You're saying Afghan drug trade is a new thing? You're wrong, they've always ran neck and neck with Burma as the world's leading producer of Opium. They're the Saudi Arabia of heroin production. Come on, this is basic information.

It's true that carriers can be useful. For example, they were great in the Battle of The Coral Sea. Unfortunately, we live in a very different world now. Even our own military says the future belong to small, highly trained elite forces and unmanned aircraft. The reason we don't have it is simple: the Defense Lobby. I know you love those simple answers :)

The chart proves my point, not yours. Afghanistan is head of OPEC for heroin. Taliban choked trade for about 8 months which just caused prices to rise.

Carriers are sitting ducks. Just about everyone has a hypersonic missile capable of sinking one. It's 10 billion dollars to build a carrier, and then real expenses of operation and maintenance start. They're great for saber rattling and parades but in real warfare against a real enemy, they're extremely vulnerable. How about aircraft? the cost of f35 over it's service life is 1.5 TRILLION dollars. These system are excessively costly, and obsolete.

Do these numbers make sense to you? Do they seem like an efficient way to project power and influence events? I think there are better, more efficient ways. Here's an example of our clunky cold war weapons applied to modern battlefield. C130 gunship fires a huge cannon at parked cars, guys running across a field, and my favorite, a cave. Listen to the lack of precision in their conversation, "Blow up the square building or rectangular one?" These fuckers don't know what they're shooting at. This is a disgrace.

You won't find politicians and insiders explicitly state to get rid of carriers and top guns but they DO say, constantly, that the modern world needs a new model, that small elite special forces, unmanned predators, espionage, ears on the ground is the proper approach. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the subtext.

The Chinese bought a Ukranian Carrier slated for the scrap heap. The Ukranies were going to make beer cans out of it. That shows how serious the Chinese are about their Navy. Perhaps the Chinese can float the Bismark and use that too for their fleet. Besides, they have ongoing territorial disputes with neighbors wherein the US doesn't. Google Spratlys. It's feasible that a carrier might have some Peacock utility. More importantly, the USA is not a totalitarian sweat shop like China is, there's little point in comparing them to the USA, the most advanced and affluent country on the planet. Further, if you're flying efficient unmanned predators and running attack helipcopters, you don't need a trillion dollar weapons program like the F35 and carriers that float them around like sitting ducks.

About the Afghans, they sell drugs. That's what they do, if we're there or not. I don't know how much more simple I can make it. Look at your own chart.

"Chinese, who actively started building their own carrier groups are of course dumb, not like you. Same for India and Russia." -Vitaliy Kiselev

Clearly the implication is that the leaders of great nations are by default brilliant/informed and conversely I am stupid. If you'd lived through GW Bush as a US Citizen, I bet you wouldn't hold that opinion.

And here's your mighty Chinese Carrier, it looks about as threatening as a floating casino -- which was what Chinese purchased it for, at the staggering price of 20 million USD -- sheesh, there are cars that cost more than that. And based on reports of recent sea trials, I think the Chinese overpaid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_ex-Varyag

The wrong assumption is that world leaders are some how smarter and more amazing than the rest of us. My assumption isn't that they're dumb, it's that they're not demigods or intellectual titans. I have known politicians in different countries and many are born into power -- others are lucky. Some are greed driven, others power driven. Some are smart, some are altruistic. I think it's a dangerous attitude to assume the world's showrunners enjoy a superiority over the rest of us. You seem to want to cede to their authority and (bad) judgment. Sorry, I don't believe in the divinity of Jesus, so it's tough for me sign on to the idea that world leaders have something over the rest of us.

"It contains simple assumption that professionals and military have more information and batter understand needs of their country, and they are not dumb."

Our politicians, just like many politicians all over the world, are owned by corporations. Some of those corporations aren't even American. So why should anyone assume they have the nation's best interest at heart? They don't work for the nation. They work for Exxon and BP, not us.

I don't trust our leaders, they've never given me a reason to. The F-35, 1.66 TRILLION dollar program. For the people's benefit? Wrong tool for the wrong job. The Generals are on the take as well, not all of them, but a lot, especially during the Iraq war, many retired military "Experts" provided propaganda to the media to juice up support.

Gasoline! Gas costs about 4,30 per gallon is USA. This is about 0.85 euros per litre. In Europe the gasoline cost is double around 1.70 euros per litre or USD 8.50 per Gallon.

Also sales taxes are nominal compared to EU equivalents. Americans 8% compared to Europe's double or triple rates. Also Americans don't pay sales taxes on out of state purchases. Here in Europe we do not get such treats.

Raising the gasoline and sales taxes to match more the European equivalents could solve US budget deficits easily but ofcourse might kill the American lifestyle. On the other hand the much higher taxes in Europe are not much helping Europeans maybe doing just the opposite. Anyway I love the USA. Still the best country in the world!

Dear Vitaliy,

I am just a photographer. I do not have such skills, actually I doubt if anybody does. I like to read your blog though.

But my reasoning was if USA is very consumer oriented and most of their taxes are from consumer spending then doubling those would take care of the deficit.

Regarding views on government, I don't think my views are extremist. The US Presidential campaign may cost each candidate a billion dollars this year. A Governor might spend 100 million on an election. I can assure you, it's not the average citizen that funds these campaigns. Once elected, who do these politicians serve? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904070604576514791591319306.html

Just curious if you guys have heard of Ron Paul. He's got a lot of grass roots support, but the corporate-owned media mostly ignores him. Easily the most well-versed presidential candidate in economic matters.

Vitaliy So far you don't think government should raises taxes nor cut spending. Not even for the military. Those are the two of the main things government does. What do you propose as a policy solution? Regulate out of recession? Print money?

Recognition of Depression is required. That means driving fraud out of the financial system. As assets are properly valued, their prices will collapse resulting in a big deflation. Nearly all TBTF banks will go bankrupt, become nationalised with the fraudsters running them prosecuted.

A big deflation will reduce government expenditure drastically, but the purchasing power of each dollar will rise. The Depression of 1921-23 was handled by non-intervention, and resulted in a rapid recovery. The path we're on is opposite to what is required. It is a path leading to hell.

As long as big corporations do not pay taxes and instead are being subsidized by the taxpayer, we will see this kind of imbalance.

A description of that Depression here:

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/the-depression-youve-never-heard-of-1920-1921/

I said financial system, not financial sector. All prices are based on the financial system and are ultimately based on bank valuation of their assets. When banks systematically inflate asset values by fraud, this destroys the price signal resulting in misallocation of capital. It leads to stagflation, a shrinking cake and an accumulation of wealth and power by the very fraudsters who caused the crisis through their fraudulent accounting. Prior to 2009, banks were obliged to mark-to-market. They didn't for MBS, CDS and CDOs. If they had, regulators would have intervened well before 2008, forcing them to bolster their capital position (and cut bonuses).

The big financial difference between now and 1921 is the existence of CDS. Yet the systemic risk posed by these instruments would disappear if they were reclassified as insurance products (requiring capital) and traded on open exchanges with nightly margin posted as collateral.