The Chenobyl nuclear reactor explosion on April 26, 1986, was in fact more catastrophic than is commonly believed. The total radioactive contamination released, a full array of fissile products, was 400 times the total output of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. A permanent evacuation of 336,000 people from around the area of Pirpyat in the Ukraine was necessary. The red cloud in the accompanying photograph demonstrates the worldwide distribution of radioactivity as it appeared the day after the steam explosion at Reactor 4 at Chirnobyl destroyed the containment building, exposing the reactor core to oxygen and igniting the graphite moderator. The resulting fire from hell propelled radioactivity 20,000 feet into the air, where it drifted as far as the Pacific Coast of North America.
Reading a good book lately about the epic chess matches between Americans and Russians (White King and Red Queen, by Daniel Johnson), especially the famous showdown between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in 1972, I was struck by a remark in passing about Chernobyl (Kasparov and Karpov, playing for the championship in 1986, donated their prize money to disaster relief in the Ukraine). Gorbachev thought the disaster, and the botched Soviet response and attempted coverup of the extent of the damage, was the single biggest factor leading to the demise of the Soviet Union, which occurred within a few years. The Soviet populace finally lost all faith in the ability of the government to do anything competently, even in mounting a propaganda campaign, something at which the Soviets had once excelled.
A tantalizing thesis. Of course, we had our own non-radioactive disaster with Hurricane Katrina, and I doubt there is an American anywhere who doesn't have serious doubts about the competence of the federal government in the wake of that fiasco. Yet the Bush years provided so much more. A war to eliminate weapons that did not exist, followed by an occupation so obviously botched that a book all about it entitled Fiasco was a best seller. And as Bush left office, the American economy fell completely apart.
I am reading with amazement these days about the transmogrification of the "recovery plan" into yet another in an apparently endless series of "tax cuts." The impetus for this compromise is Republican resistance to the spending bill, Republicans who, if I remember correctly, now comprise an almost irrelevant minority in both Houses of Congress.
Conservative estimates of the budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 run in the $2 trillion range, larger by a factor of 4 than any previous deficit in American history. This estimate is based upon a fairly rosy view of the fate of the government "investment" in all the failed financial institutions it has been bailing out on a 24/7 basis over the last year, such as buying mortgage-backed securities with no known secondary market. If this has been money down a rat hole, then the deficit might approach $3 trillion, according to prognosticators such as the always dour Paul Craig Roberts.
In the face of such surreal deficits, if I understand things right, the federal government is proposing to reduce its income while simultaneously passing the hat among the usual American foreign benefactors, asking for unprecedented subscriptions. America seems to be settling into a kind of subprime mentality; if we can fog a mirror, they'll lend us the money. I'm not so sure. We've been the linchpin of the world economy for a long time, and a worldwide recession is underway because of our slump, but I strongly suspect that money managers of all the "sovereign wealth funds" are asking themselves some hard questions right now about their dollar positions. Such as, have the Americans just completely lost it? And can we get out before the whole thing blows?
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