Scott Bessent: "If anything, defense spending needs to rise"

In the history of the world, there have been six reserve currencies.  Tell me what all the former reserve currencies have in common: Portugal, Spain, Holland, France, UK.  They were also security zones.  How did they lose currency reserve status?  Especially Spain, they got highly leveraged and could no longer support their military...  If anything, defense spending [in the U.S.] needs to rise.  You can't keep your reserve currency status if you lose the defense umbrella.

~ Scott Bessent, "The Fallacy of Bidenomics: A Return to Central Planning," Manhattan Institute, 30:30 mark, June 13, 2024

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on war China's foreign policy

China does not want a war with the United States.  We spent three times on our on our military what they do.  We have 800 bases abroad, they have one and a half.

~ Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., "Robert Kennedy Jr: China Doesn't Want War With US — They Want to 'Bury' Us Economically," Bitcoin.com, September 2, 2023

Kevin Duffy on the choice for Baby Boomers in the next decade

At some point, the nation's $23 trillion public debt will become unmanageable. As creditors get cold feet, interest payments will swell, forcing discretionary spending to be cut first, half of which is military spending.

In the next decade, Boomers will be forced to choose between Social Security payments and being the world's policeman.

~ Kevin Duffy

Hunter DeRensis on the choice between receiving Social Security checks and maintaining the American empire

When the world loses confidence in the American government’s ability to pay its debt, or the interest rate on our debt becomes unsustainably high, choices will have to be made. No more kicking the can down the road, no more 10-year projections to balance the budget. Congress, in a state of emergency, will have to take a buzzsaw to appropriations. And the empire will be the first thing to go.

Just like its warfare state, the government’s welfare state has plenty of internal calamities. But while it might be the preference of some megalomaniacal globalists to let the proles starve while preserving overseas holdings, it’s not going to happen. What would transpire if Social Security checks stopped showing up in mailboxes and Medicare benefits got cut off? When presented with that choice, will the average American choose his social safety net or continued funding for far-flung bases in Stuttgart, Okinawa, and Djibouti? Even the most militaristic congressperson will know which way to vote, lest they find a mob waiting outside their D.C. castles.

~ Hunter DeRensis, "The Coming Bankruptcy of the American Empire," The American Conservative, November 20, 2018

Kevin Duffy on the world's military expenditures

Official statistics say the U.S. accounts for 42% of the world's military expenditures and these are surely understated. In addition, we are blessed with huge geographical advantages - being buffered by the world's two largest oceans, and a massive nuclear arsenal. We outspend our neighbors to the north on defense by 32 times and those to the south by 121 times.

So why the need to support an empire that bankrupts us financially and morally, requires surrendering our freedoms, and makes us less secure? Threats like Iraq whose military spending is less than Oman's? Or Iran whose military is half the size of Turkey's?

H.L. Mencken got it right, "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and thus clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

~ Kevin Duffy, November 11, 2010 (Veteran's Day)