The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

Originally posted by oozyism
Even Iran is calling the US an amateur empire with teenage hormones which forced it to make so many mistakes which brought it to this situation.

Persia has been around for what? 5,200 years?

They haven't even split the atom on their own, put a human in space on their own, landed a man on the moon Or became a Global power on the scale of the US with it's mere 234 years. Besides no American President or anyone in power ever declared the US "An Empire"

I'd say that's not a bad track record for a bunch of fat, lazy and mongrel American Amateurs.

Quite a bold statement Slayer. Then again not a surprise judging from your previous posts. Pride harder bro.

Are you forgetting about all the non-americans who heavily contributed to your rise? You wouldn't be where you are now if it weren't from the countless nazi scientists for example.

Maybe next time... =P

reply to post by SLAYER69


I guess it was all the works of Americans who don't even know where Iraq is, the very same country they invaded not long ago

Cheap.

Originally posted by aRogue
Quite a bold statement Slayer. Then again not a surprise judging from your previous posts. Pride harder bro.

Are you forgetting about all the non-americans who heavily contributed to your rise? You wouldn't be where you are now if it weren't from the countless nazi scientists for example.

Yeah I've heard that argument many times. I'm sorry but Von Braun and his band of merry men didn't design or build the space shuttle, Skylab or the lunar lander and or the lunar rover or the pressure suits or design and engineer all the wear-with all that was required to fly to the moon etc etc etc.

Oh, Ignorance is bliss.

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Originally posted by tristar
Back to topic.

What i object to is comparing the U.S. to the Roman Empire, although similar in many ways, that alone does not allow to make a parallel comparison. To begin with, the current push to automate the financial sector has created a precedent across the board in slashing the cost production cost of goods.

Seems some confuse the words Decline and Collapse.

Okay you lost me here. I assume a decline is always present before any collapse. So in my eyes, is there a U.S. decline, sure there is. But that alone can not bring the collapse of the U.S. alone.

As for the U.S. collapse, well unless there is some major shift, either military alone or a combined military-economic war, then those two combined might possibly bring its collapse, but since there is no other nation ready to go head to head on both fronts against the U.S. it stand's to reason, that the U.S. collapse is very far in the future.

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Originally posted by aRogue
Quite a bold statement Slayer. Then again not a surprise judging from your previous posts. Pride harder bro.

Are you forgetting about all the non-americans who heavily contributed to your rise? You wouldn't be where you are now if it weren't from the countless nazi scientists for example.

Yeah I've heard that argument many times. I'm sorry but Von Braun and his band of merry men didn't design or build the space shuttle, Skylab or the lunar lander and or the lunar rover or the pressure suits or design and engineer all the wear-with all that was required to fly to the moon etc etc etc.

The argument of external influence has some merit, tho it does depend on perspective, and is certainly not cut and dry..

e.g my British born uncle (designed some of the first modern flight simulators) went to work for NASA in 60s (along with a high number of Brits).. BUT he considers himself an American, and he considers what he build for NASA as "all American" and tho I would not dispute this, that point could be argued by some.

Myself I consider that America was only country at the time that had the right environment to push forward those advances, and for me it is that environment that seems to be lacking at the moment, as the current global village approach seems to have stopped a lot of innovation, and America is stagnating in the way Britain did in the late 60s..

If America is to continue in it's current position, it needs to reinvent itself and recreate the right environment that pushes forward rather than restricts technological advances.. with those advances comes control over the manufacturing base, which could be pulled back within America..

Having re-read this thread a few times, and re-read Niall Ferguson's 02/12/2010 article In China's Orbit
I really would urge anyone either side of the fence to read this very recent article.

I have a lot of sympathy for the many excellent posts that I have read here countering the OPs hypothesis. However, if you read this article you will see that professor Ferguson draws together a number of counter arguments, backed up with figures and historical facts, to nearly all of the arguments commonly proposed by critics to the OPs argument, especially in regard to assessments of China's position and potential but also a broader view of how the existing shifts in the balances of power, and economic influence may leave us globally.

reply to post by tristar


Since this thread is titled "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire" I think the debate is focused around the collapse of foreign/global influence by the USA (economically and strategically) as opposed to maintenance/collapse of the USA as a nation/state?

e.g. British empire collapsed, Britain collapsing - slightly different issue/debates - or are they (devolution)?

Originally posted by curioustype
reply to post by tristar

 

Since this thread is titled "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire" I think the debate is focused around the collapse of foreign/global influence by the USA (economically and strategically) as opposed to maintenance/collapse of the USA as a nation/state?

e.g. British empire collapsed, Britain collapsing - slightly different issue/debates - or are they (devolution)?

The US is not going to collapse like Somalia, but it will no longer be the economic or military powerhouse it once was. When the hyperpower status is gone, there will be a great deal of finger-pointing and the "American Exceptionalists" will need a scapegoat. I wonder who that will be?

reply to post by SaturnFX

There is one way out of this a massive federal investing in technological innovation.

