Money is Just Energy
The US and the world have huge debts — private debts, public debts, national debts, “state” debts, city debts…
Debt is the shadow of wealth. Your debt is my wealth. The whole world (and the possibility) of direct bartering aside, if you pay me a ton of money for my enormous mansion, that money is a debt offered by ‘society', the creator of that money, that allows me to buy future items from that same society with that same money. That society is indebted to me for the value of that money. A house is worth its usefulness, until it is sold and then at that moment it is ‘worth’ that value of that ‘debt’ and/or exchange value of the money paid for it. There are more rules and characteristics of money that will not be covered here. I am skipping the traditional economic explanations of money and moving one step further. Money is a societal debt that entitles me to buy future items that are made using the human, animal, solar, and fossil fuel energies of that society. Hypothetically (and simplistically), the more energy that it takes to make something the more value that it will be worth. This is a general principle [that does ignore how rarity and demand trends can also create ‘price value’] that is also governed by market systems/prices, but in general a higher price usually represents more energy cost(s). This includes “mining” an item from Earth, manufacturing it, and transporting it. The more that a market is willing to pay for an item, the more of these energies that a person is willing to put into market products before these suppliers bring these products to the market. I will work harder on a product that will sell for more. Each element that you add to a product takes energy. Markets are where we buy and sell energy/products.
So public debt is energy previously ‘bought’, but not paid for yet. Future energy must be paid to those debt holders. What will that future energy be? Where will we get it?
HOW did we build up all of this energy debt? The story is below.
Pres. Ronald Reagan's "starve the beast" policy …coupled with Pres. George W Bush’s ‘run the machine’, so now we have an economy "exhausted, fuming and burning up" on perpetual deficits/debt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
A. On July 14, 1978, economist and future Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan testified to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee: "Let us remember that the basic purpose of any tax cut program in today's environment is to reduce the momentum of expenditure growth by restraining the amount of revenue available and trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast?scrlybrkr=b746399c
B. This Bushism - a silly statement said by Pres. George W Bush - sheds light on his world view: • “The fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there’s jobs at the machine-making place.” — May 27, 2008, in Mesa, Ariz.
Bush’s policy was that deficits don’tt matter as long as the economy was growing/running. He and supply-side economists said that we would grow our way out of deficits, so deficits “don’t matter.”
Both George HW Bush and George W Bush fought wars in Iraq in order to protect America’s access to cheap Middle Eastern oil/energy. We have understood the US debt/deficits and energy balance/dance. If energy is cheap and accessible, debt and deficits are not of great concern.
Well, money/debt/deficits and energy are becoming major concerns for the viability of our future, but let’s look at where these debt accumulators got into the presidency. President Trump mirrored Pres. George W Bush’s path of playing the race card and then using tax cuts to “starve the beast” and then supposedly running up economic growth — or ‘run the machine’ as I have dubbed it.
THE START: Race issues still haunt America’s future.
History repeats its lessons lest we forget.
How did W (George W Bush) beat John McCain?
Answer: A racist flyer by the Karl Rove - though he denies it in a cheeky way - in South Carolina -- Lee Atwaterland. W knicknamed Rove “turd blossom”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2004/11/mccain200411
The Trashing of John McCain | Vanity Fair
“Simultaneously stumping for Bush and defending John Kerry against attacks by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, John McCain must have been haunted by the vicious South Carolina push poll smear campaign.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/history-political-dirty-tricks-south-carolina/story?id=36864946
A History of Political Dirty Tricks in South Carolina
The Republican front-runner John McCain pulled his negative ads in South Carolina as he accused W of making robo-calls attacking him. McCain pledged to spend the rest of the campaign by staying positive.
How W beat Gore in Florida and in general? A racist voter purge in Florida
A planned botched voter purge of mostly black voters prevented thousands from voting—and empowered a new generation of voting-rights critics. If Gore wins...
Perhaps and maybe probably no 9/11 (Bush was obsessed with making Texas TAAS test into a national requirement) https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/digest11-chap01.pdf
Could Richard Clarke have bent Gore's ear when he couldn't get Bush's? The resource below is doubtful that America was smart enough to prevent 9/11.
https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch11.htm
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
If no 9/11, then no Afghanistan (unfunded) and no Iraq (unfunded). (Iraq was primarily motivated by W's desire to get revenge for the assassination attempt on his father's (George H W Bush’s) life -- very specific and personal.).Remember how many lies the US told to the world and to itself in order to gain support for this 2003 Iraq war.
No Bush tax cuts (unfunded) …and later Trump Tax cuts (unfunded)
Action s taken on global warming and climate change much earlier -- not after 20+ years of Exxon Mobil and Koch brothers (David and Charles) lies.
We would have kept up with Clinton conservatism/surpluses (the good and the bad of it) and avoided the neoliberal and neocon coalition -- also known as the ‘Dick Cheney Administration’ - think Black Sites in the war on terror.
In 1999, we entered the Matrix. In 2001, we entered the land of No Crisis Left Behind.
No, I am not saying that an Al Gore victory would have been all unicorns and rainbows. But today we would have a different pile of problems to sort out.
CONCLUSION: Two or three US presidents’ policies directed the US toward great indebtedness. Debt is money owed back in future energy expenditures. Our past utilizations of cheap energy depleted fossil fuels and damaged the global climate for the long term. Can the world find enough energy in the future, especially in the face of global warming and climate change, to create enough product to retire these debt liabilities? As it relates to today, money is just energy.