SUPPORT PROF. JEFFREY SACHS
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TIMESTAMP
00:00 CYCLE OF WARS
14:16 MISHANDLING UKRAINE
28:00 THE IMPORTANCE OF RUSSIA DEPARTURE
34:33 UKRAINE WAR IS PRELUDE OF CHINA WAR
Jeffrey David Sachs (/sæks/; born November 5, 1954) is an American economist, academic and public policy analyst. He is the former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is known as one of the world’s leading experts on economic development and the fight against poverty. Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
You recently wrote regarding the debt crisis facing down the military-industrial lobby is the vital first step in putting America’s fiscal house and Order let’s start there why do you think that’s the first thing or spending you would attack to restore sort of fiscal sanity well we’ve just
Been in one war after another the military budget is out of sight and uh it’s got a lot of bipartisan support for even more spending so I I regard this is something we actually should think about after wasting so much money in Afghanistan Iraq Syria Libya Yemen and
Now Ukraine maybe maybe there could be some sensible discussion but the way our government works is that each each part of public policy so-called is parceled out to special lobbies this one goes to the military industrial complex it’s got a strong constituency in Congress and there’s really no debate about any of
This stuff so that that was really the purpose of the article to say look we’ve spent maybe six to eight trillion by now on these wasted Wars uh we we never look backwards in this country you know that’s a that’s part of our national trait never think about what just
Happened uh just plow ahead and um 68 trillion by I think a reasonable calc ation is perhaps half of the total increase of the publicly held debt uh from 2000 till now I show a little arithmetic on that point and so we ought to contemplate we’re in it deep in
Another wasteful and destructive effort and we should um sort this out so just just for the purposes of the discussion and some push back we have an Ascend in China spending more and more money on its milit military even places like Saudi Arabia are they’re increasing
Their military budget 16% a year we have obviously a very aggressive Russia a land war in Europe is this a time to be cutting military spending or I mean is it there’s the deficiency are there better ways to spend the money and then there’s the overall budget but at what
Is it 12 or 13% of our budget is is military spending the really the place to start in terms of fiscal responsibility yeah it is uh you know we all know the prisoners dma uh situation where um it’s individually rational say for the US to engage in an arms race and
Maybe individually rational for China to engage in an arms race and yet the uh outcome is obsurd for both countries and very dangerous actually the the way you get out of a prisoner’s dilemma is you actually talk with each other and that’s that’s the one thing we’re not allowed
To do right now so the whole setup of how we think about these things is phony to my mind first of all and extremely destructive the idea of the prisoners dilemma which we teach in school to our students year after year for the last 70
Years uh is that um if you don’t talk to the other side and realize that you’re stuck it’s called a dilemma because you’re stuck with a terrible outcome you’ll you’ll end up with that outcome but we could actually talk to the other side and say you know this Mutual arms
Race is is is really absurd of course China thinks they’re just being defensive because they say look we’re spending onethird of what the United States spends you go to Washington which unfortunately I have to do once in a while and listen to these politicians and it’s drum beats of War everywhere
And so the Chinese say well we’ve got to do this this is our defense and then the United stat says oh China is increasing its spending we we need to do the same thing that’s a prisoners dilemma but I would say for Americans it’s good to know we’re spending three times more
Than the Chinese right now the US military spending is more than the next 10 countries combined if you want to get a a good recent accounting of this there’s an organization in Stockholm uh Stockholm Institute of Peace research search I have it wrong some somehow I’ve
Dropped an eye in that at cpri but you can find it online their recent report showing $2.2 trillion do of military spending the United States is 40% of the world total though we are 4% of the world population I I think we’ve got some scope to do this in a more rational
Way I think that’s a really important point and it’s it’s funny you’re saying that because I I have in front of me the Stockholm International peace Research Institute and just to look at some of the numbers United States spends 877 billion China number two spends 292 and
If you look at the top 10 Spenders I think you’d argue six or seven of the 10 that were there were allies that even the 877 number is bit misleading because if you think about western or oecd countries that are largely coordinating with each other we dwarf the rest and
Your belief is that if we sat down and said okay China and Russia and I don’t know if you consider India and Saudi Arabia sort of Swing votes this is out of control we all have better ways to spend our money similar to what we did with nuclear arms or nuclear missiles
