So what happens when a country of $5/hr jobs has to pay for a trillion dollar military?

[al_liberal]

We're not talking about a banana republic military here, we're talking about the biggest military power in the world. Our military doesn't exist just to protect the dictator, it exists to support the business interests of our new masters. I really don't think these modern day robber barons have thought this one through. How do you maintain the empire with no tax base? Are they willing to continue to support the current military outlays? Or are they going to drastically cut the military to the point of protecting the dictator? What about the soldiers? Are they going to pay them hundreds of thousands per year to keep the power? That would really increase the military budget. You can't suppress the very people you charge with keeping you in power after all. I think we're witnessing the fall of Rome all over again.

[Hardrada]

1. Good point!

Don't think they've thought that through just yet.

[SoCalDem]

2. They are banking on the boomers all being dead by the time that happens

and once we are gone, there will be a worker-shortage, so wages will probably rise again.

The "new" workforce will be overburdened with debt, and used to working long hours for low pay, so their wage increases will probably be modest. That generation will not be expecting pensions, SS payments or even decent educations for their kids, so they will be a fairly docile workforce..

Count on some governmental finagling to re-structure debt and make it seem less important..

Our government will always find money for military

[Skip_In_Boulder]

9. That's why the are so against the health care bill

They aim to implement a culling process on those who don't contribute to GDP.

[MisterP]

20. hate to burst a bubble, but the law does nothing for healthcare: it just has some

insurance benefits that are only there as political cover for the blatant delivery of all America to the obscene, murderous insurance corporations who've been sucking the middle class dry
no amount of "framing" or insistence that we've been liberated from the insurers will change that

[napoleon_in_rags]

3. That's what the privatization in the military is all about.

The name of the game for the elite is getting rid of nation states, replacing them with a global nation of the wealthy that knows no borders. This can be defended by mercenaries.

[al_liberal]

5. I might be wrong, but a mercenary army, true mercenaries, would cost considerably more.

They couldn't afford a mercenary army of millions to replace all of the standing armies in the world today. Conscription wouldn't work either. As much as we have been told that we wouldn't stand a chance against our military "defending the Constitution", we are a country that has one of the most heavily armed civilian populaces in the world. Geez, a few hundred thousand Iraqis with IEDs were able to render a lot of our military ineffective.

[napoleon_in_rags]

8. Maybe that's what they didn't think of.

It sure holds for the Mercs in Iraq, they make 6 times than the government soldiers to do the same things. But the issue is that they don't need to REPLACE all the armies in the world, they just need to BANKRUPT them, and be bigger than anything that's left. In the land of the blind the one eyed are kings, they say. As far as the defensive capabilities of the people, you've got to look at Libya. They didn't have big iron, large artilleries and tanks so they got it handed to them until coalition forces came in. Iraq is different because you had this idea of a good liberated people the soldiers had to respect, and its easy for bad guys to lose themselves in the crowd and plant IEDs. The insurgents could raise hell, but they could never TAKE a city from the military, so they lived perpetually under US occupation raising hell.

You are totally right though, when we all make min wage there will be nothing to tax, the legit government will collapse. However I think you are wrong in thinking that the elite care at all about 99.9% of Americans, they really don't care if the US goes down. They are concerned with that global 0.1%

[glinda]

4. Everyone without work will be sent somewhere to kill or be killed.

[OHdem10]

6. We will be in a great Depression.

[Bozita]

7. We get rid of all minimum wage and child worker laws ... so we can compete

Then we'll triple the number of TeeVee ads stressing American exceptionalism.

Work harder, faster, longer, cheaper.

It'll be great for the corporations. And, therefore, great for us.

Frank Luntz will have it all explained, nice and easy to understand for all us non-elites.

I hope to hell I'm wrong.

Sarcasm aside, you know those two are coming.

This is a battle for all the marbles.

All of our marbles, not so much theirs.

[JFN1]

11. If its a battle for all the marbles

why do we continue to play by their rules? They aren't playing by them (war crimes, torture, no banksters in jail, etc.)...

[cpamomfromtexas]

10. This country is run by people who only think as far as their next bonus.

Anything to boost their bonus and to hell with everything else. By the time it catches up, they'll be long gone.

[47of74]

12. I think our country is at about the same point as the Roman Empire was...

...oh say about 410 or so.

[daleo]

13. That country goes bankrupt. n/t

[LooseWilly]

14. Overtime... lots and lots and lots of overtime... and none of that flashy time-and-a-half overtime..

We're talking about that good old-timey, no-benefits, work 'em til they drop then hire the next desperate slob... kind of proper capitalist over-time.

If the country can just do away with abortions and make the workers too poor to afford contraception (do away with Planned Parenthood, it's a two-fer)... then there's no need to keep the workers around any longer than necessary for them to breed and raise the next generation of workers.

[JDPriestly]

15. The rich really do not understand how poor the rest of us are.

They live in the illusion that everyone is thriving just as they are. Their companies are making record profits. The CEOs take home huge salaries. They live in a world quite apart from ours.

So, that is why they don't realize how precarious their situation really is.

Maybe they think that China will defend their interests in and around the world. No other country can.

Remember the story of King Midas?

The wealthy in our country are turning themselves into gold. Unfortunately, gold cannot breathe or eat or, most important, defecate. It cannot live. It has no defenses.

[AmandaRuth]

16. nor do the middle and upper classes, what's remaining of them.

There is no way a country with a majority of low paying service sector jobs will support an insurance executive making $120,000 a year or an engineer making $110,000 a year. It will catch up to them too.

[CrispyQ]

18. First they came for the $35,000 a year jobs & I didn't say anything.

~sigh.

[JDPriestly]

19. Precisely. Imagine, if the wealth earned on tech advances had trickled down a little faster,

had been shared with working people a little more, then maybe the little people could have paid their mortgages and we would not have had an economic melt-down in the banking sector.

Right now, we have an ongoing economic meltdown in the employment sector. Yes, people are getting jobs -- minimum wage or close to minimum wage jobs and many of them are part-time. Not enough income to pay the rent. Landlords will feel it next.

[CrispyQ]

17. The elite only think one quarter ahead.

Seven generations? Fuck it! :banghead:

Right now, I'd be happy if they'd think one generation ahead.

[Angleae]

25. You're giving them way to much credit.

The idiots I work for can only see to next week.

[notesdev]

21. We'd just take what we need for our military from someone else

I suppose the low-hanging fruit would be reasonably accessible countries with low population density and significant oil supplies. But where would we find such a target?

[freshwest]

22. Exactly what is happening: Starving the masses, selling off the seed corn. And...

Indoctrinating those who can still make a dime off of it to kill off the ones those who can't.

Everyone who isn't able to be part of the great killing machine are worthless mouths, aren't they?

:sarcasm:

[Shagbark Hickory]

23. We don't have to pay for it. CHINA does.

[Juche]

24. With all the unemployment, people will flock to the military

It actually works pretty well. You cut funding for health care, pensions and education to fund the military, and when you combine that with the lack of jobs people see the military as the only way to obtain an education, get health care, fund retirement and find a stable job with a living wage. So that should keep the system full of soldiers. This recession has been great for military recruitment.

It is a pretty efficient cycle.

[donheld]

26. $5/hr jobs, Who's getting a raise?