Much-Needed Expansion of the U.S. Military
I’m not sure how many Americans heard the news that U.S. President Donald Trump announced today a new sixth branch of the military: The Space Force, which would join the Coast Guard, Marines, Navy, Army and Air Force as a “separate but equal to” brother in arms.
A couple of points one must accept in order to take this seriously:
The U.S., whose public debt just zoomed past the $21 trillion mark, can commit as much money as it requires to secure itself from non-existent threats from enemy forces in space. As senior energy analyst Glenn Doty points out, “The price of putting something (anything, regardless of what it is) into lower-space orbit is ~$10,000 / Kg,” so what the heck. We’re rolling in money that we don’t have, so who cares? Cost of tax cuts: $1.4 trillion. Cost of this: Who cares?? If it gets Trump supporters standing up in front of their Barkaloungers and shaking their fists, it’s a great move.
The U.S. needs to become even more isolated from and threatening to its few remaining allies, and every word said to forward that concept is a good thing. These unimportant countries eventually need to see that U.S. military dominance over the world is in their best interests.
Another banner day here in the land of utter absurdity.
Craig,
You raise an interesting point. Does the US need a separate “Space Force” ? Would such a ‘force’ increase the ability of the US to deter and defend against attacks from satellites etc,. or would this be another unnecessary Bureaucratic Federal Agency.
I can see some merit in the idea, but on the balance, it seems more of a political distraction than a serious proposal.
Thankfully, the proposal will never get past the feasibility stage (I think the President knows this)as getting Congressional approval would take years, and probably never happen.
NASA already is underfunded with a budget of less than $20 billion. Fortunately, a “space force” wasn’t included as a campaign promise and can be easily forgotten when convenient.
This is a President who like to keep everyone off-balance by suggesting new idea’s. Like many CEO’s he sees no harm in “running ideas up the flag pole and seeing who salutes”.
This is just one of the ways a President with no ideological commitments, feels free float ideas and policies without any real commitment.
For those accustomed to old style politicians who were bound by shared political platforms or ideological commitments, the Trump Presidency must come as a bit of shock, but President Trump has shown himself to be capable of an usual degree of flexibility when adopting or discarding administrative policy.
On the balance I agree the US economy doesn’t need such an extravagance at this time.
I do believe the concept may have merit in future decades, so it would be prudent at this stage to begin researching and subjecting the idea to proper objective analysis. .
I know you find ‘tax cuts’ hard to accept, but governments can only operate on revenue from expanding economies. Expanding taxes, is self defeating, since as the economy shrinks, expenses increase and tax receipts decline. Like it or not, the US competes with the rest of the world for investment capital.
International capital will flow to those tax regimes which offer the best return. America must stay competitive. All governments face the difficulty of extracting taxes from corporations in the “new economy” as those entities have proven adept at legally avoiding tax liabilities faster than legislation can prevent.
There are no simple answers. So far the President’s fiscal policies appear to be working to a surprising degree, especially in the “old economy”. Whether this lasts, no one can say for certain. Blue collar workers in traditional industries (especially Afro-American, have been the biggest beneficiaries.
For EV manufacturers Federal tax credits will soon start to expire. For Tesla, that means late 2018, GM mid 2019 and Nissan late 2019.
Tesla is the most vulnerable since so much is riding on the success of the Model 3, or “affordable EV”. The Model S is nearing a very expensive model upgrade and facelift. Auto-manufacture is a very capital intensive and low profit business, and Tesla is proving no exception to the rule.
With oil companies deploying even more efficient extraction technology over the next 5 years, the price of oil is unlikely to rise, especially in the US . A low pump price will hurt adoption of EV vehicles.
The importance of EV adoption goes far beyond mere transport. The automobile is the second largest asset and the most expensive piece of technology the average person and family owns.
EV technology is a gateway to involving the general public in a range of clean technologies enhancing and providing positive environmental awareness in a non-preachy manner.
Like all governments, President Obama and his administration had many flaws and mistakes, but the actions of Dr Steven Chu and the policy of DOE to support and encourage Solar, Wind, EV etc, while funding the establishment of other clean tech industries, ware inspired and (on the whole well managed and a responsible use of taxpayer funds). Those policies benefited not only America, but the entire world.
I would say the Trump fiscal policies are likely to unravel fairly soon, especially if he continues to wage economic war with the rest of the world including close allies through expanding import tariffs.
The US cannot win this one!Every one of the countries affected is united behind a policy of reciprocating every tariff expansion – specifically targeting states with a vulnerable Republican majority. This is a no win policy that will hurt everybody, and the US economy the most.
It will also tend to push Africa, the Middle East and Asia further towards China and to a lesser extent, India and Russia, and away from trade with the USA further eroding the dominant position of the US economy from its already weakened international state.
It could be said that for decades, the USA has been the biggest currency manipulator around, by using the fact that the USD has been the default trading currency for oil and other commodities to borrow huge amounts of money at unrealistically low interest rates on the international markets, and to prop up the USD to levels that the fundamentals do not support.
If commodity trading moves to being denominated in a basket / plurality of currencies, the USD could fall substantially, interest rates rise significantly, and the USA will no longer be able to afford to import more than it exports, or to continue growing its economy with borrowed money.
FWIW, I agree. It seems like just one more area in which Trump, lacking any real understanding of the situation and ignoring the advice of experts, is plunging the U.S. into incredible danger.