Where we took them from 50,000 to 10,000 we’re all going to start reducing our military budget is that would that be a good starting place I I think a a really good starting place would be the idea that uh first we shouldn’t be aiming to blow each other up because behind all of
This is even a a more destructive Point than the budget which is the mindset the mindset right now in the US is China’s an enemy uh war is very likely which is I can’t even believe that but that’s actually what is thought in Washington that war is likely and this mindset that
We’re aiming or we’re heading for conflict is relatively new extraordinarily wrongheaded easily avoidable you know a good way to avoid it is for Nancy Pelosi not to fly to Taiwan for example I mean you don’t just stick the thumb in the eye of your counterpart and expect everything’s
Going to work out fine you actually you don’t freeze dialogue like the Biden Administration did when it came into office you know there was an order in the government don’t talk to your Chinese counterparts uh that was for most of the first year of the administration uh you don’t say we’re
Cutting you off from all advanced technology uh in every way we can and roll out the old containment Playbook and expect that you’re going to have any kind of peaceful relations so I think even deeper than the budget issue though the way you put it is exactly right is a
Mindset issue we’re in the prison dilemma in a most naive way which is we think we know that they are going to be aggressive so we’re going to be aggressive back and that’s the mindset right now and it’s uh completely wrong-headed do you think some of this
Chill though and and us China relations Is I think China I used to go to China a lot and I think if she as um or China is a different place than it was 10 years ago and that she’s rise to power that that it’s an autocracy that they’ve
Actually been quite aggressive and that us going to Taiwan who has been an ally a strategic Ally we do great trade with them and that no one should intimidate us into having our Representatives visit Taiwan It just strikes me that you’re not holding both parties accountable for
The chill here in relations no I I think it’s actually something different which is a more kind of international realist approach which is that starting around 2012 you could really date it to around 2014 China reached a a a new level of its Economic Development you know during
The period from 1980 to 2010 arguably China became the world’s manufacturing Workshop but the idea was okay we have the Technologies they have the lowcost Labor uh and this is a great relation ship we’re going to get a lot of lowcost iPhones out of this and and this is this
Is good but Chinese extremely clever and extremely capable they started minting hundreds of thousands of phds per year and what really freaked out the American policy makers was two things that came around 2014 I’d say number one was a program in China called made in China
2025 where China used terms that I would not have advised them to use but they said we’re going to we’re going to I don’t know if it’s dominate but you know we’re going to be the major players in a lot of key Technologies by 2025 so that was one thing and it really
Freaked out Washington and the second was uh the belt and Road initiative and the belt and Road initiative was China saying we’re the phenomenal World Savers uh what while the United States barely saves so we save 40% of our gross domestic product or more and we’re going
To use those savings to build highways fast rail 5G all over Eurasia and by the way even in East Africa Latin America and that’s the Bel and Road initiative uh we don’t have any initiatives like that 50 years ago we would have but now the United States doesn’t so these two
Things were kind of an announce China is reaching a level of superpower status in the world and a superpower of 1.4 billion people and a highly successful Society at that point you start finding remarkable statements it didn’t have to do with shei uh it it and it didn’t have
To do with anything specific about putting up some military facilities on a tiny island in the South China SE nothing like that it had to do with the recognition that China was now a threat to us dominance and there’s a remarkable paper by a former colleague of mine
Ambassador Robert Blackwell uh who wrote I think it’s 2015 Council on Foreign Relations people can download it that the United States needs to rethink its relations with China because China is now a threat to us predominance or us dominance and he lays out a number of
Steps in that paper very clearly we need to restrict technology flows we need to organize countries in Asia to uh engage and trade with us in ways that deliberately exclude the Chinese from uh any role in policymaking uh and he lays out quite explicitly a kind of neoc
Containment strategy if I could call it that so that’s when the US started to move it started under Trump but Biden has accelerated it uh and uh I think it’s just wrong to think that somehow this was provoked by Shia was provoked by China’s continued rise in excellence
In innovation in science and technology and it was provoked by the good old us idea that hey this is our Century nobody else’s century and we’re not going to let it happen now I I happen to think that’s a ridiculous approach to life because as an economist I guess maybe as
