The coming decline of America

Discussion in 'Business & Economics' started by kmguru, Feb 25, 2004.

  1. kmguru Staff Member

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    Received this via email:

    The coming decline of America
    R Jagannathan

    February 24, 2004

    If there is one thing I am willing to bet my last (declining) dollar on, it is that American power has peaked. Economic power certainly has; and military power will follow.

    A country's economic power depends on its competitive strengths, and two in particular: you either have to provide the rest of the world with resources that only you can provide; or you must offer a huge market for their exports...

    ...To be sure, America's military might will help it retain its hyperpower status for a few more decades. But today's America is more like the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 1980s, which had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world but not enough economic staying power.

    We are now seeing the beginning of the end of American power and this will bring new challenges for us and the rest of the world


    http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=327725
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 25, 2004
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  3. Undecided Banned Banned

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    I have predicted America's Sovietization of her military policy, and her desperate economic one of that. The US lynchpin of power will rest if her armed forces, not in her economy. Eventually (and soon) the US will simply fall behind states like China, India, and a united EU. A sharp economic downturn in the US imo will happen to correct her inflated position economically. The US economy = debt = unsustainability.
     
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  5. RonVolk Registered Senior Member

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    I wouldn't gloat to much, The end of America will most likely bring the end of all the countries that make us products.
     
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  7. kmguru Staff Member

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    Except a few that would love to go back to living like animals as their lord intended!

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  8. RonVolk Registered Senior Member

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    LOL was that southern baptist preacher voice?
     
  9. Eluminate Registered Senior Member

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    Declines take centuries and I m not sure this is a decline ... Its a cycle and your tooting the horn way too early ...

    Manufactored jobs are easially extinguished and moved if there is a cheaper labor force in another country mexico got them and then from there they moved to other places like china.

    I must admit a united&cohesive Eu is not something I see happening for maybe another 40-50 years or at all. Europe was the best innovator when it was in competition with itself in its fractured state. With each little state trying to out do the other in every direction.

    United Kingdom which had its' empire and decline and whatnot isnt the abyss of the world today. True it yeilded its superpower status long ago but the benefits that it earned during that time are still kicking today in the pound sterling.

    Ecconomies especially rich ecconomies tend to grow in places with a traditional history of long standing and strong property rights. Rich people dont wanna be where they could be stripped and robed by the govt. I also hold the old view of an agrarian ecconomy base that will always make a country relentless in its surge to the top. Ergo a country that can feed itself by its own industry is more prone to flourish ecconomicly then not. This isnt a criteria but just makes it easier for a country to lift itself up by not having a constant imports & outflow of moneys for food which is a neverending necessity.
     
  10. kmguru Staff Member

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    Good post Eluminate. Just some minot points. Unlike India where it took centuries in the past for the decline, USA cycle time may be somewhat faster. If if there has to be a decline, it can be rapid but not overnight. The universe runs on multiple cycles. Within this cycle of our economy, it could get pretty ugly. Already, there is talk about backing away from WTO and NAFTA.

    I think, what I see is, we do not have any near term technologies to push us to the next phase. And our debt load is too high. That would cause some major issues. We do have technologies in the R&D that will be arriving in about 8 years. My suggestions would be to speed them up while we tighten our belt.

    But if our intellectual properties start moving overseas for nothing, then we have serious problems. There will be very little private sector jobs left to buy anything. Only the farmers, govt, healthcare and non-profits will be left. That does not make a great society.
     
  11. Undecided Banned Banned

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    The American decline is the decline of the nation state as well. The American decline is indicative of the capitalist rise, the same things that the US fought for (capitalism) will eventually kill it. "Live by the sword, die by the sword", is the axiom that would best suit the US decline. I think the American ppl are very much into the idea of "American exceptionalism", that nothing can break the US. But it can, the idea that the US is vital to the world is becoming less and less true. If we were to take India and China for instance they will both usurp the US as large consumer economies. The American public feels that it cannot be topped, but it will. American wages have gone down since the 70's and will continue to lose it's PPP in comparison to other states. Notice that most of the consumerism in the US now is attributed to debt. The American economy is not real; it is one that is based on the fragile relationship of the ability of Americans to pay back that debt. Private debt in the US is a whopping $9 trillion, that is 9/10 the US economy. Meanwhile the Chinese have a $6 trillion economy, and growing with debt not even close to that of the US. When you have 2 billion ppl who are well educated, who have public healthcare, and who have a social safety net, the US would be hard pressed to compete. The US simply cannot compete with these new mega-states. Not only that the US is becoming dependant on these very same states for it's economic survival. The US economy is built on the premise of the cheapest goods, but good quality ones. That simply would not exist if jobs that are overseas were brought back to the US, the economy would go through an interesting patch. The US decline is a rise of Globalization, which drains developed nations of its wealth and re-distributes it worldwide. The US is not different; with $1.5 trillion of capital invested overseas it becomes obvious that the US is increasingly dependant on the Rest of the World. American authority will rest on the military, and the US will fail at her military adventures.
     
