Deficit and Hama Rules View685 20110731

View 685 Sunday, July 31, 2011

· Arab Ramadan replaces Arab Spring

· The Deal: Doubling the Deficit

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Ramadan Intervention

Ramadan begins: the Syrian Government is renewing the army’s assault on the rebellion, according to Al Jazeera; there are armored personnel carriers in the streets, as well as armor; there are tanks firing against structures; it looks to be a full assault on at least one village. One wonders if they will invoke Hama Rules again. Thousands of troops, hundreds of armored vehicles, fighting block to block. President Obama has said that he is horrified. His last comments, before he was horrified, were that this was unacceptable. This appears to be where Libya was a few months ago before the US and NATO and the UN Security Council came to the rescue of the Libyan people.

The official reason the UN is not intervening is that in Syria they are not using helicopters and aircraft. Our half arsed intervention in Libya was to impose a no-fly zone, which we then extended to air strikes against Khadaffi’s armored units. Slowly, slowly, the Libyan rebels advance toward Tripoli, but they don’t have a lot of strength outside Cyrenaica. At least they have a secure base which can be recognized as a government. Progress in Libya is slow, but so long as the US is willing to borrow money to pay for the rebel ammunition it will probably continue. The slaughter in Syria is greater than ever, possibly far greater than it was in Libya, but since there are no aircraft involved a no-fly zone can’t be imposed, and not much will happen.

We have an army in Iraq, not all that far from Syria, and it wouldn’t take a lot to use it to impose regime change in Syria; surely that has occurred to some of the neo-cons, and perhaps even to Obama. It will certainly have occurred to Netanyahu, but US-Israeli relations are not very good just now, and it is unlikely that Netanyahu has even discussed this (or much else) with Obama.

Note that I am not advocating US intervention in Syria. Our success in Libya, which is much smaller and has an actual rebel army in the field and a rebel territory with something like a government, makes it pretty clear what would happen if we decided to intervene in Syria. When the US decided to intervene in the territorial disputes of Europe back in World War One AKA The Great War, the results were, at best, mixed, and one could say that they led to the German crisis, The Weimar Inflation, the Weimar collapse, and the rise of National Socialism. Our intervention in World War II was decisive, but the aftermath was the Cold War, the enormous expansion of US government, deals in which the Liberals would allow the Cold Warriors to prosecute the war in exchange for Social Progress like the Great Society, and such. Note that I was a dedicated Cold Warrior and I am not being apologetic over our WW II European intervention. I do wonder if it would have been needed had we not been inveigled into The Great War.

Our interventions in the Middle East, beginning with the Bush I liberation of Kuwait, have had ambiguous results at best, in part because we didn’t have any objectives. Straight Imperial tactics would have liberated Kuwait, and kept it as an American protectorate, with the installation of a monarchial government friendly to the United States, and US development of oil resources which would pay tribute to the US as a means of paying for the country’s liberation.

Straight republican tactics would have installed a military government which would then write a new Constitution for Kuwait, reducing the Royal Family – which spent its time in exile in the London Casinos – to a monarchy that reigned but did not rule.

Neither happened. We then drove into Iraq, defeated the Iraqi army, and halted. We encouraged uprisings against Saddam Hussein, but did not support them, with terrible results.

Our interventions in the Balkans resulted in a mess. Kosovo was handed over to illegal immigrant Albanians, who quickly used ethnic cleansing to get rid of the Christians who had held Kosovo for a thousand years.

Our interventions in Afghanistan, and in Iraq the second time, resulted in quick victories followed by long and expensive wars of attrition which could only be won if we could establish that being friends with the Americans was a better long-term deal than working hard not to antagonize enemies.

Our interventions in the territorial disputes of Europe and the Middle East have been expensive.

Ramadan is approaching. In August. It’s going to be hot and dry in the Middle East. Arab Spring is ended. Arab Ramadan 2011 begins. What will we borrow money to do now?

Deficit Deals

As of 1500 PDT there is still no Deficit Deal in Washington. There are now some serious people betting that there won’t be one.

The rumors are that there will be no new taxes but there will be a “deal” that includes revenue enhancement, namely elimination of “loopholes” such as deductions for mortgage interest (which is a raise in taxes for all those evil people with mortgages who have not yet be foreclosed on; clearly they deserve higher taxes); and elimination of deductions for state income taxes. One supposes the argument for that says, well, look at all the public services the people in high tax states get, that’s income, so why should they not have to pay federal taxes? It’s only fair. Or, if you’re so dumb that you will stay in a high tax state, you deserve to be taxed; like lotteries, it’s a tax on stupidity. In any event, it is being established that there can be revenue enhancements through “closing loopholes” and that isn’t really raising taxes.

Whatever the outcome here, it’s pretty certain that the 7.3% exponential increase in government spending – and thus Deficit – will continue. There may be “cuts” that bring the exponential growth to below 7%. Assume as low as 6%. Assume 6%. This means that the Deficit will double in 13 and a half years instead of in 11 years. So the best we can hope for from these Deals is a two year delay in doubling the national deficit. Hurrah!

At some point this has to stop. It can’t go on forever. But it sure can go on past another couple of elections or at least the politicians think so.

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As of 1530 both the Tea Party and the Liberals have resolved not to support whatever the latest Deal is. Perhaps it is time to make some contingency plans for a government shutdown.

Clearly no one expects the government to shut down. There is almost no discussion of what one ought to do, just in case. Having a few hundred dollars in cash can’t hurt.

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The new version of Fallen Angels complete with the Afterword by Niven, Pournelle, and Flynn, is now available from Amazon. Those who bought the older version can download the new one free although you will lose any bookmarks or notes you may have made.