Hello Rational, <<Have the U.S. Congress decree moratorium on (or, better, void) all international debt claims ... it has sufficient guns deployed in middle east to extract oil>>
By my reading of the coffee grinds, the option you described is singularly not viable, because:
(a) The US is not only dependent on keeping the current stockpile of debt wasting away, but slowly;
(b) Is also dependent on continuing flow/accumulation of debt from willing suppliers;
(c) US has no factories of note at reasonable cost to replace the vendor-financing schema and highly productive Asian plants founded on fantastic (as compared to what is available in the US outside of its financial economy) infrastructure;
(d) US is in fact not the mono-pole power that the media and neo-this-and-that makes it out to be;
(e) The US is more than adequately balanced off by the unfamiliar and as yet disorganized congress of resurgent Russia Message 20887730 , galloping China, catching-on India, self-interested Old Europe, and newly mischievous Latin America;
(f) The asymmetric but more enthusiastic opponents in the desert is giving the US more than a run for its borrowed money;
(g) The oil in the desert is in fact out of the control of the US, with its very costly military stretched very thin, and with the almost inevitable fall of Saudi Arabia via predictable people power, more out of control;
(h) US Homelanders seem particularly unwilling to volunteer and especially unable to be drafted at reasonable cost to serve in the desert;
(i) Should the US try otherwise, then OBL's vision of economic strangulation will surely be expedited; and
(j) Should the US engage in the sort of necessary and Carthaginian ruthlessness needed to bring a semblance of order in the desert, the resulting order will become not worthwhile, and cannot hold.
The US, in a strategic sense, is in fact more vulnerable now than the ex-USSR, as the US is an externally financed, multi-interested parties, and in fact lonely nation, singularly unaware of its issues, half-heartedly engaged in an interminable war not of its own choosing, engaged at a very long distance, cannot continue indefinitely, and cannot withdraw without domino consequences, and pivoted against grinding sands of time.
As the US gets weaker, the world will slip into the chaos mode, due to a vacuum of power, however temporary.
However the situation develops, higher energy prices, greater monetary inflation, lower paper currencies of all flavors, and massive dislocation of expectations are just the beginnings of the given.
The solution, such as it will be, is devaluation, following an age-old script of protectionism, and possibly more military adventure, eventually capped of by exhaustion of enthusiasm, and draining of remaining bits wealth via capital flight, financial maelstrom, and mob-mandated redistribution.
The interested parties in Asia are counting on the US to stand firm agaisnt the forces of chaos, for as long as possible, which could be a while, but not exactly counting on the the US to stand wobbly forever.
One blink, and confidence can evaporate as quickly as a tsunami can hit in the early hours of the calm morning.
Imagine, when the market opens, no bids.
Given the amount of assets the US interests have offshore, controlled by the folks in-the-know in the US, connected to the powers-that-be in the otherwise elected Congress, declaring a debt default is not a viable option, at least not as viable as outright deliberate devaluation.
Given the cross-holdings of the ruling classes of every society in almost every other society, a clearance sale and unwinding will eventually be, planned or by accident, balancing the interests of the rulers from the ruled, everywhere. It is an old script, and the wheel, no matter how clever, still involves shapes that are circular.
In case there is any doubt, I figure the ruled will get fcuked, as they do each and every time.
Chugs, Jay |
