COSTS OF THE FUTURE

As Noam Chomsky has eloquently shown, this country,
like most, often places profits ahead of people. But profits,
examined closely, turn out to be illusory, in fact nonexistent.
So wrote Peter Drucker, the management guru, in Post
Capitalist Society: "There is no such thing as 'profit.'
There are only costs: costs of the past (which the accoun-
tant records) and costs of an uncertain future. And the
minimum financial return from the operations of the past
that is adequate to the costs of the future is the cost of
capital."

What are some of the future costs that we face? We'll take
a longer look at future environmental costs, but first I'll
mention briefly some of the others: 1) neglected and crum-
bling infrastructure desperately needs at least $1.6 trill.
in repairs, for starters. That estimate is from the Amer.
Society of Civil Engineers.

2) Our federal debt is close to $12 trillion and growing at
one trillion plus per year. Total debt, private and public
of all kinds in the U.S. exceeds $57 trillion! Interest we pay
on all types of federal debt will run $383 billion this year.
It was $451 last year, and $430 billion the year before.
And so on. That's money down the toilet.

3) Our neglected and ailing education system is costly in
undeveloped potential. In a global labor market, many
European and Asian countries are ahead of us in training
young people for high tech careers. But those are and will
be the bulk of well-paying jobs. Young people without high
quality education are permanently handicapped, and tend
to fall through the cracks.

4) Military waste and redundancy in planes, ships and
other hardware continue to cost multi-billions. Also, we
have spent over a trillion dollars on Iraq, and will spend
another $165 billion there this year. We are due to be there
another year. Afghanistan is warming up. We've spent
$65 billion there so far this year, and it's growing.

5)Environmental destruction over the past years is truly
incalculable as is the cost. I'll skip the damage from logging,
over-fishing, chemical, factory-farming and other kinds of
pollution, and just focus on environmental damage from
mining: There we find acid mine drainage formation, wide-
pread erosion and sedimentation, cyanide and other chemi-
cal releases, fugitive dust emissions, habitat modification,
surface and ground water contamination, mountain top
removal in Appalachia, environmental problems created
by abandoned mines in the West, and on and on. Mining
creates 96% of arsenic omissions. Other toxins released
are mercury, cyanide, selenium and lead. On site tailing
dams often fail dumping stored toxins. There are 79 tons
of mine waste for every ounce of gold extracted.

1872 mining law allows companies to extract $ billions
worth of precious metals from public-owned lands, pay no
royalties, and frequently avoid liability for environmental
damage and lost federal revenue. Congress refuses to end
the giveaways, even when we are running $ trillion deficits,
and can't afford truly universal health care, quality educa-
tion or repair of our infrastructure. Instead, congress re-
wards them with substantial tax subsidies. I guess we get
the government we deserve!

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net