  12. gendanken Ruler of All the Lands Valued Senior Member

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    Kgmuru:
    Working for America is living like an animal. But not like the savage ones we admire- panthers and tigers. More like cows, oxen and poodles.

    Undecided:
    Indeed. And you can see how sick and spoilt the American mentality is by seeing how American tourists freely walk around Pakistan and the Phillipines- dangerous places terrorist wise- with this idea in their head their consitution travels with them.

    There are hundreds and hundreds of American prisoners bitching in Mexican prisons right now about 'due process of law'. They've been sitting there for months even years now completely dumbfounded that injustice such as this actually exists in the world.

    Its not injustice, one must tell the Gringo. Its reality.

    I don't think America's decline will come by way of economics- its her mentality that is sick and ignorant. However, its always the big guns that win in the end so if we can only graduate from this sham of burgouise complacency to one of military despotism like in Roman days, then I guarantee Osama is ours tomorrow and there'd no longer be any need for this Homeland Security garbage.
     
  13. bitterchick Why must you taunt me so? Registered Senior Member

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    This doesn't surprise me. In fact, I predict that Western civilization, as we know it now, will be almost extinct in a century, perhaps a century and a half.

    In addition to manufacturing jobs being sent overseas and locally-owned business being replaced by multinational corporations, add this to the mix:

    By 2040, Muslim immigrants and children of immigrants will outnumber the native populations of Germany and France.

    The governments of France and Germany, both members of NATO and the EU, will be controlled by Muslims. The agenda of these government will, by necessity, change dramatically. I am not placing any value judgment on this whatsoever, merely stating this as a predicted outcome.

    By 2055, minorities will outnumber whites in the United States.

    Won't that be interesting. No doubt, for a sustained period, the whites will still control the majority of the wealth, but the growth of a population results in better represenation (one would hope), and I have little doubt there will be changes resulting in a redistribution of some kind, even if just in the form of higher taxes for higher tax brackets.

    Both represent major shifts of power and influence. And history is determined by those with the power.
     
  14. kmguru Staff Member

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    May be the Chinese and Indians will save the day for the whites....that is why we are pushing them to be in a position to save us from our myopic vision.

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    Actually minority is not a problem as long as the minorities have the same values as the majorities. It is when one group has a completely different idea about freedom, imagination, life, liberty and happiness that is contrary to the other. Then you have a serious problem.
     
  15. gendanken Ruler of All the Lands Valued Senior Member

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    Bitterchick:
    If I was as retarded or moronic, I think I would be as bitter as you missy.
    What makes you think Western Civilization will be extinct? Intermarriage? Cross breeding? What does mating have to with idealism?

    There are Hindus, Chinese, Phillipino, Serbian, Russian, African, Australian people all the way over there in the East living just like Amercians or Western Europeans. Western civilization, its fuctions and cog wheels is both appealing and it works.

    Kgmuru:
    No, minorities are not a problem because most of them (if not all) are dumb as dirt.

    Those that lack discipline are rarely a threat. Those that don't are- the Jews are by large a minority. But disciplined.
     
  16. kmguru Staff Member

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    It is the super greed by the few that declines a society...from Greeks to Romans to the Kings and on....When the hands that feeds them get chopped off...the body dies....such is the nature of the world...
     
  17. gendanken Ruler of All the Lands Valued Senior Member

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    Kgmuru:
    Hmm.

    Interesting.

    That's right- the human story is one of playing nice, yes?. He sat down to tea with his enemies and they worked out a deal where one could go build his municipalities and cities on his little turf without the other one bothering him.

    No- no one had to fight tooth and nail to build his cities from nothing. No it wasn't the greedy drive to survive and empower that BUILT society, it was the girlish niceties of treating their neighbors with sugar lumps and inanity.

    Greed brought down the Romans, goes Kgmuru[/i], Greed brought down the Persians and Greeks, goes you who probably shuns hate.

    You do don't you? Shun hate? Think its something vile and atrocious maybe?

    Its lack of discipline in anything that brings great Men down, my boy, not greed.
     
  18. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Military and economic power has been mentioned, but how about Hollywood? The generation of entertainment is a significant source of power. Also, America is a pioneer of scientific and medical research. I feel the impression of looming disaster comes from focusing on too narrow areas. Everything in the western world is accelerating, our problems as well as our powers, and the U.S. is at the leading edge of this.
     
