Carlyle

Max Angst and I watched the State of the Union Speech together at my house.
"Smoke and mirrors again," Max remarked when Bush finished his speech.
"Anything you want to talk about?" I asked.
"That nonsense about how well the economy is doing. Art, the Government is nine trillion dollars in debt and going deeper every day. Personal debt is also the largest in history. There’s an epidemic of foreclosures. The whole country is hanging by its finger nails and Bush tells us the economy is good."
" He did say he had a plan to deal with the deficit."
"Don’t confuse the deficit, which is the short fall of annual spending, with the National Debt, which is the overall indebtedness of the nation’s government. If you cut the deficit in half you’re still going in debt and, considering the vastness of the current deficit, you’re going at a large rate. He says he’ll reduce the deficit by controlling spending. Knowing Bush you can bet he’ll want to cut entitlements, to take money away from the average Joe while he’ll still be pouring it in the pockets of big money."
"How does that work, Max?"
"So called defense spending. We’re currently spending over a half a trillion dollars a year on our military."
"That’s not good? Aren’t we facing a threatening world? Don’t we need to protect ourselves?"
"Art, we have the capability of delivering ten thousand hydrogen bombs. If any nation on Earth attacked us we could blow it to kingdom come. Yes, we don’t want to do that. And, if we keep that threat available, but unused, we won’t have to, except if we create situations that could require atomic war."
"Explain that last one."
"We spend more money on our military than all the major countries in the world put together. I believe that is behind the United States building a planet wide web of bases that allow us to dominate large parts of the planet. Our huge navy assists in this project. Have you ever wondered why we do this when we don’t need these bases and the navy for defense since we have all those A-bombs?"
"Tell me. I’m eager to know."
"So, the Bush family and it’s allies can get even richer."
" Whoa! You’re saying the American Empire is a project of the Bush Family and its allies. That’s wild, Max. You better be able to back that up."
" It could work this way. The Bush family and its allies are deeply invested in the Carlyle Group the largest private equity firm in Washington. The Carlyle Group has a large interest in United Defense Industries and that organization has made huge profits from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have also been in defense manufacturing since the mid-nineties. The country has spent at least three hundred billion a year on the military every year since then and you can bet United Defense and Carlyle got a large share of that. I believe that the buildup in Iraq and any further military activity deriving from that – Iran, Syria—are meant to gain profits for Carlyle and little else. What else would explain the behavior of the Bush administration?"
"How do we turn that around?"
"Art, I expect the Democrats to do that. No, not really. What I just said is clear to anyone who looks at the world we live in. Yet, I’ve never heard any politician call for vastly reducing military spending. Clinton hasn’t nor did her husband. Obama hasn’t nor has Edwards. I find it very difficult to support them because they haven’t called for the reduction of military spending. I’m thinking of developing a paper on this and sending it to each of the presidential candidates.. I’ll vote for anyone who calls for reducing military spending."
"And if no one does?"
"Well, Art, there’s always Hugo Chavez.