Tough Questions

I am making my way through a book called Confessions of an Economic Hitman. It is really interesting - about this guy who worked for a consulting company (called MAIN) that did economic and infrastructure studies in third-world countries to justify World Bank and IMF loans to these countries. He would skew and distort the reporting to justify huge loans that would insure most of the money would make its way back to Bechtel, Halliburton, and other US firms. The loan size, coupled with the bogus economic projections (provided by MAIN), would make it impossible for these countries to pay back the debt and they would be beholden to the IMF, World Bank, and their puppeteer, the US.

What this book brings up is questions of empire, consumption, and disparity. What I ended up asking though, is obvious:

• Do there have to be "have nots" to enable the "haves"? and the follow up to that is:


• Is that so bad when you live in the country of the "haves?"


• Is it so bad that our empire actively pursues policies that hurt other countries (I'm not just talking about militarily) for our benefit?


• What responsibility (if any) do we have to the rest of the world as citizens of the empire?


• Are we all responsible for the plight of the world's exploited because of our involvement (as consumers primarily) in the global supply chain?

I find it hard to believe that we need all we have. Not in respect to individuals, but in respect to our country. We can be more efficient and we can weed out corruption. I personally think there have to be "haves" and "have nots," but I don't think it needs to be in the current balance. The US doesn't need to spend $600,000 on each Tomahawk cruise missile, $137,500,000 for each F22 Raptor, and $200,000,000 on each Joint Strike Fighter. This money has a low economic multiplier, is concentrated among relatively few individuatals, and by the way, who are we dogfighting? I'm pretty sure Osama doesn't have any MiGs... We spend money recklessly and only strengthen the congressional-military-industrial complex. I think the more we can marginalize that construct, the more we can tip the balance towards global equality. Of course, all those old white guys in grey suits will have to be voted out first.