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The Political Elite & Some Predictions (Michael Goodfellow, May 14, 2007) I actually have a somewhat, but not completely different view. Guys like Bill Gates and all the real workers he represents -- the nerds, the researchers, the average workers, keep it all going. They actually create things and in the west, don't have (all) of it looted away by corruption. This is because of the various features of our culture/economy/government. Other people around the world work just as hard (or harder), and are just as clever, but it all goes down the drain because they don't have our system. No one knows exactly what parts of that system are important, and various attempts to export it deliberately have failed. The current attempt to export it to Iraq is also failing. The only way that seems to work is slavish imitation, such as the Japanese did after they were defeated, and China is (sort of) trying to do now. Russia tried to imitate it and also failed, because they couldn't tell what parts of it were important and were too proud to just imitate us completely. The strong U.S. economy pays for the mostly worthless military, not the other way around (military protecting the economy.) All our wars have been wars of choice, due to internal political decisions, not external attack. Even WWII is somewhat debatable along those lines. It would certainly have been cheaper and simpler to just attack Japan (bomb its cities until it negotiated a treaty) after Pearl Harbor than to fight the entire war. Americans (like people of most countries, large or small) don't care about or know about foreign affairs. That leaves the government free to play with its toys and try to gain influence at home and abroad with military spending. As long as the country is safe, or seems to be engaged in a defensive war, the government gets to spend lots of money and extend its control over the economy. By and large, most of that money goes to industry, so they are also big champions of the military. And politicians can brag about bases and defense plants brought to their district. The real economy and working citizens ultimately pay for all this, but they have been conned. In other words, like a lot of Libertarians, I see government, both here and abroad, as a malignant growth that expands with every crisis and never contracts short of collapse. Governments feed off each other, creating rivalries where they did not previously exist. Like the old joke, "the town was too small for one lawyer, but there was more than enough business for two." With one superpower, you could never get an arms race, but with two, both sides can claim to be losing, point to "missile gaps" and spend more money. Something like 20 trillion dollars were consumed in the cold war this way, not even including the fighting. After the Soviet Union broke up, there was no obvious enemy, and defense budgets started to decline. Fortunately, 9/11 happened (a lucky break by a bunch of losers), and the Islamic Clash Of Civilizations could be proclaimed. I think the Iraq war was somewhat inevitable given the circumstances, but it was convenient. It actually has created the clash that it supposedly was responding to, by polarizing the Middle East and creating a situation where the U.S. cannot easily withdraw. As for the military budget, it's through the roof again. Mission Accomplished. To be fair, many of the people involved were not consciously looking for a new excuse for military spending. They just found it more serious (and more rewarding) to worry about new global threats than to worry about Social Security or Medicare or housing prices. Given the 9/11 incident, they had all they needed to work it up into a new global threat. If that had never happened, neither would the Iraq war. As for culture, the western system values novelty and individualism above all, and our cultural products represent that. It is aggressively opposed to traditional culture everywhere in the world. Not only does it drown it out, it absorbs all the forms of the old culture, making them into just another source of novelty. If you were a traditional person in the Middle East, you would correctly regard that tidal wave of western culture as a threat to everything you care about. We look at the way they treat women and see oppression. They look at how our women behave and think we want to turn their wives and daughters into hookers. And something like that photo of Lynndie England with an Arabic man on a leash is their nightmare. (BTW, I ran across a video from the band Pink, called U + Ur Hand. Can you imagine how that looks to anyone with a traditional view? It would have scandalized the U.S. anytime up to around 1975.) Anyway, the biggest mistake you are making, in my opinion, is in assuming that the 'elite' have control. Clearly they do not, or there wouldn't be so many disasters and near disasters around the world (financial and military.) There wouldn't be the frequent scandals, and the scandals that happened wouldn't reveal laughable, deranged behavior. These people who run boards, government, interest groups, etc. are just the scum off the top of the real economy. How many politicians actually strike you as competent people? How many of the interest group leaders you see on the news? How many even of the military? I've worked with high tech people, and lower down, you can spot the competence a mile away. At the CEO level, some of them are gifted business people, but more of them are politicians, and a fair number are just gifted bullshit artists. Push them on details and they don't even know how their own companies work, who does the work, what the major problems are, let alone the basics of how their own products function. And that's in the high tech world where many companies are run by engineers (or ex-engineers.) I've been told that in other large companies, the CEOs are far worse, and in government agencies, it's just a bad joke. I