Thats all that need happen here. reduce the military spending by half and spend that in ushering in new groundwork for american industry. holographic tech, robotics, etc...things the private sector can explode on and create worldwide demand....

You missed one very key point. - EDUCATION

"For 10 years, William Schmidt, a statistics professor at Michigan State University, has looked at how U.S. students stack up against students in other countries in math and science. "In fourth-grade, we start out pretty well, near the top of the distribution among countries; by eighth-grade, we're around average, and by 12th-grade, we're at the bottom of the heap, outperforming only two countries, Cyprus and South Africa." :Source

And a second source:

...the U.S. ranks 21st out of 29 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in mathematics scores, with nearly one-quarter of students unable to solve the easiest level of questions....

In 2000, 28 percent of all freshmen entering a degree-granting institution required remedial coursework.....

... Surveys of corporations consistently find that businesses are focused outside • the U.S. to recruit necessary talent.... One respondent to the survey even noted, “If I wanted to recruit people who are both technically skilled and culturally aware, I wouldn’t even waste time looking for them on U.S. college campuses.”

www.edreform.com...

The second half of the problem is what corporations are left in the USA do not even belong to Americans!

Statistics show that in 1990, before the World Trade Organization was ratified in 1995, Foreign ownership of U.S. assets was 33% of U.S. GDP. By 2002 this had increased to over 70% of U.S. GDP. www.fame.org...


A listing of the industries with over 50% foreign ownership, can be seen at Source Watch. It is mind boggling! www.sourcewatch.org...

reply to post by crimvelvet

Even if Americans don’t see it themselves, it is obvious the American Empire has already declined and their is a vacuum at the top. When the British Empire declined people were talking about the possibility of a decline after the peak had been reached and it was on its way down, a similar thing could be said is happening now with the USA. Also the time an empire stays an empire seems to be shortening.

As to which country may take the place of America, I would imagine an eastern country I don’t think Africa is ready at the moment, although I am not sure about China. Can a country have more than one go at being an Empire. Haven’t the Chinese already had an empire?

What if the future of empires is a corporate one and not one of individual countries. Corporations don’t seem to have an allegiance with any particular country and their wealth of some is larger than some individual countries. Perhaps we should be looking at which corporations will be the next empire and if that scenario does happen I don’t see it being a benevolent one as most corporations have only got where they have by screwing the workers.

Originally posted by infinite
It's quite eloquent and beautifully written.

I thought it would be rather nationalistic and hubris in tone, but it wasn't. A brutally honest assessment of the plight of the United States.

The final sentence is sobering and uses a forlorn analogy, in suggesting America neglected its opportunity in the world and will not be similar to Britain i.e we stopped our decline in the 1980s and managed to resort back to our values and traditions.

Good thread

Britain stopped it's decline in the 1980s??!

You must be joking?

Britain's decline accelerated at warp speed once Thatcher's twisted plan to dismantle Britains heavy industry, coal and ship-building took effect!
'The West is the financial powerhouse (read office) of the world and the East is the workshop of the world' is the Thatcherite creed and right now we are reaping the whirlwing.
Britain produces NOTHING now compared to it's output of old. Our finances are in ruins and Asia has managed to weave a double whammy of Finance AND manufacturing.

The USA will collapse before 2025 as well I reckon
'

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Originally posted by aRogue
Quite a bold statement Slayer. Then again not a surprise judging from your previous posts. Pride harder bro.

Are you forgetting about all the non-americans who heavily contributed to your rise? You wouldn't be where you are now if it weren't from the countless nazi scientists for example.

Yeah I've heard that argument many times. I'm sorry but Von Braun and his band of merry men didn't design or build the space shuttle, Skylab or the lunar lander and or the lunar rover or the pressure suits or design and engineer all the wear-with all that was required to fly to the moon etc etc etc.

Not quite but the brains behind it came from OP Paperclip and to this day 'rocket science' owes a lot to those that were recruited from the 3rd reich.

Now the Chinese have the mantle of power for space travel and are basically taking on where the USA dare not go...

reply to post by crimvelvet


There's your scapegoats.

Foreigners.

Xenophobia will play a major role during the recovery period, just like the Weimar Republic.

reply to post by keldas

Even if Americans don’t see it themselves, it is obvious the American Empire has already declined....

I saw the decline over 25 years ago in the 1980's. There were two key things. The exponential growth of laws and government bureaucracy and the decline of our manufacturing base.

Of mergers and acquisitions each costing $1 million or more, there were just 10 in 1970; in 1980, there were 94; in 1986, there were 346. A third of such deals in the 1980's were hostile.

The 1980's also saw a wave of giant leveraged buyouts. Mergers, acquisitions and L.B.O.'s, which had accounted for less than 5 percent of the profits of Wall Street brokerage houses in 1978, ballooned into an estimated 50 percent of profits by 1988...


This 1989 New York Times article is very telling.
THROUGH ALL THIS, THE HISTORIC RELATIONSHIP between product and paper has been turned upside down. Investment bankers no longer think of themselves as working for the corporations with which they do business.