  19. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    The engine that drives civilization is creativity. From the first Neolithic hunter who realized that he could just capture the game animals instead of killing them, then let them reproduce in his own corral and the gatherer who noticed that if you drop seeds in fertile soil new plants will pop up, allowing the tribe to stay in one place. To the guy who figured out how to increase productivity with the assembly line, and the one who found out that atoms can be split, and the one who reduced entire electronic circuits to a tiny chip. Every major advance that has propelled civilization into a new era was the result of creativity.

    The U.S. has been a wellspring of creativity throughout its history. That is what’s kept us in the lead. Everything else, from our barely functional but liberating form of government, to our ability to put together a kick-ass war machine whenever we thought we needed one, to our dominance in the electronic entertainment industry, are just artifacts of our creativity.

    We’re running really low on creativity today. Our corporate scandals are the direct result of the fact that the only creativity our corporations exhibit any more is in their accounting. (I stole that line from somebody.) Our government now consumes a full 40 percent of our GDP and hasn’t accomplished anything noteworthy (at least not anything positive and noteworthy) in years. Our entertainment media are recycling old motifs as fast as they can dig them up.

    What’s the reason? Does one people only get a certain amount of creativity and we’ve had ours? Has the government’s school system turned our children’s brains to mush? Does it turn out that TV really is bad for us?

    I don’t know. All of these changes happened rather abruptly, in a historical context. Just a couple of generations. We could still wake up as a nation and get our act together. It’s too early to count us out but it’s certainly scary.

    Scary because nobody else is taking over. Sure, some other countries have hot economies, but they’re not powered by creativity, simply by lucky opportunities.

    And scary because despite the previous assertion that it takes centuries for an empire to decline, that hasn’t been the case during my lifetime. The Soviet Empire rose and fell in less than 75 years. The Third Reich didn’t last two decades. We’ve had 228 years and we’re heading blindly into a paradigm shift where things happen really fast. The rug could be pulled out from under us tomorrow.

    Greed, lack of discipline, ethnic diversity, fundamental changes in the nature of the economy? Naw. Those are hallmarks of American culture. They won’t bring us down. In fact, if we can channel those emotions a little more constructively, they might pull us back up.
     
  20. bitterchick Why must you taunt me so? Registered Senior Member

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    Don't sell yourself short: I think you're far more retarded and moronic than you give yourself credit for.

    Political and social influence. America has seen what happens with those with a different value structure come into power. Compare the Civil Rights movement following the Civil War with the Plessy v. Ferguson decision only 30 years later and the subsequent 70 year struggle to get those same rights back. This has nothing to do with breeding. It has to do with strength of numbers and influence. Those with the strength of numbers have the influence.

    A. Australia and New Zealand were colonized by Great Britain, so that's a lousy example.

    2. Leaving aside for the moment your abysmal grammar, your "Yea-U.S" patriotic myopathy isn't really an argument. A party line, sure, but not an argument. Because a country has trade, schools, and movie theaters they want to be us? The U.S. isn't the the 1980's "I-want-to-buy-your-blue-jeans-Comrade" U.S. anymore. I hate to break this to you, but huge populations of the world HATE US and our self-imposed role as International Hall Monitor. Radical Muslims are probably the most visual right now (and most popular with the media) but they aren't the only ones who would like to see America obliterated. Muslims have good reason to resent the U.S. Not only does our lifestyle generally conflict with their religious beliefs, but our interference in Middle East affairs for the last century hasn't made us any friends...our protection of the U.N. (e.g., Western European) created Israeli state, our interference with the civil elections in Iran, replacing the popularly elected prime minister with the lately-deposed Shah and keeping him on the throne for another 30 years of human rights violations, our repeated "wars" in Iraq. Our state-supported suspicion and fear of anyone who looks vaguely Middle Eastern doesn't help.

    This has nothing to do with racial characteristics: it's about the influence of one race permeating society. When the power structure flows from a predominantly Christian, Western European population to a predominantly Muslim population of mixed descent (many Europeans are converting, so it's not exclusively although largely Muslims of Middle Eastern descent), there will be a shift in the priorities of government and treatment of the governed.

    While I do not endorse, support, or even agree with the perspective of the speakers in these links, here are some links to what others are saying on the subject:

    http://www.iconservative.com/population_anxiety.htm

    http://www.islamicpopulation.com/europearticle.html

    http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/leigh200403051052.asp


    (P.S. Due to people not grasping sarcasm in my posts, I am going to start posting disclaimers: Don't bother correcting my A., 2., list above. It was a joke. It was intended to be ironic. I know at least one person who will get it.)
     
  21. Undecided Banned Banned

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    The U.S. isn't the the 1980's "I-want-to-buy-your-blue-jeans-Comrade" U.S. anymore. I hate to break this to you, but huge populations of the world HATE US and our self-imposed role as International Hall Monitor.

