Believe what you want, but I believe the arms race during the Reagan administration was aimed to financially cripple Russia and it worked, my question are the conflicts in Iraq and the middle east, true aim to financially cripple the U.S?

@SQUEEKY2 – with all respect, I disagree.

If you’re correct about the mideast conflicts trying to bankrupt the US, then:

- who or what country is behind it?

- this wouldn’t be a smashing success! Given that the US In the #1 world economy at this point and (with the demise of Russia) will be for years.

I think that the major reason for financial problems in the US (2007–2013) was simple greed on the part of big banks and financial institutions. We screwed ourselves.

I am not saying it was, just wondering if it is so?

I agree with the bandit Squeek. The trillions tossed into the hole were absolutely the result of sheer stupidity on the part of the leadership of this country-PERIOD! The West (Britain and France) assembled the borders of Middlle Eastern countries in the wake of the First World War. The region has been the graveyard of Western military reputations for some 300 years, and it is significant that Blair of all people failed to appreciate the lessons handed the British. Vietnam may have been the signpost for upcoming rot, but it certainly would appear that future textbooks on “The Decline of the United States” will begin with the fiascoes in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are those who will claim that Obama was just as inept and bungling as his predecessor, but the truth is that NO ONE living could undo the fkup of an ignorant GW following the stupefying bad advice from people who should have known better.

It is also important to remember that those trillions flushed away in the wastelands are a joke compared to the losses involved in the Great recession—losses borne EXCLUSIVELY by the non rich. Those responsible turned an extremely handsome profit at the expense of the rest of us and walked away Scot-free with the profits. That episode marks the greatest single transfer of wealth in the history of the world.

@stanleybmanly oh but the system isn’t designed to keep the poor, poor,just bleed them until dead.

Well let’s not ignore the rest of us—-“the soon to be poor”. We can’t take this reality personally Squeek. The rich have nothing against the poor or anyone else. They are merely pursuing the dictum of “The rich must get richer—no matter what”. It’s sort of a perverse variant of the second law of thermodynamics. The money has to come from someplace, and eventually anyone with ANYTHING MUST be harvested.

That is an interesting way of stating it @stanleybmanly ,unfortunately it has to be the working slob to feed the greedy rich pigs.

Yes it all falls on the working slob to both fatten the rich AND provide for the multiplying poor. I suppose we might take comfort from the fact that the scheme is unsustainable. Eventually there will be no one left for them to feed on but one another. Meanwhile, “don’t take it personally”.

@elbanditoroso “WE” may have screwed ourselves. But think that view through. That’s one of those illusions that allows the great theft to continue. The winners get away with it because the rest of us are convinced that we ALL are collectively involved in the decision to fatten them up. And they are CORRECT as long as WE tolerate it.

@stanleybmanly is there anything we can do to show the rich pigs that we wont tolerate it any longer?

french style revolution
off with their heads

If the wealthy get any greedier it could come to that, but right now that seems rather drastic.

I agree that the arms race was a successful attempt to bankrupt Russia.

I see no similar plot today against the US. More the same simmering conflicts in the Mid East and Russia’s opportunistic grab of Crimea. He knew there would be nothing we could effectively do.

The US is stretched too thin and lacking effective governance.