A human being I believe in win-win ideas I don’t believe that this is really a game of who’s on top but actually are we prospering which is not a zero sum idea but more of a a shared idea um and I regard that whole shift in US Politics
As being dangerous and wrongheaded sure to create an enemy uh of the other side and just if I could you know finish on this thought one of my favorite political scientist is John mimer who is our kind of goto super realist uh at the University of Chicago and he he wrote a
Very powerful very influential book in the early 2000s called The Tragedy of great power politics and in the early 2000s when he wrote he said you know it looks calm right now uh it looks like uh you know we’re past great power crisis but he writes very preent when China
Grows in power we’re going to be right back to great power conflict and I give him a lot of credit for it but I I said to him uh John this is going to lead to self-fulfilling crisis he said yes I said John that’s a tragedy yes he said
That’s how it is and I I don’t accept that part that we have to have a tragic outcome to all of this well I think it uh should be uh first of all friendly second the the big thing about the US that is really important to understand
We’ve been the Imperium uh in fact we viewed ourselves as the Empire Empires uh tend to rule by divid at impira meaning divide and conquer uh divide and Rule and so the United States in region after region of the world has actually uh pressed division this may be counterintuitive
But we like to stir up trouble in regions and pit countries against each other so that some come running under our wing and so the reason that I say this is that what has the US done in the Middle East since 1978 uh you know in
1978 79 is Big binski had the uh the idea was a clever person but this was a pretty world changing step he said we’re going to provoke the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan we’re going to do it by funding uh jihadists the mujahadin uh and that’s going to cause the Soviets to
Come in and we’re going to trap them in a war by funding uh jihadists fighting uh the Soviet backed government of Afghanistan so we did that typical CIA operation uh I’d say 44 years later one of the great disasters of all time uh and boomeranged on us incredibly okay
That was one thing in 1979 uh triggering uh what turned out to be more than four Decades of war in Afghanistan leaving that country in in complete ruins same time that was the Iranian crisis we decided we’d kill the new Islamic regime of Iran so from 1980
Onward we funded Iraq Saddam to fight a absolutely bloody war throughout the 1980s with Iran and then we took every step to do everything we could to kill the Iranian regime from then until now with just a few tiny uh iterations then in 2009 uh 2011 excuse me Hillary Clinton and Obama
Got the not so bright idea in their head why don’t we overthrow Bashar al-assad and we unleashed the Syrian so-called Syrian Civil War was really a CIA backed operation to overthrow the Syrian government I mention all of this in the context of your uh your question because Saudi Arabia knows we’ve been
Everywhere meddling uh and stirring up trouble all over this region from the Middle East the gulf and Western Asia in fact all of the major players know it Iran turkey the Saudis and and so forth the Egyptians and so on so what’s happened recently is that China stepped
In to do something absolutely dazzling and completely beyond the imagination of an American strategist and that is the Chinese brought the Iranians and the Saudis together to to make peace unbelievable by the way uh you wouldn’t have found one in a thousand in Washington that would have said it’s not
Even possible what do the Chinese know about this and the Saudis and Iranians our whole game plan was based on that supposed Sunni Shia conflict being unresolvable and the Chinese resolved it the Chinese brought as Bashar al-assad back into the Arab League at the me then
He was at the meeting just a couple of days ago uh re-accepted so if you ask how the Saudis view the United States right now they view the United States and saying God this a country that is just in meshed in conflict and actually we need to get moving to something
Bigger at this point so unless the United States changes its uh its approach I don’t think it’s going to play in the Middle East I think the countries in the Middle East are frankly a little bit tired of all of the wars that the US has stirred up so Jee let’s
Discuss the war in Ukraine you believe the US government is falsely claiming that this war started with an open quote unprovoked attack by Russia close quote and then in reality we should be recognizing the role that NATO enlargement has played uh seore well back in 1990 uh gorbachov who
Was a kind of dream for the world to end the Cold War peacefully said uh I’m going to disband the Warsaw packed military Alliance and James Baker III and Hans dietr genter jumped in and said if you do that we promise NATO won’t move one inch Eastward and there’s a a
Great archival summary of all of that collected by George Washington University National Archives project uh that shows how many times NATO leaders us leaders German leaders told gorbachov and then told yelson okay no NATO enlargement of course by 1992 when the Soviet Union was no more our neocons and
