Mon cousin de Floride me raconte que l'enlisement de la guerre en Irak a provoqué une montée de la conscience politique très intéressante (et évidemment anti-Bush)...
Les gens parlent politique alors qu'ils ne le faisaient pas depuis... le Vietnam ! La dette américaine commence même a préoccuper les gens et à devenir un thème d'interêt. Ci-dessous un article du Times sur une nouvelle qui est passée totalement inaperçue ici : le Sénat a autorisé la dette américaine a atteindre $9000 milliards ! Cela engendre une dépendance très importante par rapport aux premiers créanciers comme le Japon et la Chine...
La guerre en Irak est très coûteuse car les américains recourent beaucoup aux entreprises privées qui sont parfois de véritables milices privées. Halliburton, la firme dont Dick Cheney était président a ainsi plus de $100 milliards de contrat... On peut se demander si la guerre en Irak a pour véritable motivation de réduire la dépendance énergétique ou bien d'enrichir les amis...
Par ailleurs, beaucoup se demandent si le 11 septembre
n'était pas en partie bidon parce qu'il y a quand même de nombreuses choses troublantes dans la façon dont les choses se sont passées, en particulier le fait que 9 des 19 pilotes kamikazes supposés sont encore vivant. La vidéo en
hyperlien est très interlocante. Et si c'était une manipulation digne de l'assassinat de Kennedy ?
Aujourd'hui, Bush se demande sérieusement s'il ne va pas aussi envahir l'Iran... Comment arreter sa démence ?
Congress saves face over debt blowout
THE US Senate increased the national debt to $US9 trillion ($12 trillion) yesterday, sparing the world's richest nation the embarrassment of having to default on its Treasury notes for the first time.
Senators voted 52-48 to send President George W. Bush a measure that would allow the Government to borrow an additional $US781 billion. If the debt ceiling, which is set by Congress, had not been raised by next Friday, the Bush administration could not have borrowed more money and the would have begun to default on its domestic and foreign obligations, an untenable consequence. The vote, which put Republicans in the difficult position of calling for more debt, was a political gift to the Democrats. They blasted the bill, saying it was needed because of fiscal mismanagement by Mr Bush, who came to office when the government was running record surpluses.
"When it comes to deficits, this President owns all the records," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. The vote to increase the debt limit, requested by the White House, is the fourth since Mr Bush took office. In 2001, the national debt was $US5.7 trillion. Today it has ballooned to $US8.2 trillion, figures rarely talked about in Washington. The national debt is the total amount owed by the Government. When Mr Bush took office he inherited a $US236 billion budget surplus.
His predecessor, Bill Clinton, had used budget surpluses to pay down some of the national debt in his last two years in office. Mr Bush also inherited some extraordinarily over-optimistic projections. Experts pronounced that budget surpluses would increase to $US5.6 trillion over 10 years, and there was even heady talk of paying off the entire national debt with the proceeds.
Since then a combination of factors - the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, unexpectedly low tax revenues, Mr Bush's tax cuts and runaway government spending - have plunged the yearly budget back into deficit. This year it will reach nearly $US400 billion.
What worries many analysts is the amount of debt financed by foreign governments and banks, particularly in Asia. The national debt is split between publicly held debt - money which is owed to US and foreign investors - and money owed to branches of the Government. Nearly half the publicly owed debt is held by foreigners.
is the biggest creditor, at $US668 billion. , the second-biggest, recently increased its stake by $US40 billion to $US263 billion.
"We used to have much less held by foreigners," Alice Rivlin, a former budget director for Mr Clinton, said. "It makes you much more vulnerable to people's agendas."
AP, The Times