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Here in the U.S., we borrow $25 billion per month to "buy" 14 million bbls. per day of oil, and we burn it, along with the 7 million bbls. per day that is produced domestically.

We borrow another $40 billion per month to purchase cheap, manufactured goods produced in Asian sweat shops at "slave" level wages. We spend an additional $45 billion per month to finance and equip our military and our intelligence apparatus.
Our government also borrows approximately $45 billion per month, issuing new bond obligations in exchange for those funds.

Combined federal debt and trade debt is now about $13 trillion, more than the total of a year of GDP for the entire country.

With no plan on the table to slow this out of control borrowing and consumption trend, and no way to stem the diminsihing purchasing power of the dollar that we witness happening, as the debt increases, what are the realistic options, other than the increasingly aggressive projection of it's military power, does the U.S. actually have available to it?

Peaceful, moral, alternative solutions are much more pleasant to consider than the certainty that, on the course that we are on, the dollar will "tank". The only question is whether the U.S. will play it's only card, it's offensive military capibilities, BEFORE...or AFTER the dollar "tanks".

There will be an "all out" attempt to use the U.S. military to "save" the American "way of life". The alternative is to sink, after a shock or two to the dollar, into an era where a barrel of oil costs several hundred dollars, unemployment is more than 30 percent, the U.S. is at the mercy of foreign debt holders,
and...unable to sell it's treasury bonds, military operations become unaffordable.

Dismiss advocacy of using the military now...to hold the purchasing power of the dollar up...first by demanding that all other countries submit to admitting U.S. weapons inspectors who will search in every other nation to find and identify defensive and offensive weapons and programs, and determine (dictate) which weapons each country will be authorized to keep, and which will be confiscated and/or destroyed, and you end up guaranteeing that it is used later...when it may not be as well financed and maintained to be intimidating enough to discourage our boldest adversaries, as it is now. Infrastructure in one or two resistant countries will probably have to be signifigantly
damaged as they predicatably resist the edicts of the U.S. inspection program. These countries may heavily damage several U.S. urban centers and inflict heavy losses on our military.....before these unco-operative nations are subdued,
but our losses will be "acceptable" compared to the benefits of the outcome that can be achieved.

The longer that we delay implementing this inevitable plan, the higher the risk grows that the dollar will fail and the price that we pay to achieve the above result, grows much higher, both to the U.S. and to the countries that resist.

The U.S. will assert itself militarily...with much less loss of life, on all "sides" if the above described "move" comes from a position of relative strength, as we enjoy now.

Lofty, moral, opinions that influence "indignant" and dismissive reactions to my proposals are a "luxury" that those who offer no alternative that deals with the actual trends in U.S. requirements for foreign oil, manufactured goods, and continued toleration of foreign suppliers, financiers, and holders of U.S. debt, of our untenable situation, will not possess for long.

Halx, I remember the "fanfare" surrounding president Johnson's signing the first $100 billion federal annual budget in 1964. Now, $400 billion of the $2800 billion 2007 budget will be spent, juts to pay the interest on the $8 trillion debt.

Offer a realistic plan. You're a young man. You've got a much bigger stake in the outcome of thie crisis than I do. You've got to live with the consequences more than thirty years longer than I will have to. In my life, I've paid 19 cents per gallon for gas, bought several new cars and bought and sold three homes. I've spent my adult years....until now...with the confidence that next year will probably be more prosperous and peaceful than this one is.

Discussion is a good thing, especially if it includes real answers to real problems. Solutions that may not be pleasant, but take all critical factors into account, work with the resources that are available, and properly assess the risks and rewards, after all other alternatives are explored, and found to be wanting, may be the best that we can do, even if they seem to be immoral or illegal.

I'm a realist, hoping for timely and less extreme, realistic alternatives. Anybody.....????