At that point it was Cheney wolfowitz and Rumsfeld started planning NATO enlargement I mean our promises lasted a nanc in historical time and I spoke with a historian leading historian recently uh I won’t say his name because he hasn’t published this work yet but he was telling me that in the archives he
Finds records already in 1992 that the intention is that NATO will expand to Ukraine it’s incredible to my mind so in 1997’s big binski spells out in foreign affairs the timeline for NATO enlargement and he gets it almost exactly because he wasn’t surmising what it should be he was
Reporting of course what the inside plan was in Washington and letting the Foreign Affairs community that around the Council on Foreign Relations understand what all this was about and from the mid 1990s this became a public debate because a lot of people told Clinton including America’s leading diplomats don’t do that this will
Provoke a new Cold War and even Bill Perry uh Clinton’s Secretary of Defense thought about resigning in protest over Clinton’s and it was madeln Albright and the Democratic party neocons uh don’t do this this is absolutely Reckless well what happened as we now know and it was
Just like Zig said in and wrote in 1997 the NATO enlargement went in three stages first stage was Poland Hungary and Czech Republic second stage under George W Bush Jr was in 2004 seven more countries right up to Russia’s border but in this case with the Baltic states so it was uh Lithuania
Lvia Estonia and then on the Black Sea Romania and Bulgaria and then Slovenia and Slovakia uh Putin gives a famous speech in the Munich security conference in 2007 uh where he says would you stop it this is a threat to our core National Security do not move any closer well
2008 the neocon agenda continu you just on on track uh Victoria nulan by the way who’s now our under Secretary of State and is probably the the single continuity of the American deep state in both political parties because she was chenee advisor then she was Ambassador
To Nato in 2008 and now she’s uh under Secretary of State for political Affairs uh in 2008 George W pushed that at the Bucharest NATO Summit we would commit to Nato enlarging to Ukraine and to Georgia and this really freaked out the Russians because if you look at the map what we
Were literally doing was surrounding Russia in the Black Sea the idea was Ukraine Romania Bulgaria turkey and Georgia exactly the countries that surround uh the naval Basin sa a stopel uh would all be NATO members and Putin told bush then in Bucharest because the day after
The NATO conference there was a US Russ or there was a NATO Russia meeting he said if you do this this is likely to to to go terribly wrong well what I saw was what happened next which is that a pro-russian president of Ukraine was elected uh Victor yanukovich he said we
Need neutrality between the two sides and neutrality was against the oan purpose and when protests erupted against yanukovich in late 2013 there was Victoria Newland flying back and forth nonstop to Kiev to help orchestrate what turned out to be a violent overthrow of yanukovich in February 2014 that’s When The War Began
And I I know we were very deeply involved in what was essentially a coup uh and yanukovich left a russophobic uh series of governments came in all wanting NATO membership and at the end of 2021 just to bring us up to the the current moment Putin put a diplomatic initiative
On the table on December 17 2021 actually a draft agreement between Russia and the United States on security matters and I read it I thought yeah this is absolutely the right basis for a diplomatic outcome I actually called the White House and had a long talk with one of the top people and
Said negotiate For Heaven’s Sake you know what Putin’s put on the table is absolutely reasonable because NATO enlargement to Ukraine could get us all blown up no no Jeff it’s got nothing to do with this and anyway NATO’s an Open Door and if Ukraine wants it we’re not
Going to stop it just baloney by the way complete baloney as if the United States would say to Mexico yeah if you want to have a military alliance with Russia or China that’s just fine with us or say that to Canada you know you can imagine what would happen here if anybody tried
That unwise step well we told Putin Point Blank if in January 22 we will not discuss with you the issue of NATO enlargement because it has nothing to do with you we will not allow any Third Country meaning you to have any say over where NATO goes and if you
Read the minutes of the Russian National Security Council meeting of February 21st or Putin’s speech to the nation that night they said look we tried diplomacy we tried to discuss this we got the door slammed in our face and we’re not going to tolerate NATO on our 1,900 kilometer border with Ukraine so
To my mind Biden blew it badly and we’re at War now and they still won’t admit the truth and uh one of the things I wrote in that article Scott is we and barely get a discussion in this country going I tried actually to publish something in the New York Times they
Wouldn’t take it in the end after they accepted it they accepted it then they said nah we’re not going to really run it I I said come on you guys are writing all the time that this is an unprovoked War this was provoked you need to run
Something yeah maybe I don’t know so this is why it’s so hard to have an actual debate in this country it’s an inside job and and it’s Danger ous so that that’s really the point of my article I do want to push back a little bit on I do believe that
