Exclusive: US empire could collapse at any time, Pulitzer winner tells Raw Story

America's military and economic empire could collapse at any time, but predicting the precise day, week or month of its potential demise is unattainable, according to a former New York Times war correspondent who spoke with Raw Story.

www.rawstory.com

Author: Nathan Diebenow

Chris Hedges,Pulitzer-winning journalist,tells Raw Story that he's witnessing the same signs of impending collapse now in America that he witnessed in other countries that he's covered when they were disintegrating. He goes on to say that predicting 'when' a collapse would happen is always "iffy" in nature but still could.

If his analysis is correct,then a collapse of America could hit completely without warning. IF and I mean IF it were to happen suddenly,the speed at which the chaos is likely to spread globally from the associated fallout is truly mind-boggling. There won't be a safe patch anywhere on this planet to run to unless you don't mind trekking to some remote,barely habitable locale. I don't want any country collapsing at this point as I would like to be able to have a relatively peaceful life same as the next person. But,I still can't help but be more than a bit afraid for our future on the planet,

I edited this post because maybe it was a originally a bit too 'doom and gloom'. I got a bit exasperated after reading the article. Sorry,I'll try to be more calm about these things in the future.

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon

the world could literally wake up one morning,log-on to the Internet and be punched in the gut by the sudden collapse of America.

Hate to burst your bubble but not gonna happen! Sounds like you actually want this to happen!

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon

the world could literally wake up one morning,log-on to the Internet and be punched in the gut by the sudden collapse of America.

Hate to burst your bubble but not gonna happen! Sounds like you actually want this to happen!

reply to post by phatpackage


I was only pointing out that with the way he explained things,that a sudden collapse could occur without warning. Not what I want to happen. I like being able to do things like work,sleep in a warm,safe place and have food to eat.

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon



United States has successfully diverted world attention away from its trillion dollars financial mess to Euro. It can never settle its massive debts - not within a hundred years. More Americans are holding unstable part-time, temporary or even still jobless.

It's a matter of time when foreign investors decide they had enough of US government reckless policies and garbage financial system/currency.

reply to post by phatpackage


if you guys devalue your currency any further it will happen it happened to England about 50 years ago glad to see how close minded you are on it and that all started the same way you guys are going. The only thing stopping it is the fact that your currency is the world reserve currency once that changes you are screwed and it isn't hard to see. You don't manufacture anything you import nearly everything you use once you have to start changing your currency to buy products things are going to get a whole lot worse but hey you stay in your little bubble and think everything will be ok lmao

reply to post by vkturbo


Well said,once the U.S. currency situation deteriorates beyond control,it's going to be a whole new ballgame. Several countries,including China,are already starting their plans for bailing out of dollars and getting into other currencies. The Euro isn't looking so good at the moment,either. Things are starting to look more chaotic all the time.

reply to post by vkturbo


If the US does collapse, I wouldn't care if cheap plastic toys stopped coming to shore. The US is the worlds largest food exporter. If America collapses, a good portion of the world starves.

Originally posted by Yellow Ledbetter
reply to post by vkturbo

 

If the US does collapse, I wouldn't care if cheap plastic toys stopped coming to shore. The US is the worlds largest food exporter. If America collapses, a good portion of the world starves.

The largest dairy farm in the world is in Saudi Arabia. Not America. The world has been getting ready to live without the United States.

In the Philippines they used to get 1 rice crop a year. Now that they've been using chemicals they get 3 crops per year. Other countries have also tripled their food production in the last 5 years.

From collapse and ensuing chaos will come opportunity.

A new supreme power will take the lead in controlling the global economy.

A mix of designed and planned steps to initiate economic collapse, including being drawn into costly wars, combined with devastating "terrorist" attacks should make it happen.

Nah, it will never happen.

We saw what happened with Madoff's ponzi scheme. That was an example of a ponzi scheme failure due to lack of control by the PTB Madoff. There were not enough safeguards in place to keep investors from pulling out all at once.

The US stock "prices" are a similar ponzi scheme, if the majority of investors decided to sell at the same time the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P would become almost worthless overnight. That won't happen of course because the PTB have much more control over the stockholders. For example The Federal Reserve is not going to suddenly raise interest rates because that would compete with the low stock dividend earnings. Many of the retirement fund rules limit withdrawals especially in hard times as well. Those who rule the US financial empire are a lot brighter and have much more control over the situation than we realize.

These doom and gloom threads are silly.

Yes please,... keep the doom coming.
I look forward each day to a good laugh.
It has become an addiction ,. so please dont stop the doom posts.

The US has been in a perpetual collapse for many years now.
along with a coming disclosure of aliens
A war with Iran
A war with the Koreas
Bla Bla Bla..
Oh yeah ,. In forgot the coming of Nibiru.. and the end of the world in 2012

Saying that it wont happen, isnt that ignoring the instability, upheavals and wars of the last 100 years, let alone last few centuries? What about Katrina?

Add that to the political extremism and tyrannical leanings of many western political parties, I say better to be prepared and ready for any possibility

The first thing on one's list should be getting a basic knowledge of edible herbs and weeds in one's locale, as well as basic survival skills and a 'survival pack' including water purification, seeds, rations and shelter, good knife etc etc

As someone who lives outside of the USA Ive been seeing the signs and it doesnt look good, better to be prepared than be swept up in the mass hysteria if the proverbial hits the fan

Like we needed anymore verification and warning.

