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Paul Merrell

Reagan and Obama budget directors urge to cut Pentagon spending - RT USA - 0 views

rt.com/...ng-budget-defense-stockman-239

financial-collapse defense budget

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Speaking at a Thomson Reuters Newsmaker event this week, David Stockman and Peter Orszag both said the US could save tremendously if it shifted spending away from the Pentagon, ending the trend of dumping a large chunk of the federal budget on maintaining overseas military bases and lengthy occupations.Stockman, who was budget director from 1981 to 1985 under Republican Ronald Reagan, is considered by Reuters to be “a key architect of tax-cutting policies” enacted during that administration. And although Peter— a former budget director for Democrat President Barack Obama — comes from the other side of the aisle, both say military spending should be slashed to save the country.“We ought to go back to [President Dwight] Eisenhower’s standard on defense,” Stockman said during the discussion. In 1960, he said, Eisenhower closed out his presidency by warning Congress that continuous spending aimed at the Pentagon would feed and foster the military industrial complex that exists today.
  • “Go back to that,” said Stockman. “We could save two trillion dollars over the next 10 years simply by going back to the Eisenhower standard: Getting out of this imperial foreign policy of invasion and occupation; demobilize our forces.”Stockman said that having one-and-a-half million service members in the Armed Forces is “ridiculous,” and that the US could sustain with a military less than one-third of that. “Why do we have a million in our reserves in National Guard?” he asked. “We are spending a quarter of a trillion dollars a year just on manpower and benefits just for all of those people I’ve mentioned, and we have no industrial enemies anywhere in the world.”Orszag failed to go into as great of detail as Stockman in terms of defense spending, instead emphasizing that scaling back Social Security payments and ending income tax cuts could best solve the country’s financial woes.
  • Orszag says governments are right to use spending to stretch out the economic adjustments to keep large segments of population from losing their jobs, which itself can cause long-lasting problems,” reports Reuters.That isn’t to say, however, that he shied away from taking an axe to the Defense Department’s budget in the past. After leaving the Obama White House, he authored an op-ed for Bloomberg News in 2012 where he outlined ways to pinch pennies by giving Uncle Sam less to work with.“In the abstract, reducing defense costs seems pretty simple: Just cut back on some of the really expensive equipment,” Orszag wrote. “The cost of building the F-35 fighter, for example, has been estimated at more than $100 million per plane. The new littoral combat ship, designed to operate in coastal regions, is projected to cost about $600 million per ship.”
Gary Edwards

How World War I Paved the Way for the Warfare State :: The Mises Economics Blog: The Ci... - 0 views

bastiat.mises.org/...-the-way-for-the-warfare-state

David-Stockman FDR-S FDR-Socialism Great-Depression Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Mar 14
     
    Part ONE "by David Stockman Remarks To The Committee For The Republic, Washington DC, February 2014 (Part 1 of 6 Parts) [From David Stockman's Contra Corner.] Flask in hand, Boris Yelstin famously mounted a tank outside the Soviet Parliament in August 1991. Presently, the fearsome Red Army stood down-an outcome which 45 years of Cold War military mobilization by the West had failed to accomplish. At the time, the U.S. Warfare State's budget- counting the pentagon, spy agencies, DOE weapons, foreign aid, homeland security and veterans--was about $500 billion in today's dollars.  Now, a quarter century on from the Cold War's end, that same metric stands at $900 billion. This near doubling of the Warfare State's fiscal girth is a tad incongruous.  After all, America's war machine was designed to thwart a giant, nuclear-armed industrial state, but, alas, we now have no industrial state enemies left on the planet. The much-shrunken Russian successor to the Soviet Union, for example, has become a kleptocracy run by a clever thief who prefers stealing from his own citizens. Likewise, the Red Chinese threat consists of a re-conditioned aircraft carrier bought second-hand from a former naval power--otherwise known as the former Ukraine. China's bubble-ridden domestic economy would collapse within six weeks were it to actually bomb the 4,000 Wal-Mart outlets in America on which its mercantilist export machine utterly depends. On top of that, we've been fired as the world's policeman, al Qaeda has splintered among warlords who inhabit the armpits of the world from Yemen to Somalia and during last September's Syria war scare the American people even took away the President's keys to the Tomahawk missile batteries.  In short, the persistence of America's trillion dollar Warfare State budget needs some serious "splainin". The Great War and Its Aftermath My purpose tonight is to sketch the long story of how it all happened, starti
Gary Edwards

