Our Foreign Policy Is Going to Get Me Killed, New American Thinker, and Jim Rogers Interview

The following is a draft for a Policymic.com article.

A few days ago, NATO warplanes attacked a village in the Kandahar, Afghanistan killing seven civilians including 6 children.  The attack was due to "insurgent action" according to NATO.  Days later, two army bases in Pakistan were attacked by NATO helicopters and warplanes because of an "incident" near the border.  28 Pakistani soldiers lost their lives.  NATO claims to be launching investigations into these instances.

Is it just me or is America's foreign policy going to get me killed one day?

Nearly a century and a half ago, the United States engaged in its first experiment with imperialism.  Only a mere two months after the end of the Civil War, a virtual war was launched against the Plains Indians at the behest of the powerful railroad lobby that had already been subsidized by the U.S. government in return for financing the Republican Party's campaign efforts.  The military industrial complex was just as much alive back then as it is now.  The campaign launched against the Plain Indians was brutal as thousands of villages were attacked under the orders to kill anyone and everyone.

Today, the same kind of blood lust dominates our foreign policy though in a subtler manner.  The Republican presidential candidate debates are filled with calls for military action with Iran if they do the impossible: defy the wishes of the United States and U.N.  Iran is labeled a rogue state while our foreign policy is responsible for deaths of thousands of civilians.  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

It's almost as if our "leaders"really think that a half a century of meddling around in the affairs of sovereign nations shouldn't motivate anger or blow back toward us.  As Texas Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul explained when it comes to collateral damage through drone strikes, “for every one (civilian) you kill, you create 10 new ones who hate our guts and want to do us harm." 

Our foreign policy is not keeping us safe; in fact it's putting America in more danger.  Despite the denial by those who find naive comfort in metaphorically wrapping themselves in the American flag; it was our interventionist policy that grew anti-U.S. sentiment prior to the 9/11 attacks.  It was the fault of the generals and intelligence agencies that engaged in covert dictation through force and not "America's fault" as Bob Schieffer suggested.  Even Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA unit in charge of tracking Osama bin Laden, has acknowledged our presence in the Middle East motivates terrorism.

Meanwhile, those who speak out against perpetual warfare (no sugar coat-that's essentially what it is) are labeled as "isolationists" when nothing could be further from the truth.  Supporting free trade and non interference with all nations is a policy of  peace and cooperation.  War is what distances countries from having working relations.  Warmongering is not only the policy of isolationism but of undermining our safety.

I fear for the day when another attack motivated by aggressive foreign policy reaches our shores.  Everyday brings reports of death and destruction brought about by U.S. or NATO conducted attacks.  When it is revealed that young children are the casualty of our mindless efforts, it's heart wrenching to think that money I am forced to fork over partially funded their deaths.  Actions have consequences and there will be blow black.  Civil liberties will continue to be lost and the police state will grow to "protect" us.  It will be incremental as to quell outrage as much as possible. If there is any doubt about the anger our foreign policy brings about, just consider how you would feel if armed troops from another country roamed U.S. streets and someone close to you lost their life due to collateral damage.

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Needs a lot of work and not sure what direction I really want to go in with but it's a good start.

I have an article on the American Thinker today entitled "The Problem with the Fed's Targeting."  Here is an excerpt:

Sounds simple enough, right?  All Ben Bernanke and the technocrats at the Federal Reserve need to do is simply leave the switch to the money-printer on "high" setting and watch prosperity flow as dollars engulf the world.  Problem is, Bernanke is already printing at roughly a rate of 15% annually for the past 6 months.  The Consumer Price Index, which was fixed in the late '90s to undervalue the inflation rate so much that PIMCO head Bill Gross famously called it "a haute con job," is already running at 3.5% for the year.  A recent report from Mail Online out of the U.K. showed that Brits can save 50% on their Christmas shopping by hopping across the pond to the U.S. -- a clear sign of an ever-weakening dollar.

Romer, like many neo-Keynesians, is convinced that if inflation could just be ginned up a little more, we could all feed on a free economic lunch.  Pesky things like speculative asset bubbles (housing, anyone?) don't concern her, despite the fact that newly created money always enters the economy through different sectors.

Another issue with "targeting NGDP" is what economist and Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek called "The Pretense of Knowledge."  Alan Greenspan famously dropped interest rates to historically low levels to fight the dot-com bubble burst he created with the same policies in the late '90s.  This easy credit financed a housing bubble in turn.  Greenspan was often labeled the "maestro" during his time as Fed head because of his supposedly wondrous skills at "guiding" the economy through interest rate manipulation.  One deep recession later, and we can all see how apt a term that is now.

The idea behind targeting NGDP assumes that Bernanke, after failing to boost the economy for over three years, can somehow hit a target that's dictated by the actions of billions acting homogenously.  Putting money in the hands of banks and individuals doesn't guarantee that said money is spent in a fashion to boost NGDP.  As financial blogger Mike "Mish" Shedlock puts it, "[f]or starters the Fed cannot spend money, it can only lend it. Thus the Fed has at best an indirect affect on GDP."  The real danger lies in the overshooting of a target which can lead to out-of-control inflation.  To think that just a few men are capable of coordinating the independent spending habits of hundreds of millions is sheer idol-worshiping at the altar of governmental central planning.

The great Jim Rogers is out with another good interview/podcast.  This time it's with China Money Podcast and it can be checked out by clicking on the link. Rogers goes on about why the Chinese stock market is going to stagnate and why the U.S. is headed for economic problems in a few years.  He also mentions that the Renminbi stands a good chance of appreciating against the dollar if it becomes freely traded.  This seems to be the general consensus among Austrian type investors who see potential for China after the inevitable bust that occurs.