The Way We Live Now: embracing peace out of necessity. The days of unlimited defense budgets are over, for at least a year or two. As are the days of inflation, optimism, and stable money market accounts. It's a party!

Get ready to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber, Air Force procurement officers, because the Pentagon is ready to "rein in spending" with vague "cutbacks" that will doubtless leave us with a military budget still much larger than the next several biggest-spending nations combined, because that is how we roll: hard, and in debt.

Shutting down the submarine base in the Sahara is not the only measure we're taking to stabilize our national finances, of course. The Fed just announced it's going to buy up US debt, which, economists tell us, will prevent deflation, via mathematics, thereby keeping prices from going down, which they swear would be a bad thing, though it doesn't sound so bad to me, especially if applied to movie tickets, because those are out of hand these days. The point is, can you explain how "deflation" is stopped by "The Fed" buying "US debt?" You have no idea, do you? You're mumbling like a schoolchild who didn't do the reading who just got called on by the teacher, aren't you? "The...debt, will make prices be....bigger, because the... Fed doesn't have to...pay?"

Sure America, sure. There, there. We can't explain it either. All we do is channel the vibes mentally projected our way by the eternal econometric pessimists, and do their bidding thought propaganda journalism. Once we get 800 casinos up and running in New York and fill Stuy Town's busted carcass with new gambling addicts, we'll get those defense budgets inching back up in no time, thanks to ample tax revenue and then something something The Fed, etc.

Just know this: if our money market account ever "breaks the buck," all those nuclear weapons will get put to good use (on a money market manager).

(In the meantime why not use them to rob other countries?)

[Pic via]