Anyone who is not prepared for this collapse when it happens need not blame anything or anyone but their own ignorance and stupidity.

The signs are in the news, from todays news:

www.cbsnews.com...

AP) Regulators on Friday shuttered three small banks in Georgia and one each in Florida, Arkansas and Minnesota, raising to 157 the number of U.S. banks brought down this year by the struggling economy and soured loans.

All with hundreds of Millions in assets most of which is bad, tied up in bad credit, loans etc..

Just another day at the FDIC.

From the report:

The 157 closures nationwide so far this year tops the 140 shuttered in all of 2009 and is the most in a year since the savings-and-loan crisis two decades ago.

From 2009 to today that is 297 closures!

It is bad, and getting worse... By design?

Youbetcha!

If you don't like reality, or doom and gloom, please immediately tune in to the MSM for your daily dose of "optimistic" (false) reports on jobs and the economy etc.

Originally posted by phatpackage
reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon

 

the world could literally wake up one morning,log-on to the Internet and be punched in the gut by the sudden collapse of America.

Hate to burst your bubble but not gonna happen! Sounds like you actually want this to happen!

Wow, what an informative and well-constructed opinion you have there... oh, wait.

Do you have anything relevant to add other than *fingers in ears* - "na na na na I'm not listening, na na na na..." ?

It is a fact that empires collapse. America is no different. If anything, the collapse of America is strikingly similar to the collapse of every significant empire throughout the course of history.

Why do you think America is somehow "special"?
It has a massive military industrial complex, increasing restrictions on freedom and liberty, corruption at the highest levels, is undergoing an economic collapse that we can all see is not being fixed or even significantly slowed...
I could go on.

Sorry to burst your bubble of delusion, but America is already collapsing. It is widely accepted that the power America has in leadership throughout the world is about to shift to Russia or China. Your government is not doing anything of value to rectify the inevitable financial collapse. The debt is truly ENORMOUS. And the hole just keeps getting bigger.

On the see-saw of facts, the weight of what I have just offered sends your extremely flimsy *cough* opinion, right out into orbit.

Originally posted by detachedindividual

It is widely accepted that the power America has in leadership throughout the world is about to shift to Russia or China.

Actually it is going to be BOTH!

The shift can and WILL only happen following the complete collapse of the US economy.

Best for everyone to begin to learn how to survive in a third world like economy in the US. Assuming you can survive the chaos and possible large scale "terrorist" attacks.

Coming soon to cities everywhere!

Originally posted by Lil Drummerboy
The US has been in a perpetual collapse for many years now.
along with a coming disclosure of aliens
A war with Iran
A war with the Koreas
Bla Bla Bla..
Oh yeah ,. In forgot the coming of Nibiru.. and the end of the world in 2012

edit on 18-12-2010 by Lil Drummerboy because: (no reason given)

While that is a good point, I'd also like to mention the evidence for each of those and therefore impress upon you the likelihood of each happening.

A war with the Koreas
You mean a war between the Koreas? Quite possible, considering they are both threatening attack if...
This is not a "myth", it is an actual event happening. What, you don't believe REALITY anymore?

A war with Iran
Again, there is ACTUAL PHYSICAL EVIDENCE that several nations have been urging a war with Iran to prevent them from developing a significant Nuclear capability. Again, what part of reality do you not understand?
This is not a myth either. It's not fear mongering to state facts. And the facts are that several nation want America specifically to attack Iran.

Disclosure of aliens
You mean their existence?
I have seen little evidence of this. So on the scale I would say this is very unlikely.

Collapse of the US...
Well, lets see.
We have masses of banking institutions going under.
We have massive unemployment.
We have two theaters of war (and Yemen, and Pakistan)
Global dominance sliding toward Russia or China.
Massive bailouts of corporations and banking institutions.

All of those things EXIST. It's not a myth. It is EXTREMELY LIKELY that the $ will indeed collapse within the next ten years, and unless you can provide some evidence to balance this out and convince me that America is not going to collapse, I would gladly bet my entire life savings that the $ will be dead within a decade.

It would be comical if it wasn't so pathetic to see how our current government is bending over backwards to appease both China and Russia.

The Chinese are sucking up our entire manufacturing sector, buying and holding hundreds of billions in US debt, and now has lost faith the the Dollar for trade. ... Literally they are preparing for the US collapse. And the current government is doing nothing to stop them, on the contrary they are helping them!

The president is also currently pushing hard for the nuclear arms treaty with Russia, because he doesn't want to risk "upsetting relations with Moscow" ... what is at stake is we cave, and give the Russians what they want also, Between Russia and China they are nearing both economic and military supremacy. and we are helping them!

Just need a swift and unexpected death blow to finish us off when both have everything they want.

So what? America collapses, big deal. Life goes on, look around you. Our economy has been so greedily manipulated and bloated that we have to collapse, and rebuild, even stronger than before.

Our youth will not let us down, we have a lot of very bright and passionate young people coming up the pipeline.

And are we just going to "collapse" before we go ahead and use up ournatural Alaskan resources?

Maybe she had it right all along.

Drill baby Drill?