NATO I don’t think the NATO nor the West has any designs on invading Russia um I can understand why they’re threatened uh uh but I do believe that let’s talk about here we are here we are in a land war and let’s be honest with NATO uh in
Ukraine and my sense is the best way to end this war quite frankly is to win it and that if Russia wants to leave it’s over and that if they don’t leave or that we come to some sort of accommodation where they get land for invading and killing as many people you
Know obviously a lot of their own people have perished doesn’t that send a green light to autocrats all over the world that they have a strategic advantage or that it’s in their best interest to invade their neighbors I mean distinct of how we got here isn’t really the only
Viable way out or the best way out for Western interests and democracies all over the world is to convince the Russians to leave well they’re not going to leave because they uh or let me put it this way the answer is yes to your question if we
Said if you leave we don’t come in that’s that’s the magic word if we said you leave and NATO doesn’t enlarge we have a real chance that was what was on offer in December 2021 but we said you leave and we’ll do what we want and that’s just not going
To happen that’s the problem so if we said you leave and we won’t enter the the the Gap I think that is absolutely a viable basis for negotiations so in my point is in December 2021 Putin was not looking to Annex these four regions that are now annexed which made everything much more
Complicated now mind you there’s also a real complication and maybe if we have another few hours we can talk about Crimea because that’s a that actually is a quite complicated subject but just to say your basic approach is is the one I I take but I add an important uh
Footnote which is yeah Russia should go home but we agree that NATO won’t go in that line I’ve been urging for years the White House explicitly won’t say it for a real reason which is that Victoria nuland has been on this Jag for almost 30 years probably uh and certainly we
Know from the late 1990s they want NATO to expand and here’s the point Obama knew in 2014 he actually gave an interview for which he was heavily criticized uh he gave gave an interview that said I don’t want to get into this more because Russia has escalatory dominance and what he meant
By that is whatever we do they can take it up a notch up to nuclear war and they care about this a hell of a lot more than we do so I don’t want to take the first step and then have my uh pot have the pot raised by the Russians and then
We match or raise and go on because because they can keep doing this they will not allow NATO to expand to Ukraine to my mind that’s been the story all along so jefff I you’ve been generous with your time I just have one last question we’ve we’ve kind of done a
Whirlwind tour geopolitically I know you speak to a lot of people at the highest levels so let’s do the magic wand question the president or the white house or congress only has the bandwidth or the ability to get two or three things done what would you what do you
Think are the most important initiative that we can take here in the US to ensure not only continued Prosperity but progress you know the key to uh to to Prosperity is investment we don’t invest enough in this country our domestic investment rate it’s it’s not properly
Measured but uh even if you add in the R&D you add in the fixed investment and you add in the education spending it’s a shadow of what it should be because we’ve got between a third and a half of this country basically outside of the education and even the physical
Infrastructure increasingly for a prosperous life and that’s where our real issues are it’s a great country we should invest in it uh and that’s where we should be putting our public finances that’s where we should be putting our efforts that’s where companies should be devoting their time not fighting over
Ukraine not having a World War threat over Taiwan not having 8800 military bases around the world all huge anachronisms the impressive thing about the United States in the last 30 years the the most positive economic point and it’s a surprise for me if I think back 30 years we really sustained the
Technology investments in fact not just sustain them we increase them and the payoffs have been huge our R&D spending is big and wonderful and it’s actually generating huge amounts of new technology but then we don’t invest in the people we don’t invest in basic health care we don’t invest in poor
People in poor communities we don’t even have a concept of social housing I’ve been spending a lot of time in Vienna this year which is magnificent and has you know hundred years of tradition of social housing we don’t even have the concept right now in this country and
This war stuff is a complete drain so what I said to the administration at the beginning though they could care less what I said but I said don’t do foreign theatrics don’t get entangled even more build this country peacefully and there’s enough for the whole world to
Have a mutual benefit don’t break trade don’t break agreements don’t intense don’t contain China what a waste of time for us let’s invest in the United States so that’s that would be my answer well great to be with you first of all and thanks for a discussion of a really
