Drowned the debt to the ceiling

King Brobdingnega, listening to Gulliver's story about the state of English finances, was very surprised:

It seemed to him that I had changed my memory when I called the figures of income and expenses, since I determined the first five or six million a year, while expenses, in my words, sometimes exceed the indicated figure more than twice ... The king was perplexed how the state could waste its condition, like a private person. He asked who our lenders are and where we find money to pay debts. He was amazed, listening to my stories about such burdensome and protracted wars, and deduced the conclusion that we are either grumpy people, or surrounded by bad neighbors and that our generals are probably richer than kings.

Jonathan Swift was not a celestial detached from reality. He actively participated in the political struggle as a pamphletist - Columnist, we would say now. In the dialogue of Gulliver with a giant king, the debt problem that England was faced at the beginning of the 18th century was reflected due to the inheritance of the Spanish inheritance that had not ended. The Commander -in -Chief of the Duke of Malborough indeed made a fabulous state in the war and was eventually found guilty of embezzlement and distribution of state -owned contracts for the army for a bribe. The fall of the Duke was greatly facilitated by the favorite of Queen Anna, Lady Abigail Mash - this episode is the plot of the story of the Steel of Water so beloved in Russia.

But it was still necessary to pay on military loans. In the XIV century, after a truce during the Hundred Years War, Edward III simply refused to repay debts and thereby ruined his lenderers - the Italian banker houses of Bardi and Peruzzi. In the legal state of the 18th century, it was no longer possible to do this, and even with domestic bankers. As a result, a fateful scheme was born: the government established a joint -stock "company of the Southern Seas", which was to be engaged in the exploitation of the noisily wealth of South America. The company took responsibility for half the public debt at five percent per annum.

It goes without saying that after that the company no longer had to engage in commerce - her paper on the exchange was in great demand. The company flourished and issued more and more shares. But ultimately the bubble burst. Among the deceived investors was the great Newton, as if condemning on this occasion: "I can calculate the movement of heavenly luminaries, but not the degree of madness of the crowd." However, some modern researchers believe that the "bubble of the southern seas" turned out to be even a useful English economy.

The current US debt crisis is akin to the above English. The Americans are accustomed to the fact that war gives a mighty impetus to the economy due to the growth of the defense industry. So it was until the first war in the Persian Gulf, followed by an economic recession.

Modern war is expensive . The equipment of one infantryman from the Second World War, including weapons and ammunition, cost America $ 170 in 2007 prices. Four years ago, this amount amounted to 17 thousand dollars, and soon it will reach 60 thousand.

In addition, the wars of the past was waged on the basis of universal military service, and now volunteers serve. The largest article of military expenses is the salary of military personnel with all allowances and coefficients for staying in the war zone, as well as compensation for wound and death. In the event of death on the battlefield, the family of the deceased receives 100 thousand dollars of a lump -sum allowance plus 400 thousand on insurance; The widow, up to a new marriage, receives a pension, and the payment of training due to the soldier is transferred to the children.

But that's not all. By deducting all the above expenses, the stay of one soldier in Afghanistan costs the American treasury of one million dollars a year. This figure was pronounced by the White House at a closed briefing for members of Congress. The Pentagon, however, said that the amount was doubled: not a million, but only half a million.

At the same time, allocations for scientific and technical developments are being reduced, entire programs for developing new types of weapons are reduced to scientific and technical developments. Previously, the war was short, after the war the world came. And now you won’t understand whether the war is over or not. Instead of an incentive for the economy, only expenses. And then an unprecedented financial crisis that was unprecedented from the time of the great depression, the nature of which is exactly the same as in the case of the "bubble of the southern seas."

The Barack Obama administration is sure that he knows the panacea: we still have to call money to twist. However, the limit of external borrowings established by law, which today is an astronomical figure of 14.3 trillion dollars, is exhausted. The ceiling must be lifted, but for this it is necessary to solve the congress, and there the enemies of Obama settled there, preventing him from working for the benefit of the people. On Tuesday, the next round of negotiations between the President with the leaders of Congress ended in nothing. The leader of the Republicans in the Senate Mitch MacConnell said : "As long as this president is sitting in the White House, the real solution to the fiscal problem is unattainable." The President, in turn, threatened to freeze the payment of pensions under the law on social insurance from August 3, if his opponents are not conspiracy. On Thursday, the Republicans again came to the White House, and Obama gave them 36 hours to present him a detailed way out of the crisis. They ignored the ultimatum and promise this week to introduce a bill on reducing government spending.

From their point of view, these expenses came out of any reasonable framework. The usual state -owned level is 20 percent of the gross domestic product. In European countries, their share reaches half of GDP. Last year, when the federal budget was approved, the Republicans scared voters with the "Europeanization of America." Today it is already a failed fact.

But the main article of state expenses is not defense, but social programs for assistance to the poor and, above all, social insurance for old age. The moment came when the beta -batteries began to retire - a generation born between 1946 and 1964, during increased birth rate. Today, one pensioner in the United States accounts for four workers. But after 20 years, two workers will feed three pensioners. It only seems that the pension is waiting for an employee in a cube. In fact, the social tax of the employee is eaten by those who have already retired, and he will eat the tax of the next generation. But to go to radical measures - an increase in the retirement age, for example - Obama cannot, for political reasons, which he stated at a press conference on Friday. Instead, he proposes to carefully “cut” the costs of expenses and increase taxes for wealthy layers.

The Republican project provides for the adoption of a constitutional amendment, which establishes the ceiling of state -owners of 18 percent of GDP. If the amendment is adopted, the congress will increase the limit of external borrowing by 2.4 trillion dollars.

This is a conflict of ideologies. Humanity has not yet come up with a social structure in which there will be no poor, orpers. Who should take care of them - the state, rich philanthropists - or let them survive themselves? The myth of the "social responsibility of business" has nothing to do with reality. In America, the era of stormy economic growth, which began after the civil war, the class of hired workers wound a miserable existence; From the wealth he created by his hands, only meager crumbs fell to him.

In 1893, the country was comprehended by the largest crisis in the century before last, which bankrupt 15 thousand enterprises and left 4 million people without work. But President Grover Cleveland with indignation rejected “the groundless expectations of some special individual benefits from the government ... This is the people,” he said, “patriotism and willingness to support their government should be shown, while the government’s functions are by no means the help of assistance to the people.” Herbert Hoover, in which, after the financial collapse of 1929, the unemployment rate reached 25 percent, directed state subsidies not to the people, but to banks - exactly as the Russian government after the 1998 default and in full accordance with the draft "let the government help the rich, and they will take care of the poor."

The first president to decide that the government should help the poor, and the rich would cope with their difficulties themselves, was Franklin Roosevelt. Under him, as part of the new course, a law on social insurance was adopted, which laid the foundations of the current system. This line was continued by Lindon Johnson with his program "Great Society". Will America remain a social state or will return to the doctrine of social Darwinism?

This is how the question is today. Of course, throwing the poor to the mercy of fate is not worthless, but those who believe that state manuals do not allow their recipients to break out of the vicious circle and fulfill their American dream.