Jeffrey Sachs succinctly summarized how the massively corrupt United States works

© 2024 Peter Free

 

09 January 2024

 

 

Kudos, professor

 

Professor Jeffrey Sachs recently synopsized the giant scam that the United States has become.

 

Here — in extracts:

 

 

In the past 20 years, every major US foreign policy objective has failed.

 

Despite these remarkable and costly debacles . . . the same cast of characters has remained at the helm of US foreign policy for decades, including Joe Biden, Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, and Hillary Clinton.

 

What gives?

 

The puzzle is solved by recognizing that American foreign policy . . . . is about the interests of the Washington insiders, as they chase campaign contributions and lucrative jobs for themselves, staff, and family members.

 

As a result, the American people are losing big. The failed wars since 2000 have cost them around $5 trillion in direct outlays, or around $40,000 per household.

 

The $1.5 trillion in military outlays is the scam that keeps on giving—to the military-industrial complex and the Washington insiders—even as it impoverishes and endangers America and the world.

 

To understand the foreign-policy scam, think of today’s federal government as a multi-division racket controlled by the highest bidders.

 

The Wall Street division is run out of the Treasury. The Health Industry division is run out of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Big Oil and Coal division is run out of the Departments of Energy and Interior. And the Foreign Policy division is run out of the White House, Pentagon and CIA.

 

Each division uses public power for private gain through insider dealing, greased by corporate campaign contributions and lobbying outlays.

 

[T]he Health Industry division rivals the Foreign Policy division as a remarkable financial scam. America’s health outlays totaled an astounding $4.5 trillion in 2022, or roughly $36,000 per household, by far the highest health costs in the world, while America ranked roughly 40th in the world among nations in life expectancy.

 

A failed health policy translates into very big bucks for the health industry, just as a failed foreign policy translates into mega-revenues of the military-industrial complex.

 

America’s wars are not waged by popular demand but by decisions from on high. Special measures are needed to keep the people away from decision making.

 

The first such measure is unrelenting propaganda.

 

The second is to hide the costs of the foreign policy operations.

 

This system is underpinned by the complete subordination of the U.S. Congress to the war business . . . .

 

[T]he military industry (Boeing, Raytheon, and the rest) funds the campaigns of the [congressional] Armed Services Committee members of both parties.

 

The military industries also spend vast sums on lobbying in order to provide lucrative salaries to retiring members of Congress, their staffs, and families, either directly in military businesses or in Washington lobbying firms.

 

© 2024 Jeffrey D. Sachs, US Foreign Policy Is a Scam Built on Corruption, Common Dreams (26 December 2023)

 

 

The moral? — It would be difficult to conceive of a nation . . .

 

. . . that landed further from what its founders had arguably intended, than ours has.

 

Modern, murdering Elites are stealing We the People's scant resources. As well as our children's futures.

 

One fondly remembers guillotines and baskets for severed heads.