Important topic because nobody has quite explained in this debate whether it’s the white house or the Congress how we got to the situation that we’re in here are the basic numbers if you look at the debt that uh the government owes to the public not that the government owes to
Other units of the government it’s something around $25 trillion not quite the 31 trillion because some of that is owed to the Federal Reserve for example okay these are technicalities 25 trillion is is still a big number and it’s nearly 100% of our annual output in the country which is the gross domestic
Product now back in the year 20 ,000 the debt that was owed by the government was only 35% of the gross domestic product so it went from being 35% of national income back in the year 2000 to nearly 100% of our national income today that’s a pretty steep increase that means that we
Are spending but not covering that spending by taxes but covering that spending by our borrowing and obviously we’ve been borrowing a lot the point of my article is that really a lot of that borrowing has gone to fund these useless wasteful destructive Wars Afghanistan Iraq Syria Libya Yemen now
Ukraine that’s awful and when you look at the estimates by the Watson Institute at Brown University they say that the cost of these wars is about $8 trillion if you combine them not even up to today but up to a couple of years ago now there are some definitional issues
And uh some timing issues that mean that we should uh go a little bit deeper at the technical level but the point is that if we had kept our debt at 35% of GDP rather than at 100% of GDP that is uh about uh 65% of GDP or 2third of today’s GDP of
24 trillion you do the arithmetic that’s about a$6 trillion 15 to6 trillion doll increase of debt beyond what would have kept the debt at a level relative to income so what the Watson Institute estimates are showing is that about half of that has gone to War I think even more than half has
Really accounted for by the military because in addition to the war spending we’re funding 800 military bases around the world were funding a bloated intelligence uh world were funding all sorts of things that the military industrial complex likes the the Ron or General Dynamics or Boeing uh or those
That are selling weapons like but are a waste for the American people now mind you the other half of that increase of debt came from the 2008 financial crisis which blew a hole in the budget that was was Wall Street excess let me put it that way another part came from the
Pandemic I various things could be said about that but basically between War financial crisis in the pandemic that’s where our budget was blown and here’s the challenge I would put to to President Biden I’m I’m completely against what we’re doing in Ukraine because I think this war could have been
Avoided I think it’s has a lot to do with the US Relentless push to expand NATO which by the way is a military-industrial complex lobbying goal that’s what they Lobby for they love selling weapons to new NATO members they want to keep expanding NATO and other countries including Russia say
Stop coming up to our border okay so uh I think this war could have been avoided but Biden really is part of the military-industrial complex has been as a Senator a vice president now is president he’s always back NATO enlargement he’s back NATO enlargement to Ukraine I think it’s been Reckless I
Think it’s the reason we have this war so I’m saying okay if you really want to Make a Deal stop this wasteful spending get the military budget under control but by the way neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are talking about this almost at all yes yes it’s up to us
Right they’re going to they’re going to slash the social safety net which is already in tatters in this country and then protect the military spending well this yeah this is what I wanted to ask you about Jeffrey sock because I know that at one point during this debt crisis Republicans were adamant about
Reducing spending uh we even had our house Speaker hour I’ll put that in quotes Uh Kevin McCarthy promised the freedom caucus and promised him American people that we would not issue a blank check for Ukraine and now we’re up to what over $15 billion dollar uh half of
That an estimated half for weapons and military training the latest being that the US Biden has agreed that the United States will train Ukrainian Pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets unbelievable because it’s non-stop escalation more weapon systems more destruction more deaths more spending and and I remember what I wanted to say
Which is I I would challenge President Biden if he wants to continue on this path of the Ukraine war which I think is tragic and completely solvable if he would stop the NATO enlargement and say to the Russians go home and we don’t go into Ukraine and that’s how you end this
War but I’d like him to say okay if we’re going to spend more money we’re going to raise taxes to do it let’s put it to the American people fund this not just put it on the debt and I’d say to the Republicans also you you you you
Want the war tell the American people they’re going to pay more taxes you want to have a war in Asia with China okay raise the taxes for that see how the American people feel about that they don’t dare do it that’s why the debt keeps that’s why the debt keeps going up
