The Ghost Budget: Paying for America's Post 9/11 Wars
Linda Bilmes (@HarvardKennedySchool) explains the unprecedented shift in how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were financed, contrasting sharply with historical norms. From reliance on debt to the minimal oversight of emergency spending, discover how these critical decisions shaped the nation's economic landscape and potentially prolonged conflicts.
Professor Linda Bilmes is an expert on budgeting and public finance. She is a full-time faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School and a former Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer of the US Department of Commerce. She has co-authored multiple books and book chapters, including the international bestseller The Three Trillion Dollar War and has written extensively on the cost of war, veterans’ issues, national parks, municipal budgeting and financial topics. She has featured in several films, including Charles’ Ferguson’s award-winning documentary No End In Sight. She serves as the sole US member of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration. Her research has been published in the New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Barron’s, and other media. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and holds a BA and MBA from Harvard University and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.
Learn more at scholar.harvard.edu/lbilmes/home
Пікірлер: 24
"I'm not sure what the long impact will be of so much spending with so little oversight. But I suspect there are a number of implications. One of the implications is that it made it easier to prolong the wars because we were not fighting the wars, and we were not paying for the wars, and we were not feeling the pain of all the funding that was spent. So normally people are feeling the pain." And this was all by design.
I have never thought about this in that way. I was just always wondering why the US has such a massive military budget.
Wow, amazing interview and content
Debt without inflation is something scary to hear as it looks like few people's are controlling world rather than government
All she's saying is so accurate but that she dismisses the reasons for proceeding in this fashion as anything to do with corruption is preposterous.
@williamlu4394
5 ай бұрын
'Corruption'; who makes the laws? Who do they make them for? We are all br*inw*shed f*scists being prescribed delusions, happiness and hope, like liv*st*ck.
@williamlu4394
5 ай бұрын
Corruption doesn't even exist. There is only power, and money.
@tuckerbugeater
5 ай бұрын
Maybe they wield power to deal with the ignorant plebs who want mob rule. @@williamlu4394
This is an important videos for Americans to see, and maybe Americans will raise up and said to their government "Stop your nonsensical wars and stop making a new one."
@jotsingh8917
5 ай бұрын
Here is the difference: The Roman Empire made wars to steal from other countries, bringing back slave, gold and virgins. The American Empire ask the Federal Reserve to print money to finance wars with the military coming back empty handed. And the American voters are stuck with the bill. Not so bright. Audit the Pentagon, but not by the Dianne Feinstein types.
There is a paradox of reality in modern economies. They structurally require ‘normalcy’, or business as usual, even as they produce ever greater risk leading to permanent emergencies. In the context of this contradictory distortion of the present, finance creates this artificial ability to colonize time. Past debt obligations are an unbearable burden incurred by others, while borrowing from an anticipated future is irresistible. While both are necessary to fund and safeguard present business as usual, which produces ever greater risk, extending crisis and emergencies.
The debt spending in this country will have repercussions on our grandchildrens lives and probably their children as well. How can a country spend 7 trillion dollars on destroying other countries and killing over a million people and still act like the shining city on a hill. This is the legacy we leave for our children, and the whole world is looking at us with contempt as they should. I wouldn't let my college aged kids travel to very many countries right now thats for sure
@williamlu4394
5 ай бұрын
It's all good, most people still believe in the religion that they're taught as kids. In other words, white people are worshipped around the world.
@Rnankn
4 ай бұрын
But all debt is someone else’s asset. The imbalance between public and private is the legacy, as trillions in capital accumulate and government struggles to fund public services. How can debt holders expect to be repaid is my question? Practically, but also morally? The only way the WW2 was funded was patriotism of buying war bonds, plus inflation that devalued the liability. Which actually seems fair in principle. Those with savings funded national defence spending, while government stuck to the letter of the law and returned the promised sum. Otherwise, it is higher taxes, or default. They are still better off than being ruled by Nazis, or blown up by ISIS. Ultimately, using ad hoc defence policy in place of development policy to subdue an ungoverned world is shortsighted. Yet a holistic approach is obstructed by the same public/private ideological division that leads to reliance on private finance and defence contractors.
This use of resources might not be worth it for society, but what is society but livestock and resources for the rich?
Ghost payments - but it's not corruption.
@williamlu4394
5 ай бұрын
Can't audit it if it doesn't exist
@tuckerbugeater
5 ай бұрын
You should be grateful for all the wonderful military tech that's now in consumer goods. @@williamlu4394
What a fool