don't know what makes this all work. People point to democracy, or capitalism, or our legal system, cultural values, religious values, etc. Since we don't seem to be able to export our system to the third world, I would say we don't really understand it ourselves. Europe seems different from the U.S., but scholars argue over exactly how and why and what it means for the future. I worry that these idiot politicians will tear out one of the supports without even realizing it, and the public will cheer them on, because they are equally clueless. It would be nice if we weren't fumbling in the dark, but it's just paranoia to assume the world is this way because anyone planned it! As for the future... who knows? Here are my worthless predictions: If the economy slows and Iraq continues to sputter (or explodes), the Democrats win. Probably Hillary, because she represents experience (there's always Bill in the wings, after all.) She's more of a hawk than Obama and will be cautious, but there won't be much arguing with bad results in Iraq and a slow economy. The war appropriations just won't go through. So that means cutting back. Possibly retreating to the Kurdish areas, but I doubt it. If the public turns decisively against the war, it will mean getting out completely, not messing around with the Kurds (to the public, they are all Arabs anyway.) But it's also physically impossible to just pull the plug and get 120,000 soldiers out of there safely. Look for an extended pullout and a shoestring budget. The final result is a seriously worn out military, more red/blue polarization, and the U.S. as international laughingstock. Bitter opposition to the U.S. from the entire Middle East. But, no serious economic consequences. They still have oil to sell (we aren't even their direct customers), we still need to buy it. Some people think there will be wider war in the Middle East. I doubt it. I think the primary emotion will be fatigue and self-loathing. The prevalent emotion will be "no one can fix this f**king place -- not even the U.S. with a trillion dollars." Lots of brain drain out of the Middle East as young people give it up in droves. Lots of immigration to Europe (the U.S. will be off-limits, both because of their contempt and our paranoia.) Continued local terrorism but a brutal crack-down by the oil states. No point in allowing that stuff if the U.S. isn't there to be pinned down. By the end of Hillary's first term, the bill for Medicare/Social Security and pensions for the boomers will be coming due. Heart attacks all around as the system finally realizes it's out of time. Some form of socialized medicine is in the works by then, but the budget just won't take it. I'm not sure what the result will be. If the economy continues to stink (likely), or if there's been some worldwide slump (possible), it's going to be some variety of business as usual, with attempts to pump the economy and hand-outs all over to interest groups. Given the bad reputation of the military after Iraq (and I do think the services will take the blame), probably big cuts there. More of the same in Europe. With pensions critical, it will be belt-tightening everywhere. Not much progress on global warming restrictions, since they just can't afford it. Slower economy means lower emissions anyway. Lots of heavy industry moves to China, which is happy to have it, emissions and all. China has a crisis as it's export machine slows. Still, I don't expect a crash of the government. From what I read, the population is truly frightened of social unrest. Too many bad memories. And bad as capitalism seems to them, and as corrupt as it all is, it's a lot better than communism. No going back for them. Lots of "corruption purges" for them perhaps. Direct democracy seems unlikely though. They don't trust the "wisdom of the people" there. India -- same old tune. Despite a temporary surge of services for export (high tech, medicine, etc.), the bulk of the country is unaffected, and there's no way the government is going to change much. A slower export sector will just vindicate the anti-globalist sentiment there, and won't touch the majority of the country economically. Africa -- poverty and continued tinkering by aid agencies. The oil runs out in Nigeria due to incompetent management and fighting over the spoils. No "world elite" coming in to clean up that mess, despite it being in their best interest. Latin America -- when things are good, populists can buy support. When things are bad, populists nationalize the businesses and give handouts. Market reforms are few and far between. With too much concentration of wealth, and high government corruption, markets don't work well anyway. Another failure to export the western system. Background worldwide -- technology proceeds at breakneck pace. Manufacturing employment continues to steadily shrink as robotics becomes steadily more capable. R&D costs are the major costs across all industries, and there's a worldwide competition to move into R&D. Continued improvements in the internet mean a better infrastructure for cooperative work worldwide. More outsourcing, in other words. The U.S. primary education system is a huge liability, but the university level system is a temporary (possibly declining) advantage. If the political situation (immigration or terrorism responses) manages to cut off the import of skilled people, look for real shocks to industry. The future of the world is determined (to the extent that it's not just random chance) by demographics, by technology, and by third world chaos. The environment is the new religion, but has relatively little impact, other than political. Terrorism can't hurt the U.S. much, but can make us slam the doors and retreat into isolationism, which would hurt us dramatically. The "elite" are just as confused as anyone else. For more on a wide array of other topics, please visit the oftwominds.com weblog. 
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