October 13, 2013,
As of today interest rates paid by the U.S. on short term bonds are inching up, and the discussions between the house and the President have failed. It is a return to mutual soundbites. I'm posting this even though it is not refined, for those who choose to look at historical analogies that I see. If this is all a charade by the two parties for their respective members, it is a very expensive one on more levels than I can recount. While I give examples of the counterproductive partisanship of the The New York Times, they do have extensive reports of the actual and potential damage of the Republican playing a cosmic game of "chicken" with the full faith and credit of this country.
My sense is that that the stalemate in the U.S. Congress over "the shut down of government" and the impending default of American debt could become a moment that will live on, if not in infamy as December 8, 1941, but still in historiography (used in the sense of the writing of history) under a different term. Just as the book "The Guns of August" described the tragic inevitability of events culminating in that month of 1914 when forces of culture, diplomacy, and existing power structure, all led to the inevitable beginning of what was called the Great War, the worst man made catastrophe up to that time. To those who read the daily papers watching it unfold, there was no general sense of foreboding, It was to be a skirmish of professional soldiers that would last a few months, by which time the "powers that be" will mutually realize the cost and simply and stop it.
The leaders of the countries of the two major blocks were far from being of different civilizations as it was when the mongol hoards conquered the Roman Empire. The Kaiser of Germany and the King of England were both Christians and actually cousins. They spoke a common language if not literally then figuratively. How was it conceivable, thought the public, that once they went through the motions of allowing a few battles among their general's forces, maybe more like maneuvers with live ammunition and a few causalities, they would not make a quick truce and some adjustments of borders and that life would go on as before.
Few could not imagine that what they anticipated would continue for four excruciating years, engulfing most of the world in sustained warfare. That far from being over in a few months, it would lead to a communist revolution that was to lead the efflorescence of a utopian movement that was to subject half the world to punishing autocratic rule in the name of "the people." Thus, that unfolding of events of that month in 1914 was to define a century where the promises of technology were perverted into wars of domination and genocide.
Today, watching the television news and reading even the most respected newspapers, the warnings of the dire effects of the worlds sole superpower inexorably inching forward to internecine war are ignored by one of the two distinct mindsets of our country,. This war will probably not be fought with those weapons designed to kill a human enemy, but by methods that are so different from previous catastrophes as to mask their lethality. Yet, if we dig a bit, we can see the exact dynamics that led to hundreds of millions of people suffering needlessly in the bloody twentieth century. We have a "clash of civilizations," unfolding. I'm not referring to the monograph of that name written in 1992 about different cultures that were predicted to be in conflict at the closing of the cold war; I use the same phrase to emphasis the conflict within our own country that rises to the level of civilizations, with different values, meta languages and world views in every aspect of life.
I see "October 2013" as so dire because the power to forestall these events are controlled by a political process that is blind to forces that are about to be unleashed. Most human catastrophes require an overt act- an invasion, a revolution, an assassination- or at least that is the way historiography is done. The history of the American civil war is written that way, headline by headline, rather than the war as the culmination of deep stresses that defined two different civilizations within a country that could no longer accept the compromises that had united them in a fragile constitution. This is the situation once again in this country, but the dynamics are unique to this moment in time, as nations are now what the states of our new country were during that first Congress of 1789. Although we do not have a strong central world government we have evolved into close to this, not centered in the United Nations, but defined by processes such as global trade and the concomitant financial interdependency along with the latest tool of this commerce, the Internet and allied instant communication networks.
Miracles of science have become curses. Nuclear power that in the 1950s that were to make home electricity in the home "too cheap to meter" has turned out to have given us a legacy of tons of radioactive waste that we have not been able to secure, and the deferred cost of billions for dismantling these vulnerable power plants. Our thermonuclear weapons, that we somehow felt a need to manufacture at a level that could destroy the entire world many times over during the peak of the cold war, do not simply go away because we no longer see them as a viable military weapon. The maintenance of these weapons, to see that they are still functional costs tens of billions of dollars each year.
As historyiographers of the future, we would look at what was known about the dire consequences of reaching the debt limit prior to event, which is most clearly described in detail by a high official in Republican administrations, When the Treasury Runs Out of Cash. The seriousness of this and the potential international disaster was confirmed by surveys of economists. Yet this is ignored and denied by the Republican civilization, the complex of voters, elected office holders, and the leadership of the single house that has a veto over defusing the ticking time bomb that threatens more than we can realize. This has been reflected only minutes ago by Senator Tom Colburn who described many areas of great waste and fraud in our federal budget, and then without any said this is why he will oppose any increase in the debt limit. Colburn also happens to be a physician, and it is analogous to to his refusing to provide immediate treatment for someone who is about to commit suicide because the patient has refused to go on a weight loss diet. He appeared either oblivious or unconcerned with the unanimous view that default will be cataclysmic to the world's and country's economy.
Posturing? maybe. Yet, much is at stake if the contagion of distrust in the key currency of international trade.
---------------------
Addendum
Only days before the limit was to be reached the Republicans agreed to extend the limit for several months. While it seemed that this was only to lead to another showdown, the Republican party must have been chastised at levels and by groups that have never been made public. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, representing the bulk of American Industry had opposed this brinkmanship strongly, along with economists of every political stripe. When the next deadline approached in 2014, the Republican majority in the house quietly passed a usual one year extension with none of their demands for specific cuts or appropriations accepted by Democrats.
