a job for the night economist

I was joking about that 7 AM solution.  I thought that idea of having a line that separated those in poverty from those not in poverty was kind of silly.  Well not really, you need to have some kind of number like the ages of 18 and 21, even though some are mature at 14 and some are never mature.  That number of 10,000 was rather arbitrary, but the way I meant it was that a person earning 5,000 would get 5,000 more, and a person making 9,999 would get a buck.  And it would be every year. 

I don't think we are going to save 5 billion on the military by just bringing them back from overseas, I mean we are still going to have to pay them and pay for their equipment.  Though I do agree with the general principle of bringing them back home. 

What are they doing out there anyway?  Right now they mostly fighting in the mideast and Afghanistan, fighting people who are fighting each other, and oftentimes we are not sure what side we are on.  What are we fighting for?  Oil and Israel and anti-terrorism.  We have the oil, Israel can fend for itself, and without leading Uncle Sam around by the nose they might be inclined to make some kind of deal, and as far as terrorism, I think it is mostly inspired by us making deals with the leaders of their kingdoms.  If we aren't fucking with them, I don't believe that they will be fucking with us, because they would so much rather fuck with each other.  And there is something inherently unstable about having this military giant in the field kind of willy nilly picking which side to be on.

And what are we doing elsewhere in the world, in all these bases?  Keeping the peace?  What peace?  And I guess the way we are keeping peace out there is by the threat of stepping out of our bases and kicking ass, but whose ass?  And who thinks we are going to get our guys stepping out of their bases anyway? 

I wonder what kind of disadvantage we would be at without those troops abroad, and I'm really not that convinced that we need that many troops to defend our borders because who do we expect will be coming after us?

So then back to the poor.  It used to be that rich guys liked to have the poor around so that they could exploit them in their sweatshops, but anymore machines are running those sweatshops, and we just have no use for the poor, and we middle class types are sliding into that category.  I suppose the rich could just let us starve to death.  We could get into one of those dystopian futures where the rich live in these walled citadels and the poor run ragged between them.  But can the rich remain rich in their citadels?  How are they going to pay their armies?  Gold isn't worth a thing if nobody else wants it, how can you have hedge funds, don't you need somebody to peddle goods to?

So let me think this through.  The government pays the poor so that they can buy goods from the rich, and the government taxes the rich so it can by those goods.

That doesn't sound right, but then isn't that the way money works?  I work for my paycheck and then I get it and I buy the stuff I need and the people who sell the stuff buy it from the factories like the one I work in which gives them enough money to keep me on the payroll.  Isn't that the way the money goes?

7:30 AM and I believe I have hit a snag.  I believe I will leave it to the night economist (Beagles) to figure this out.