the United States slipped from being a surplus country from having a surplus in its trade balance uh to having a deficit and kid was worried because he knew that historically speaking every Empire that went from being a surplus to a deficit economic entity started fading

when he saw the macroeconomic statistics and he saw that from 1968 from 1968 onwards America for the first time since the 1930s had become a deficit country

The first 9/11, unlike the second, did not change the world. It was “nothing of very great consequence,” Kissinger assured his boss a few days later. And judging by how it figures in conventional history, his words can hardly be faulted, though the survivors may see the matter differently. These events of little consequence were not limited to the military coup that destroyed Chilean democracy and set in motion the horror story that followed. As already discussed, the first 9/11 was just one act in the drama that began in 1962 when Kennedy shifted the mission of the Latin American militaries to “internal security.” The shattering aftermath is also of little consequence, the familiar pattern when history is guarded by responsible intellectuals.

teaching the president* the secret to talking to the portraits in the hall