Because these wars are not popular at all and by the way they don’t want to ask the American people their views about anything so they just put it onto the debt without asking us do we really want to have this tragic war in Iraq do we really want to have a CIA Le
Operation to overthrow uh the Syrian government do we really want to bomb Libya back into uh in in in in into Rubble uh they never asked us on any of this stuff and if they they just put it onto the but if they said okay this is really
Important and we’re going to raise taxes to do it then we could have a good debate in this country is this really important or is this good for General Dynamics is this good for Boeing is this good for the military industrial complex we don’t have that debate right now
Because they hide it on the debt that’s right and and few people realize that the uh Department of Defense Department of War it used to be called it should still be called uh has never passed an audit that’s because there’s missing money and people can’t explain where
This money has gone and now we’re just hurling money spending about $6 billion dollars to prop up the government in Ukraine rather than saying we’ll support a ceasefire we’ll sit down we’ll negotiate with Putin with uh zalinski maybe have two tracks of diplomacy but we want to end this war now no instead
Biden has committed us the United States to train Ukrainian pilots on these F-16 fighter jets which could take a year or two I mean that’s in essence saying we’re committed to further death destruction uh the risk of nuclear war for another two years but let’s get back
For a minute to the debt so-called debt crisis because I want you’re an economist Jeffrey sex I want answers to a couple questions in the weeds okay so we have this uh you say it’s a $24 trillion debt uh if you really examine it that the media is saying 31 trillion
Anyway the point is where are we getting this money it’s debt who do we owe it to how do how are we raising this money to to pay for all of these Wars including the war in Ukraine so the government borrows it borrows from the public it borrows from foreign governments that
Hold this debt it borrows from foreign wealth holders that owe this debt and to some extent the borrowing is okay but we went from owing 35% of our income to 100% of our gross domestic product and what the Congressional budget office signals is that if we keep on the
Current policies the debt will rise to around 160% or even higher of our gross domestic product by midcentury in other words we’re on an upward spiral because no side neither the Democrats nor the Republicans want to talk about spending to cover Wars and the military budget neither one wants to talk about taxing
The rich by the way that’s true not just of the Republicans who fight that the Democrats fight that President Biden announces for re-election and where does he go immediately to wealthy donors he goes to Wall Street this is both parties come on this is why the rich don’t pay
Taxes so we’re on a spiraling rise of debt you can carry some debt we all you know carry a mortgage maybe if if you own a home uh some people have uh Consumer Debt and so forth but you keep it under a limit so that it doesn’t get
Out of hand and for a while the interest rates were very very low so the government said oh look we can borrow it doesn’t matter we’ll just keep borrowing but you know what it turned into inflation now the interest rates are going up because the FED is once again
Raising interest rates to try to staunch inflation and suddenly The Debt Service burden in other words how much we have to pay on just interest on this debt is Rising by percentage points of GDP eating up invaluable tax revenues that we need for to help educate our kids for
Normal society for fighting the pandemics and the mental health and the crime and other things that we have a social safety net for but it’s now going to go to Debt Service and that is why you keep your debt under control so that when you collect revenues you can use it
For the important things not simply to pay interest on what you borrowed in the past now when we’re paying this interest Jeffrey Sachs are we paying this interest to Japan a large holder of US debt to China another large holder of US debt did they buy treasury bonds is that
Is that the debt that we’re talking about yeah we we pay the interest on anyone that holds us treasury bills and bonds that includes a lot of foreign governments as you’ve mentioned it includes a lot of wealthy people uh in the United States it includes a lot of Pension funds Insurance funds money
Market funds backed up by us treasury bills government borrows by selling its bills and bonds in a kind of open market that uh any wealth holder can buy to include in their wealth or their asset port folio so it’s it’s it’s uh wealth holders all over the world of all kinds
From Pension funds and insurance funds and money market funds and foreign exchange reserves of other governments the point from our governmental point of view is that’s okay if it’s 35% of GDP even if it’s 50% of GDP by the way it’s okay if it went
Up to 100% of GDP and we had used the difference for making wonderful Investments that were going to boost the economy but where did that uh increase of debt come from that 16 trillion that I talked about where what was it used for was it used for modernizing our infrastructure and