Crony Capitalists Are the Ruling Class, the Forgotten Cause of Free Markets and Sound M... - 0 views

www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article39260.html

David-Stockman Banksters Corporate-Facsists

shared by Gary Edwards on 03 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 03 Mar 13
     
    David Stockman, former Reagan Budget Director, gives an amazingly insightful and indepth analysis of the 2008 financial collapse.  He also identifies the banksters, fascist corporatists, politicians and political forces behind the collapse.  Great read, but also a very long speech.  Worth every bit of your time though.  Very informative.
Paul Merrell

Bombs Away Over Syria! Washington Has Gone Stark Raving Mad | David Stockman's Contra C... - 0 views

davidstockmanscontracorner.com/gton-has-gone-stark-raving-mad

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria bombging comedy

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Exactly one year ago Obama proposed to take Bashar Al Assad to the woodshed because he had allegedly unleashed a vicious chemical attack on his own citizens. That was all pretext, of course, because even the CIA refused to sign-off on the flimsy case for Assad’s culpability at the time—-a reluctance corroborated since then by the considerable evidence that hundreds of Syrian civilians were murdered during a false flag operation staged by the rebels with help from Turkey. The aim of the rebels, of course, was to activate American tomahawk missiles and bombers in behalf of “regime change”, which was also the stated goal of the Obama Administration. Now the White House is threatening to bomb Syria again, but this time its “regime change” objective has been expanded to include both sides! In 12 short months what had been the allegedly heroic Sunni opposition to the “brutal rule” of the Assad/Alawite minority has transmuted into the “greatest terrorist threat ever”, according to the Secretary of Defense.
  • Adding to this blinding farce is the warning of Syria’s Foreign Affairs minister that Obama should please to request permission before he rains destruction from the sky on the Opposition—-that is, the opposition to the very same Damascus regime which the White House has vowed to eradicate. Needless to say,  the Washington apparatus is having nothing to do with aiding the enemy of its new enemy:
  • In fact, there is apparently an option emerging from the bowels of the war machine that calls for an odd/even day plan to bomb both sides, thereby making clear that Washington is an equal opportunity spanker. Apparently, whether you use a 12th century sword or 20th century attack helicopter as a means of rule, you will be bombed by the “indispensable nation”, as Obama put it, adding that “no other nation can do what we do”. Well, that involves some “doing”. According to AP, it appears that Syrian airstrikes are imminent, but could be carried out under the odd/even day plan: “In an effort to avoid unintentionally strengthening the Syrian government, the White House could seek to balance strikes against the Islamic State with attacks on Assad regime targets.” Is any more evidence needed that Washington has gone stark raving mad than even the possibility that such an absurd option could  be under consideration? Has not the imperial city on the Potomac become so inured to its pretensions of global hegemony and to instant resort to deployment of its war machine that any semblance of rationality and coherence has been dissolved?
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • So let the region rearrange itself without Washington’s unwelcome meddling and mayhem. If Turkey and an independent Kurdistan can make mutually acceptable political and economic arrangements, which are already well-advanced, so be it. If the Shiite south in Iraq and the  Alawite/Shiite southwest in Syria break-off from their present Europe-bequeathed boundaries and form independent regimes, how does that jeopardize the safety and security of the citizens of Lincoln NE and Spokane WA? And, yes, if the Islamic State temporarily manages to coalesce within the Sunni lands of the Euphrates Valley and the upper Tigress why is that really a national security threat which requires launching an unwinnable war, a new round of hostility to America in the Islamic world and the blowback of legions of jihadi with a score to settle?
  • Why would you believe that a viable state can be built in today’s world on the tactics of Genghis Kahn? The Islamic State, such as it is, is not rich, does not have enough oil to make a difference, will soon be bogged down in the insuperable problems of governance by the sword and will flounder on the impoverished economics of the dusty villages and desert expanse which comprise its natural territory. And it will eventually mobilize its neighbors—-Turkey, Hezbollah, the rump regime of Assad’s Alawite Syria, Kurdistan, the Shiite alliance of Iran and lower Iraq, and even Saudi Arabia and the oil sheikdoms—to contain its external ambitions. So Washington should call off the bombers and get out of harm’s way. The American Imperium has failed and the prospect of bombing both sides of an irrelevant non-country’s ancient tribal wars ought, at last, to make that much clear.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Aug 14
     
    David Stockman sees some hilarity in Obama's decision to bomb Syria. 
Gary Edwards

