We are past world wide peak production and as you point out I don’t hear a whole lot about what we are doing towards conservation. Where a country like Brazil is energy independent. If there is no plan to cut back, then there must be one to get more oil.
Oh yeah but that brings me to the point that if I weren’t nuts and it is intentional. It wouldn’t matter how many trillions of dollars or where you throw the useless paper, if you know it’s will be worthless in a little while anyway. So you buy what support you can while it still has value. Circle the wagons for what’s to come. If you know it’s all a house of cards to begin with and that the collapse is a certainty. After all the fed has been propping it up for the last few years through artificial injections anyway. Of course if the government is running the banks, it makes it easier to pull off. Now their actions seem to make sense. Spend like there is no tomorrow, because for the US dollar, there probably isn’t.
We don’t have the most oil, but we do have the largest gold reserves on earth. So if something mysteriously were to tank the US dollar a few advantageous situations occur. First of all we would be far stronger rebooting our economy based on gold than anything directly influenced by oil. This has to be done for our economic survival eventually anyway. Through gold reserves the government still has the economic means to survive and pay it’s military, yet a crashing US dollar also cripples China’s economy as well.
There probably isn’t a billionaire on the face of the planet, who doesn’t have a fair amount of wealth in commodities. So when it happens, they still retain their elite status. Even more so, since commodities will skyrocket in value.
If it’s all economic based, than every free trading government on earth, would prefer the U.S. have dominance of the ocean trade lanes, rather than China. Remember that it's capitalism that is their arch enemy. Nothing idealogical about it, unlike with the terrorists. I know you know this but for those of you who forgot. When the cards fall and the choice is clearly us or China, you can bet any country dependant upon free trade is going to go with us. England, France, Germany, they have a lot more risks if there is an eventual Chinese Russian alliance than an American Chinese war.
Except Russia, they have to share a continent with China and they’ll feign neutrality until things get dicey. When China makes it’s move against us whether it’s in Korea or the Middle East then they will declare war and take China for all it’s worth.
We still have a space program, it’s just now mostly military.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1268138/X-37B-unmanned-space-shuttle-launched-tonight.html http://www.spacenews.com/military/110323-stss-demo-birth-death-missile-tracking.html
http://blog.al.com/huntsville-times-business/2011/04/missile_test.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/24/business/la-fi-hypersonic-missile-20110324
The last part in the last article is pretty telling, as far as what our priority is in space:
“Initially, NASA led the program, fueling speculation that hypersonic engines could help propel spacecraft into orbit. Throughout the 1980s, NASA worked to develop a vehicle that could take off from a runway using jet engines until hypersonic engines kicked in and took it to the edge of space. But the space agency dropped the program because of a lack of funding.
Seeing potential for aircraft and missile systems, the Air Force picked up research on the X-51, which led to its flight last year.”
So to put it all together shortly we will be able to detect and track an ICBM launch from anywhere on earth, shoot it down through remote target and launch of the Aegis missile system. At the same time be able to attack with missiles at hypersonic speeds, with no chance of defending against it. When all that is a reality and for what the public knows, that could be right now. Why wouldn’t you use those advantages while you had them, to obliterate your future enemy before they had a chance to catch up?
If you check the dates on the reports of the test they all came out several days after Russia and China condemned our involvement in Libya. Kind of like “I double dog dare you.” If this is what’s publicly volunteered, I can’t imagine what remains secret.
But whatever that is, the Chinese now know too. Within a couple of years, there is the very real possibility they could steal their way to the same military tech level as us. It worked for Russia, how many years did it take for them to develop an atom bomb after us? On a related note, Lockheed Martin was one of those systems compromised in the latest unnamed (Chinese) hacking attack.
If the Chinese can steal literally terabytes of top secret information on our latest 500 billion dollar jet fighter. It’s simply inevitable that they will eventually have one of their own. Their cost in development being absolutely free. Although there have been no casualties yet, I think it’s fair to say we are already at war. Now or later it’s going to happen, now is better for us, later better for them.
China’s “blue army”:
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/asiapac/stories/201106/s3234257.htm
The pentagon threatening muscle in response to cyber attacks:
http://tommytoy.typepad.com/tommy-toy-pbt-consultin/2011/07/the-military-must-move-from-defending-against-major-cyberattacks-to-deterring-assaults-by-letting-enemies-know-the-us-is.html