These days, corporations seem to exist for the investment bankers.... In fact, investment banks are replacing the publicly held industrial corporations as the largest and most powerful economic institutions in America....

THERE ARE SIGNS THAT A VICIOUS spiral has begun, as each corporate player seeks to improve its standard of living at the expense of another's. Corporate raiders transfer to themselves, and other shareholders, part of the income of employees by forcing the latter to agree to lower wages. January 29, 1989 www.nytimes.com... New York Times

I also did a quick look at our employment figures.
As percentage of work force from Census figures: (Education is % of the population)
............................In 1970......In 2006
Manufacturing......24.0%........10.2% (1996)
Education...............4.4%..........1.1% (1996)
Government.........14.9%.........16.9% (FED)
Welfare (not SS).......??.............7.2%

Manufacturing as of June 2010.....7.58%
Total population 301,237,703
labor force 153,989,802

We have lost 1,962,000 manufacturing jobs since 1996 when the World Trade Organization was ratified.

We have less than half the manufacturing jobs, a quarter of the education jobs per capita but 24% of the labor force is now eating at the fed government trough. (the welfare numbers have those over 65 subtracted out) This does not include state jobs!

If you count direct government employees plus lawyers, teachers, accounting, safety and compliance Engineers and other government related jobs over 25% of our labor forces is directly or indirectly dealing with government bureaucracy If all the new programs the democrats want are passed how many MORE government jobs will be created taking more of the taxpayers money to pay interest on the exponential increase in the government debt?

Top ten employers:

The largest American employer is, by far, the United States federal government with over four million employees worldwide. Wal-Mart, the retailing giant follows with 1.8 million employees. These 5.8 million employees are more than the total employees at the remaining top ten publicly-held American employers.

United States Government

The United States government employs about two million people worldwide. These people are responsible for everything from counting the pencils at the General Services Administration to negotiating with foreign heads of state at the State Department.
An additional 700,000 individuals are employed by the post office in all aspects of mail distribution and delivery.
There are currently about 1.5 million people in the uniformed military, serving worldwide.

Rank.....Company..............Type of Business...................Employees
1..........Wal-Mart.................Retail.....................................1,800,000
2..........Kelly Services .........Staffing/Temporary Help..........750,000
3..........McDonald's ............Fast Food .................................465,000
4.........UPS......................... Express Delivery........................ 428,000
5.........IBM..........................Computer Hardware..................355,766
6.........Home Depot............Home Retail.................................345,000
7.........Target......................Retail...........................................338,000
8.........Citigroup.................Banking........................................337,000
9......General Electric.........Leasing & Finance.......................319,000
10.......AT&T.......................Staffing/Telephone Service...........302,770
jobs.lovetoknow.com...

Not a pretty picture is it?

How long can a nation last that is top heavy in dead weight with over 25% to 30% dealing with government paperwork or employed by the government, especially when it is a nation of uneducated shop keepers and burger flippers.

Originally posted by WatchRider
Now the Chinese have the mantle of power for space travel and are basically taking on where the USA dare not go...

They just barely orbited a human.

Originally posted by curioustype
reply to post by tristar

 

Since this thread is titled "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire" I think the debate is focused around the collapse of foreign/global influence by the USA (economically and strategically) as opposed to maintenance/collapse of the USA as a nation/state?

e.g. British empire collapsed, Britain collapsing - slightly different issue/debates - or are they (devolution)?

What perhaps isn't that well known for the time, is the recent unfolding events revolving around Greece's Southern sector , well below Crete to be exact. The time line as we speak are at hypersonic speeds as week between the U.S. , Russia , France, Turkey and obviously Greece. Since we are all aware of Greece's technical downfall that was just a stopping port for the billions that were made in the course of two weeks while the euro was being hit, people or should i say the media failed to cover the Nordic company that only deals with deep sea drilling. So getting along with my observations is the fact the several members from that particular nordic company along with u.s./u.k, and russian gazprom had a very low key and very quiet meeting with officials from the gr government.

So without expanding any further as it would require many pages to show point by point and meetings along with low media coverage announcements and the fact that stocks rose very rapidly after particular meetings were held and decisions made.

In short, i foresee a far stronger U.S. economy in the makings and traditional allies are soon be placed in a lower prioritized level. Lets face it, Saudi reserve cap is estimated at best to have another 25-50 years. That alone is not such a big time line, infact its way to short when one considers how rapidly emerging countries and the request for energy to feed such upcoming economies.

For the Japanese, regardless of whether you choose option one or two, you are required you to pay the entire balance on your credit card each month. A charge card has to be paid off in full every month, a credit card doesn’t – the author seems to be using the two terms interchangeably, which they are not. The cashier recounted to me in Japanese each item she rang up, not that I understood what she was saying. Obviously she realized this because when it came time to announce the total, she smiled politely and turned the display around for me to see the price. I handed her my credit card.
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