“There is a right way and a wrong way, always choose the right way.” Abraham Sabrin (1914-2001) “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future!” Niels Bohr
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, (sic) promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Preamble to the Constitution
Every Wednesday at 11:05am talk show host Gary Nolan and I discuss the economy and politics.
The Mises Circle will meet in Fort Myers, November 4th. I will be one of the speakers.
Last night, in a nationwide televised address, President Biden stated that he will ask Congress to pass a major aid package for both Ukraine and Israel. Today we learned the president wants to provide $61 billion to Ukraine, $14 billion to Israel, $9 billion of humanitarian assistance, and $2 billion for Indo-Pacific security. The Congress will vote on this package even though Republicans have not chosen a House Speaker yet as of this writing.
In his address, Biden resurrected the flawed “domino theory” of 60 years ago, when LBJ asserted America must defend South Vietnam from communist North Vietnamese aggression or all of Southeast Asia would become succumb to communist rule. In 1975 North Vietnam and the Viet Cong ousted the South Vietnamese American puppet regime and took control over the whole country. The “dominoes” did not fall.
President Biden made this statement regarding aid to Ukraine and his updated “domino theory.”
So, if we don’t stop Putin’s appetite for power and control in Ukraine, he won’t limit himself just to Ukraine. He’s — Putin has already threated to “remind” — quote, “remind” Poland that their western land was a gift from Russia.
To support his claim that Putin wants to expand Russia Biden said, “One of his top advisors, a former president of Russia, has called Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania Russia’s ‘Baltic provinces.’ These are all NATO Allies.”
The implication? The US and other NATO nations would be forced to come to the defense of the Baltic states and be at war with a nuclear armed Russia. Putin knows a Russian attempt to invade the Baltic states would trigger a war, would he risk World War III? This is a huge assumption on Biden’s part. Putin may be an autocrat, but he is also a “rational” actor.
Putin’s objective has been clear for many years. Ukraine must not be in NATO. NATO was not supposed to expand eastward after the fall of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago. The US has not kept its promise to Russia.
Moreover, no one is asking the fundamental financial question: where is the money coming from to pay for Biden’s international welfare-warfare spending? And what is the real cost of the $100 billion “aid” package?
Every additional dollar of spending Biden is requesting for the 2024 fiscal year that began October 1, three weeks ago, must be borrowed at roughly currently 5% per year. So, the real cost of the $100 billion aid package is really $105 billion. But it gets worse. The $100 billion will be a permanent addition to the $33 trillion national debt. In short, the American people will pay, in perpetuity, interest on this aid package…or hundreds of billions of interest for the rest of this century and beyond.
Thomas Jefferson warned America about government debt more than two centuries ago.
“I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partizans, (sic) & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of it’s being a public blessing.”
The last time the federal government’s debt was zero occurred nearly 200 years ago, when President Andrew Jackson paid off the remaining liabilities.
Even since the Mexican War in the 1840s, the national debt has increased with no end in sight. The domestic welfare-warfare state coupled with the international welfare-warfare state will lead to a financial crisis in the not-too-distant future.
The American people are being fleeced and future generations will be facing the greatest financial burden in our country’s history.
I will lay out the probable scenario of more debt, more money printing, and more war on November 4 in Fort Myers. If you are in Florida and would like to attend the Mises Circle, you can register here.
In the meantime, Col. Macgregor provides a sober assessment of the Israel-Hamas conflict and the Ukraine War with Judge Napolitano.