Making everything work well in the US no it went to Wars down the drain it went to the veterans spending for all the w wounded soldiers that suffered from this a huge bill human disaster financial and fiscal disaster it went also for this Wall Street debacle in 2008 when they were
Playing games uh with the subprime mortgages and we ended we ended up with a massive recession uh and it went to the uh spending uh on uh the co pandemic and so we don’t have the infrastructure or the investment the physical capital as the counterpart of all that
Borrowing we have a lot of waste it’s very sad we ran up the debt we have nothing to show for it except my God why did we do that well I think we did it because uh the capital has really been invaded by lobbyists for military contractors they’re the most powerful as
You mentioned in your article in common dreams the most powerful lobing group I imagine the oil industry fossil fuel industry is right up there as well with big Pharma but uh by and large we have a captive Congress so here’s my question uh to talk about the
Debt just a little bit more uh with us owing something like over 800 billion dollars in interest to China how is it that we have all these lawmakers who are saying that we need to prepare for war with China I was listening to a a
Hearing in the house the other day and I just I could couldn’t believe what I was even I couldn’t believe what they were saying about sending more and more troops over to the Pacific uh to surround China I think we already have about 250 bases we’re opening a a new
Base in Guam sending 5,000 Marines from okanawa to Guam a fully militarizing Guam and yet we owe China money how did they how do they Square this in their mind well I can tell you I’ve been engaged in international economics uh at the professional level for 43 years and
You add some student years in that I’ve never seen a worse public discussion and debate than we have right now it’s almost mindless uh it’s also filled with lies and many other things but this warmongering against China is it’s so wrong by the way aside from
The question of debt do we really want to end the world do we really want to have World War III with China right now these congressmen need to get a life get out of their handouts uh and hands out to uh the military industrial funders and and the other lobbyist and go learn
Something go to China go have some discussions go see something because what they’re talking is nonsense and it’s going to get us in deep deep trouble so when it comes to the question of the drum beats of war with China much more than the debt issue and the economy
Issue I’m worried about the survival issue and I’m I just see so much ignorance in Congress but maybe it’s not ignorance maybe they’re just expert at fundraising for their reelection campaigns and that’s all that matters to them but I don’t think they know what they’re talking about at all right now I
Would agree with you on that I think many of us said code pink would agree with you and and there are some of us who who believe that this war in Ukraine is really a Prelude to what people like Victoria nulan number three in the state department who was there in the midon
Square in 2014 encouraging the coup and engineered the transition government want to see which is the next war with China God forbid right we know that that would be an absolute disaster you know o overseas a lot of people call this the Newland Administration not the Biden administration because Newland has been
There she was Cheney advisor she was the bush ambassador to Nato uh when the NATO enlargement to Ukraine and to Georgia was put this disastrous idea that got us into this was put into the NATO agenda by the way over the huge objections of uh the Europeans at the time uh she was
The ambassador to Nato under the Republicans okay then she stays and then she’s the point person for the US role in the overthrow of the Ukraine government in February 2014 that starts this war because people need to remember just get on a website and look at it even they’re admitting it this war
Didn’t start in 2022 with Russia’s Invasion this war started in 2014 with the violent overthrow of the Ukraine government and go listen to newand on tape several weeks before the overthrow talking about who the next government would be in Ukraine she’s already plotting this with the US ambassador to
Ukraine Jeffrey Pat on a phone call that was intercepted it’s unbelievable she was then assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs now she’s under Secretary of State for political Affairs so she’s that deep State the one that transcends the political parties that shows this is not Democrats and
Republicans this goes back to Cheney to Bush This goes to Obama administration this goes right up to Biden come on what is this and we’ve known all along our own diplomats William Burns who in 2008 was the US ambassador to Russia cabled home and people can find it online
Because it was covered by Wikileaks they can find William Burns email cable that says my God if we push NATO enlargement this is absolutely a Russian red line and the Russians have explained don’t do this why this is so dangerous and newand okay close your eyes just go ahead everything will be
Fine and not everything’s fine now we’re in the middle of one war and at risk of another war and nothing is fine
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Its different for different people