, 1,200 Uniformed Division employees, and 1,700 technical and administrative wonks. Everywhere the president goes, his security is handled—by thousands of guards and aides, secure compounds, and carefully orchestrated movements. Security was so tight during a visit to Ottawa, Canada, in 2004 that some members of Parliament were refused entry into the building for lack of a special one-time security pass, an act apparently contradictory to the laws of Canada.

In late 2003, when Bush deigned to visit the British Isles, an additional 5,000 British police officers were deployed to the streets of London to protect him. Parks and streets were shut down. Snipers were visible on the royal rooftop.1 After Bush’s stay at Buckingham Palace in London, the Queen was horrified by the damage done to the Palace grounds. They were left looking like the parking lot at a Wal-Mart two-for-one sale.2

THE THEME OF THIS BOOK IN A NUTSHELL

Watching the news is a bit like watching a bad opera. You can tell from all the shrieking that something very important is supposed to be happening, but you don’t quite know what it is. What you’re missing is the plot.

Let us begin by noticing that this is a comic opera that seems as though it might veer into tragedy at any moment. The characters on stage are familiar to us—consumers, economists, politicians, investors, and businessmen. They are the same hustlers, clowns, rubes, and dumbbells that we always see before us. But in today’s performance they are doing something extraordinary, they are the richest people on the planet, but they have come to rely on the savings of the world’s poorest people just to pay their bills. They routinely spend more than they make—and think they can continue doing so indefinitely. They go deeper and deeper in debt, believing they will never have to settle up. They buy houses and then mortgage them out—room by room, until they have almost nothing left. They invade foreign countries in the belief that they are spreading freedom and democracy, and depend on lending from Communist China to pay for it.

But people come to believe whatever they must believe when they must believe it. All these conceits and illusions that we find so amusing in the Daily Reckoning (www.dailyreckoning.com), come not from thinking, but from circumstances. As they say on Wall Street, “markets make opinions,” not the other way around. The circumstance that makes sense of this strange performance is that the United States is an empire—whether we like it or not. It must play a well-known role on the world stage, just as you and I must play our roles, not because we have thought our way to them, but simply because of who we are, where we are, and when we are. Primitive people play primitive roles. They are no less intelligent than the rest of us, but they would be out of character if they began doing calculus. They have their parts to play just as we do. Sophisticated people play sophisticated roles. They are no smarter than anyone else, but you still don’t expect them to wear bones through their noses. We, citizens of the last great empire, have our roles to play too, and the empire itself, must do what an empire must do.