Dollar's reserve status has allowed us to carry high debt

To The Daily Sun,

About 15 years ago, passenger planes were used to attack the World Trade Center towers and still we suffer the consequences. The Bush administration called the 9/11 attacks a "wake-up call." But what exactly did it wake us up to? The event launched Middle East wars. It resulted in a strike-first doctrine which was intended to bring unprecedented "democracy" to the region. But has the Middle East become more stable or unstable? More importantly are we awake and aware?

Our proclivity to fund and train terrorist groups is now a verifiable mainstream fact rather than being a conspiracy theory. Pentagon papers outlining U.S. support for the formation of ISIS are available for our reading enjoyment. The only disconnect the public seems to suffer from is that both Elephants and Donkeys have supported Islamic terrorism. So, like Will Rogers said, "The more you observe politics, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other."

There have been substantial economic consequences to our Middle Eastern involvement. The Iraq War alone is estimated to have cost around $2 trillion, excluding ongoing veteran benefits. Of course, the accounting for costs stops after 2010 because then we deemed the undeclared war officially over. We know costs continue to accrue. The U.S. maintains a military presence in the region along with thousands of private contractors.

The national debt in 2001 was around $6 trillion. Today, it's more than $19 trillion. This debt is only partially due to combat operations in the Middle East. And this does not consider the interest owed our accrued debt. There have also been other consequences including an expanding police state mentality which is becoming problematic. The inevitable outcome of that may well become open totalitarianism (Trump, Clinton, Sanders) in the name of security, and rebellion in response.

That the involvement of the Saudi Arabian government in the events of 9/11 has finally made a stir on government propaganda outlets this year is not a coincidence. There does seem a high likelihood a global economic reset has begun. We have been lucky so far that the U.S. economy has been held largely above the turmoil since the credit crisis of 2008 by three things.

First, the fiat money used as stimulus and quantitative easing. This is ending through the Federal Reserve's taper program. Second, the use of near-zero interest rates to funnel free money through overnight loans to banks and corporations which they use to prop up stock prices through buybacks. This is now ending with interest rate hikes by the Fed. Third, the dollar's world reserve status, more specifically the dominance of the dollar's use around the world as the primary currency used in international trade.

Heretofore, the dollar's world reserve status allowed America to maintain very high levels of debt and partially protected us from fiat hyperinflation. We pumped dollars overseas through governments and corporations for international trade. The Federal Reserve has been able to perpetuate massive stimulus programs without all the money created immediately, burying the U.S. system, as happened in Wiemar, Germany. The problem has become, how do you keep all of those printed dollars created by the Fed and held overseas from coming back to destroy the illusion of our currency's value? Are we awake to the clear and present danger?

Marc Abear

Meredith