As of today interest rates paid by the U.S. on short term bonds are inching up, and the discussions between the house and the President have failed. It is a return to mutual soundbites. I'm posting this even though it is not refined, for those who choose to look at historical analogies that I see. If this is all a charade by the two parties for their respective members, it is a very expensive one on more levels than I can recount. While I give examples of the counterproductive partisanship of the The New York Times, they do have extensive reports of the actual and potential damage of the Republican playing a cosmic game of "chicken" with the full faith and credit of this country.
My sense is that that the stalemate in the U.S. Congress over "the shut down of government" and the impending default of American debt could become a moment that will live on, if not in infamy as December 8, 1941, but still in historiography (used in the sense of the writing of history) under a different term. Just as the book "The Guns of August" described the tragic inevitability of events culminating in that month of 1914 when forces of culture, diplomacy, and existing power structure, all led to the inevitable beginning of what was called the Great War, the worst man made catastrophe up to that time. To those who read the daily papers watching it unfold, there was no general sense of foreboding, It was to be a skirmish of professional soldiers that would last a few months, by which time the "powers that be" will mutually realize the cost and simply and stop it.
The leaders of the countries of the two major blocks were far from being of different civilizations as it was when the mongol hoards conquered the Roman Empire. The Kaiser of Germany and the King of England were both Christians and actually cousins. They spoke a common language if not literally then figuratively. How was it conceivable, thought the public, that once they went through the motions of allowing a few battles among their general's forces, maybe more like maneuvers with live ammunition and a few causalities, they would not make a quick truce and some adjustments of borders and that life would go on as before.
Few could not imagine that what they anticipated would continue for four excruciating years, engulfing most of the world in sustained warfare. That far from being over in a few months, it would lead to a communist revolution that was to lead the efflorescence of a utopian movement that was to subject half the world to punishing autocratic rule in the name of "the people." Thus, that unfolding of events of that month in 1914 was to define a century where the promises of technology were perverted into wars of domination and genocide.
Today, watching the television news and reading even the most respected newspapers, the warnings of the dire effects of the worlds sole superpower inexorably inching forward to internecine war are ignored by one of the two distinct mindsets of our country,. This war will probably not be fought with those weapons designed to kill a human enemy, but by methods that are so different from previous catastrophes as to mask their lethality. Yet, if we dig a bit, we can see the exact dynamics that led to hundreds of millions of people suffering needlessly in the bloody twentieth century. We have a "clash of civilizations," unfolding. I'm not referring to the monograph of that name written in 1992 about different cultures that were predicted to be in conflict at the closing of the cold war; I use the same phrase to emphasis the conflict within our own country that rises to the level of civilizations, with different values, meta languages and world views in every aspect of life.
I see "October 2013" as so dire because the power to forestall these events are controlled by a political process that is blind to forces that are about to be unleashed. Most human catastrophes require an overt act- an invasion, a revolution, an assassination- or at least that is the way historiography is done. The history of the American civil war is written that way, headline by headline, rather than the war as the culmination of deep stresses that defined two different civilizations within a country that could no longer accept the compromises that had united them in a fragile constitution. This is the situation once again in this country, but the dynamics are unique to this moment in time, as nations are now what the states of our new country were during that first Congress of 1789. Although we do not have a strong central world government we have evolved into close to this, not centered in the United Nations, but defined by processes such as global trade and the concomitant financial interdependency along with the latest tool of this commerce, the Internet and allied instant communication networks.
Miracles of science have become curses. Nuclear power that in the 1950s that were to make home electricity in the home "too cheap to meter" has turned out to have given us a legacy of tons of radioactive waste that we have not been able to secure, and the deferred cost of billions for dismantling these vulnerable power plants. Our thermonuclear weapons, that we somehow felt a need to manufacture at a level that could destroy the entire world many times over during the peak of the cold war, do not simply go away because we no longer see them as a viable military weapon. The maintenance of these weapons, to see that they are still functional costs tens of billions of dollars each year.
As historyiographers of the future, we would look at what was known about the dire consequences of reaching the debt limit prior to event, which is most clearly described in detail by a high official in Republican administrations, When the Treasury Runs Out of Cash. The seriousness of this and the potential international disaster was confirmed by surveys of economists. Yet this is ignored and denied by the Republican civilization, the complex of voters, elected office holders, and the leadership of the single house that has a veto over defusing the ticking time bomb that threatens more than we can realize. This has been reflected only minutes ago by Senator Tom Colburn who described many areas of great waste and fraud in our federal budget, and then without any said this is why he will oppose any increase in the debt limit. Colburn also happens to be a physician, and it is analogous to to his refusing to provide immediate treatment for someone who is about to commit suicide because the patient has refused to go on a weight loss diet. He appeared either oblivious or unconcerned with the unanimous view that default will be cataclysmic to the world's and country's economy.
Posturing? maybe. Yet, much is at stake if the contagion of distrust in the key currency of international trade.
---------------------
Addendum
Only days before the limit was to be reached the Republicans agreed to extend the limit for several months. While it seemed that this was only to lead to another showdown, the Republican party must have been chastised at levels and by groups that have never been made public. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, representing the bulk of American Industry had opposed this brinkmanship strongly, along with economists of every political stripe. When the next deadline approached in 2014, the Republican majority in the house quietly passed a usual one year extension with none of their demands for specific cuts or appropriations accepted by Democrats.
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