Not Actually a Shutdown | National Review Online - 0 views

www.nationalreview.com/...ly-shutdown-hans-von-spakovsky

shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 01 Oct 13
     
    excerpt: "A 1981 memorandum by David Stockman during the Reagan administration that is still relied on by the OMB laid out the services that continue without interruption during any government "shutdown": .... National security, including the conduct of foreign relations essential to the national security or the safety of life and property; .... Benefit payments and the performance of contract obligations under no-year or multi-year appropriations or other funds remaining available for those purposes; .... Medical care of inpatients and emergency outpatient care and activities essential for the safe use of food, drugs, and hazardous materials; .... Air-traffic control and other transportation safety functions; Border and coastal protection and surveillance; .... Protection of federal lands, buildings, waterways, and other property of the U.S.; .... Care of prisoners and others in federal custody; .... Law enforcement and criminal investigations; .... Emergency and disaster assistance; .... Activities essential to the preservation of the money and banking system of the U.S., including borrowing and tax collection; .... Production of power and maintenance of the power-distribution system; and .... Protection of research property. So planes, trains, and automobiles will keep running and TSA will keep patting you down. The president can continue to go on overseas trips to conduct foreign relations. Social Security and Medicaid benefits will keep going out. The Border Patrol will keep patrolling our borders to prevent illegal crossings (at least as much as this administration will let it do that). The Federal Bureau of Prisons will keep convicted criminals in prison and the FBI will continue making arrests and investigating violations of the law. The FDA and the Department of Agriculture will continue their safety testing and inspection of food and drugs, and medical care of inpatients and emergency outpatient care will keep right on going. The Fed
Gary Edwards

The Mythical Banking Crisis and the Failure of the New Deal :: The Mises Economics Blog... - 0 views

bastiat.mises.org/...nd-the-failure-of-the-new-deal

Great-Depression FDR-Socialism David-Stockman Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Mar 14
     
    Everything you know about FDR, The New Deal and the Great Depression Banking Crisis is wrong!!!! "From David Stockman's Contra Corner. Remarks to the Committee For The Republic, Washington DC, February 2014 (Part 4 in a 6-Part Series) Go to Part 1. The Great Depression thus did not represent the failure of capitalism or some inherent suicidal tendency of the free market to plunge into cyclical depression-absent the constant ministrations of the state through monetary, fiscal, tax and regulatory interventions.  Instead, the Great Depression was a unique historical occurrence-the delayed consequence of the monumental folly of the Great War, abetted by the financial deformations spawned by modern central banking. But ironically, the "failure of capitalism" explanation of the Great Depression is exactly what enabled the Warfare State to thrive and dominate the rest of the 20th century because it gave birth to what have become its twin handmaidens--Keynesian economics and monetary central planning. Together, these two doctrines eroded and eventually destroyed the great policy barrier--that is, the old-time religion of balanced budgets- that had kept America a relatively peaceful Republic until 1914. To be sure, under Mellon's tutelage, Harding, Coolidge and Hoover strove mightily, and on paper successfully, to restore the pre-1914 status quo ante on the fiscal front.  But it was a pyrrhic victory-since Mellon's surpluses rested on an artificially booming, bubbling economy that was destined to hit the wall. The Hoover Recovery of 1932 Worse still, Hoover's bitter-end fidelity to fiscal orthodoxy, as embodied in his infamous balanced budget of June 1932, got blamed for prolonging the depression.  Yet, as I have demonstrated in the chapter of my book called "New Deal Myths of Recovery", the Great Depression was already over by early summer 1932."
Paul Merrell

Trump's Pentagon Budget Boost: Shades of Ronald Reagan « LobeLog - 0 views

lobelog.com/-boost-shades-of-ronald-reagan

war & peace Defense-spending Trump-administration

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • The last time a president went for a peacetime defense budget increase of the magnitude the Donald is seeking was 1981. Showing no originality, the current office-holder has even borrowed Ronald Reagan’s bumper sticker: “Peace Through Strength”! Holy cow, he even plans to bury this increase in a budget that promises fiscal control, cuts revenues, and slashes domestic spending. Talk about Groundhog Day. David Stockman must be rolling over in his bed (being still alive), recognizing the track marks on newly minted Mick Mulvaney as similar to the ones Cap Weinberger left on his back in 1981. It’s like a bad movie, something Reagan knew well; or, better yet, a bad TV show, which was the leadership preparation for the current chief executive.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Feb 17
     
    The senior White House official for national security budgets from 1993-1997 devastates Trump's proposed whopping increase in defense spending.
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