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While Elites Played Empire, America Fell Apart
Of Two Minds ^ | 14 February 2017 | Charles Hugh Smith

Posted on 02/17/2017 12:10:01 PM PST by Lorianne

Our extraordinary misallocation of national treasure and political power has set a banquet of consequences that few are willing to face, much less address head-on. If we had to sum up this vast misallocation, we might start by characterizing it as the result of a multitude of elites playing Empire with money borrowed from future generations.

We can start the list of extraordinary misallocations of national treasure with the Neocon's endless wars of choice. Ten years ago, estimates of the total cost of the Iraq misadventure were $3 trillion: Cost of Iraq War: $3 Trillion; Cost of Solar Plants to Power all 105 million U.S Households: $500 Billion (April 10, 2008)

(Yes, I know solar energy is not "the solution" due to intermittency, lack of storage, fossil fuels are needed to build and maintain the solar infrastructure, etc.--but the point is: would we be better off if we'd invested 20% of the money squandered on the Iraq misadventure on alternative energy, even with all its limitations?)

But this does not exhaust the list of extraordinary misallocations of treasure.Universities have found the funds to build grand edifices on campus (never mind the trillion dollars in student loan debt that funded the delusions of grandeur) while much of the rest of our educational infrastructure crumbles as deferred maintenance takes its inevitable toll.

Public transit systems such as the San Francisco Bay Area's BART always find the funds to pay for hefty raises and gold-plated benefits for employees and managers, meanwhile the system's core has crumbled due to--you guessed it--hundreds of millions of dollars in long-deferred maintenance.

While employee wages, benefits and pensions dominate local government outlays, maintenance is funded by selling bonds, which cost twice as much over the long run due to interest and other costs.

Where cities and counties once funded school maintenance and filling potholes out of tax receipts, now many locales demand taxpayers approve tens of millions of dollars in new bonds to pay for these basic infrastructure maintenance projects.

It has reached the point that even maintaining city parks requires borrowing millions.

Political elites have found that promising the impossible--lower taxes and increased benefits/entitlements--keeps them in power, and as long as the credit spigot of new government borrowing is wide open, there are no limits on how many more trillions of dollars in future interest payments can be promised to win re-election today.

The fact that this sets a toxic banquet of consequences for future taxpayers and beneficiaries--no worries, some future politico will have to sit down at that banquet:

Political and financial elites have lined their own pockets and insured the continuity of their own power by deferring boring, unsexy, you-get-no-votes-for-this maintenance. Want to be "popular" and win re-election? Ram through sexy new projects such as "affordable" housing (i.e. costly housing subsidized by taxpayers), extensions in mass transit lines, fancy new stadiums and student-services buildings--and pay for it all with borrowed money and by slashing boring, unsexy maintenance work.

SNIP


TOPICS: Business/Economy; History; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 02/17/2017 12:10:01 PM PST by Lorianne
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To: Lorianne

Medicare is not an entitlement.


2 posted on 02/17/2017 12:24:56 PM PST by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: oh8eleven

“Medicare is not an entitlement”

Title 42 USC Subchapter XVIII


3 posted on 02/17/2017 12:37:14 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: Lorianne

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_42_of_the_United_States_Code

If you want to know how trillions can easily go!


4 posted on 02/17/2017 12:38:58 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: Lorianne

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_42_of_the_United_States_Code

If you want to know how trillions can easily go!


5 posted on 02/17/2017 12:39:05 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: Lorianne

CHS has been spot on lately.


6 posted on 02/17/2017 12:42:14 PM PST by griswold3
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To: Lorianne

Correction, playing empire is part of their plan to make the US fall apart.


7 posted on 02/17/2017 1:21:33 PM PST by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory !!)
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To: oh8eleven

Neither Medicare nor Socialism Security are constitutional irrespective of court decisions otherwise.


8 posted on 02/17/2017 1:50:15 PM PST by RKV (He who has the guns makes the rules)
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To: Lorianne

The tragedy in process at Oroville dam is a perfect example of this. It’s breaking my heart to see what is happening and probably about to happen there because a bunch of Kool aid drinking dope smoking Marxists had to have all their crazy boondoggles and didnt keep up simple maintenance on a dam. There will be lives lost, property damaged, and all that water that could have been reserved for future droughts will pour directly back out to the sea. Unless a miracle happens and they manage to dodge this bullet. The people maintaining the dam asked and asked for funds to be opened up to do some basic repairs, but no - the bullet train and taking care of the illegal invaders was more important. The counties around the dam area voted Republican at least the last two elections. I would hope that didnt have anything to do with decisions on allocating money from the state treasury. Surely not....


9 posted on 02/17/2017 3:44:48 PM PST by boxlunch (Pray for Donald Trump's safety, for his family and cabinet. Make America Good Again!)
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