    It's so true and the recent Pew polling group came out with these stats:

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    I think its self explanatory, and the US depends on these stats for her survival as a superpower state. Let's face facts the US does things traditionally with a majority of support from European powers, and are generally seen in a good light. Today thanks to the Bush administration and thanks to the war in Iraq the US is seen in a very bad light. Sadly this is indicative of a trend with the US, and this new neo-conservative tinge that has spread across the administration like AIDS does Botswana. To many Americans the gospel of the neo-cons http://www.newamericancentury.org/ is basically America doing the world good. Most Americans follow this ethic of American exceptionalism, and that the US does things for the betterment of man, not American interests. By contrast, 70% of Americans think the U.S. takes other nations' interests into account a great deal (34%) or a fair amount (36%); just 27% think the U.S. is mostly unconcerned with other nations. Republicans are nearly unanimous (85%) in the view that American foreign policy takes other nations into account, while a much smaller majority of Democrats agree (56%). This myth that the republican party is stronger of Foreign affairs is a very dangerous myth indeed. Americans may not like it, but showing your balls around like a gorilla is not helping your cause. Invading nations on the premise of lies, and half-truths does not help your cause. You America depend on the world more now then ever, and it's only going to increase. I don't know how the US will balance this out, if the presidency remains under GWB and the republicans.
     
  22. gendanken Ruler of All the Lands Valued Senior Member

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    Bitterchick:
    ..said the girly with the handle announcing the very inaninity high-minds detest her for. You retard. You moron. IDIOTA.

    You some kind of lawyer? Or a law student? Perhaps aspiring to be one, or by chance some kind of second rate politcal analyst?

    Look at you with your case references, perhaps now you'd like to whip out a Word doc and outline to me what subsidies or merger rules are- maybe feed me some morsels on "party lines" or historical 'benchmarks'.

    Tell me, what difference would political and social influences make if those imposing them only ape their predecessors? Example: Pakistan is an autocracy, but unike other authoritarian regimes of the past centuries his (Musharaff) Democratic tendencies make him tolerable.
    Haiti, same thing.

    Western Civilization- its very nature and idealism work by virtue of its permissiveness and appeal to human freedoms. I'll even give you an anaglogy to make it simple. Rosseau writes in his "Social Contract", book 4:


    "... pagans always regarded the Christians as true rebels who, under the cloak of hypocritical submission, only awaited the moment to make themselves independent and supreme, and cunningly to usurp that authority which they made a show of respecting while they were weak. Such was the cause of the persecutions. What the pagans feared did indeed happen; then everything altered its countenance; the humble Christians changed their tune and soon the so-called kingdom of the other world was seen to become, under a visible ruler, the most violent despotism of this world. ... in Christian states, ... men have never known whether they ought to obey the civil ruler or the priest. Many peoples, even in Europe or nearby, have tried to preserve or re-establish the ancient system, but without success: the spirit of Christianity has won completely."

    With the exception of having to call democracy a 'violent despot' for the sake of analogy just take your little mind and replace "Christiany" with "Western Civilization". No appeals to ancient systems- this includes the gamut of isms from feudalism to socaliasm- can re-establish older practices that simply do and did not work.

    Once given the wheel only the rebels entrenched in dogma and ennui would root for hard labor again.

    Pehasp yu'd liike to chekc my splelling to, yes?

    Ooh. Aahh.

    How they hate us, yet as soon as the mullas are plucked from their country there is a very capitalist rush to put up shops selling cellphones and satellite dishes to outdo their neighbors.

    They love driving their Chevis and SUV's down Kabul now that "democracy" is going to be raining opportunity down on their country and their institutions will no longer be the feared despots they now are.

    They hate us, yet call on our breadbaskets and suck American dick until the food runs out.
    Notice the appeals to the UN when their countries are in trouble, notice the loudest cries for help are the ones addressed to Americans.
    Notice the cheers when statues and oppressive regimes come down with Allied bombs...........now notice the sneers and loud cries of 'occupation' soon afterward.

    I'm no patriot, missy, far from it but I'm a realist. NEWSFLASH: One mostly sees their hate when out basket runs out of bread. Follow?


    Western Civilization enshrines human reason. It appeals (ideally anyway) to the human intellect, his will, his carnal drive to survive.

    It is the bloosoming freshness of the Reinassance and Humanism, it furnishes man with liberty to experiment and live his life as though he owned it despite a mass of government dictating down to it. Its the most toreable form of postitve reinforcement imaginable this thing we call Western Civilazation and it fucking works.

    This is why no Muslim, Buddhist, or socialist will ever bring it down and maintain whatever substitute he has for it successfully.
     
  23. 15ofthe19 35 year old virgin Registered Senior Member

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    Still sticking to your claim that you read everything?
     

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