Has the Pentagon done enough to convince Congress to bust the spending limits it set in law?Absolutely amazing.
Apparently not, as the Senate and House Budget Committees are expected to pass spending plans that keep those caps in place. But the Pentagon will continue to press its case, said Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and technology.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter intends to keep up the rhetoric, Kendall said last week at a Bloomberg Government conference in Arlington, Virginia.
"He is thinking about how to best explain to people that sequestration is a major problem, and not something that we can absorb and keep on going, Kendall said. "He's working on how exactly to express that."
I really wonder how the Pentagon expected to win the budget fight with the strategy that they adopted. Are they smoking crack?
The Pentagon has spent the last 6 years thumbing its nose at its natural supporters in the public, told Congressmen to pound sand when they voiced concern about certain issues and now....when they need help they wonder why they aren't getting it?
I won't even get into the terrible relations between the President and Congress but I'm sure that plays a role too.
So what does this mean?
The ACV is probably dead...again.
The US Army is gonna get slashed....not exactly a bad thing. A small Army after wars is the natural state of things. Personally you can take it down to 300K and I think it would be just about right sized.
The dream of a larger fleet is dead.
Oh and China is going to take the next two years of the Obama Administration to probably either gain or get close to gaining parity with the US...especially in the Pacific.
The US average daily (DAILY!) deficit in FY2013 was about $3.3 billion, went down to about $2.2B in FY2014, and is holding to that or less this fiscal year as you can see here.
ReplyDeleteRegarding current account balance -- China is leading the world at plus $213B, the US is leading the world (you might say) in deficit at minus $440B. (wiki).
DODBuzz, Mar 12
ReplyDeleteBudget cuts will drastically curtail the military’s ability to work with countries in South America and Latin America to stem the flow of cocaine and other illegal drugs into the U.S., a general said.
Automatic, across-the-board spending reductions, known as sequestration, “would be catastrophic” and “essentially put me out of business,” Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly told lawmakers on Thursday.
Kelly, who oversees American military activities in South America and Latin America as head of U.S. Southern Command, was responding to a question from Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, during a hearing to discuss the Pentagon’s fiscal 2016 budget.
OMG, not only Kelly out of business but also reduced cocaine flow stemming, and it's been such a success.
LATimes, Jul 21, 2013
CORAL GABLES, FLA. — Marine Gen. John F. Kelly works in a fortress-like headquarters near the Miami airport. Starting this fall, he will live in Casa Sur, an elegant home with a pool and gardens on one of the area's swankiest streets.
The five-bedroom residence, across the street from the famed Biltmore Golf Course, is provided rent-free to Kelly as head of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in most of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The cost to taxpayers? $160,000 a year, plus $402,000 for renovations and security improvements that are now underway.
http://www.trbimg.com/img-51eb2c64/turbine/la-la-na-military-mansions01-jpg-20130720/600/600x450
China has packed on 9 trillion dollars of debt since 2008, bringing the total up to something like 30 trillion. Do note that I am counting all the debt that China has, shadow banks too.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the total US debt is something like 60 trillion, and the vaunted EU countries, including Germany and Scandinavia, have as much of a debt load as the US does, more so in several cases.
Here is a nice scatterplot for you. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bVJFjKJ767Y/VNm-uVTaqWI/AAAAAAAAcYo/FizBnRvutgI/s1600/mk2.png
True, but irrelevant
ReplyDeleteChina's 'savings' aren't.
They (along with Yuan printed to balance them*) are the (dangerous) by product of a mercantilist trade policy.
*
Here follows boring simplified finance jargon
Americorp buys some boxes from Chinacorp for $100 and posts $100 to chinacorp.
Chinacorp goes to chinabank and exchanges the $100 for Yuan.
In a sane world, chinabank would exchange its dollars for Ameribank Yuan
It doesn't, it prints new Yuan and keeps the dollars.
the drug war has failed
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=http://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/05/embarrassing-drug-graph.jpg&w=1484
Woohoo......India is almost at the Zero mark. Freedom from debt is sooo close.
ReplyDeleteOr is it?
Making major Infrastructure commitments will lead to jacking up of debt as one of the ways to pay for it all. One good thing being that the "Savings as a percentage of GDP" has grown to 34% of GDP. Its like we arent preparing for a rainy day but that biblical flood.
Something is a bit off on the chart. Singapore at the top short of Ireland? From what I recall, Singapore has never borrowed money since 1965.
ReplyDeleteAh, I see. Did a bit of checking up. Req that is a leveraging chart. It shows the amount that is invested in finance. Some publications assume it is all borrowed money, but that is not really correct. As I pointed out, Singapore is near the top, but has never borrowed money, that is their savings piggy bank, so saying China's position is "all debt" might be wrong unless you can get a closer breakdown to how much of it is borrowed and how much of it is their money. This is not a debt/GDP chart, it is a "how much do you invest" chart.
The state of Singapore might be debt free, but that doesn't mean that the people and corporations are.
ReplyDeleteGood point, is this a government chart or a population chart?
ReplyDelete