[Sampanviking]

Few people will have failed to notice the huge Bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae last week. The question has to be where are these hundreds of billions of dollars going to come from.

Given the scale of the expenditure, surely the Military has to be a prime candidate to receive the cuts that this commitment will require. Out of all of these to my mind the USAAF and the F35 project seems a highly likely candidate. (escalating costs, major technical problems and slipping completion dates).

Does anyone have a view on this, or a inkling as to even more likely candidates?

[General Pinochet]

Sampanviking, on Sep 11 2008, 08:27 AM, said:

Does anyone have a view on this, or a inkling as to even more likely candidates?

Probably not. But hey, Americans got this far without having themselves (or their leaders) have much of an inkling about anything. Things always work out in the end.

[Husar]

Quote

Few people will have failed to notice the huge Bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae last week. The question has to be where are these hundreds of billions of dollars going to come from

I sort of asked the same question in the thread about Lehman Bros.....my guess would be the printing press (money out of thin air courtesy of "helicopter Ben") reinforced by Chinese and Middle Eastern (petro $) funds.

As for the military, if they expand the war in Afghanistan into Pakistan and/or attack Iran, then some of their more ambitious programs are bound to suffer.....even the basic stuff, like the US Army's vehicles are already pretty worn out and in bad need of repair due to constant use.

[Bill]

You have to say, the Americans got it good. I don't think people truly understand the advantage of a fiat currency that you can print money out of thin air from. Having oil traded exclusively in your currency also helps, keep inflation low.

[Roger604]

^ Well, the RMB has been rapidly appreciating against the USD in recent days. If this trend persists, it would mean we are moving away from the fiat dollar.

Hopefully oil exchanges will be denominated in Euro, Yen or RMB very soon!

[Sampanviking]

Never mind Fannie and Freddie, it appears that Secratary of Defence Robert Gates has his eye on these overpriced White Elephants.

An excellent peice from Chalmers Johnson

http://www.atimes.co...e/KB04Aa01.html

Quote

Crisis looms at the Pentagon

Hardly a surprise though. Reports are saying that as much as 40% of the worlds wealth has been destroyed in the Financial Crisis, much of it American. Individual US Banks are reporting losses that wipe out there entire profits of the last 25 years!

It can only be a matter of time before somebody takes a hard look at America's GDP and finds it has reduced far more than stated recesion rate of 3% pa.

Countrys that owe Trillions and which are in deep recessions have to face certain realties and that includes not being able to afford $1 Trillion a year for the military.

[Red Fox Ace]

Gates, Obama, and the Democrats were always going to slash military spending severely, anyway - doesn't matter how good or how bad the economy was. The bad economy only makes such budget cuts even more convenient, I suppose.