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America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

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31–40 of 133 posts

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#31
post #5

Doom and gloom has been selling for decades. Don't buy it.

The collapse of the USSR in 1991 came as quite the shock to everyone, including both the Soviets themselves, nevermind the Americans. Yes, the West have been spelling "doom and gloom" for the USSR since November of 1917 and yet it never came to pass... until one day, it suddenly did. And BTW, spelling the imminent doom of the Russian Empire too has been quite in vogue in Europe during the XIX century, and still it ca…

The USSR had alternate models to move to. What alternate model does the US have? The only ones that are somewhat successful are Russian and Chinese style authoritarianism, neither of which are palatable to the US population.

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#33

America will not collapse, but American democracy likely will collapse. At the end of 2022, GOP will win the mid-term elections and have the majority in the house and the senate. They already have state legislatures effectively under control, and the supreme court is full of conservative judges. In 2024 Ron De Santos, or another authoritarian candidate, will win the GOP nomination and easily win the election because…

I think it’s more likely the Democratic party collapses.

They can’t seem to find a single thing to unify on.

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#34
>After years of swelling deficits fed by incessant warfare in distant lands, in 2020, as long expected, the U.S. dollar finally loses its special status as the world's reserve currency. Suddenly, the cost of imports soars. Unable to pay for swelling deficits by selling now-devalued Treasury notes abroad, Washington is finally forced to slash its bloated military budget.

It's funny and interesting that the military budget is such a common punching bag. The defense budget is a pretty small percentage of the overall outlays. Yet people continue to act like it's the single line item that is holding America back.

Here's where the American federal government spent money in 2020.

* $1T on unemployment compensation and paycheck protection program

* $1.1T on social security

* $1.2T on medicare and medicaid

* $1T on "other" which includes federal employee retirements and welfare programs

* $900B on non-defense discretionary spending on thing such as housing assistance, transportation, and education.

...and then, finally, we get to defense spending at $700B.

The budget deficit for FY2020 was $3.1T. Maybe the military budget is so high it is causing a ripple in the multiverse that makes arithmetic different in this universe. Maybe if we cut $300B from the military budget in our universe it will even out to $3T because magic.

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#35
post #17

America will not collapse, but American democracy likely will collapse. At the end of 2022, GOP will win the mid-term elections and have the majority in the house and the senate. They already have state legislatures effectively under control, and the supreme court is full of conservative judges. In 2024 Ron De Santos, or another authoritarian candidate, will win the GOP nomination and easily win the election because…

"If the other party wins, it's not democracy."

In this case, the Republican party is objectively authoritarian - and arguably neofascist. For all of the faults of the Democrats (and there are many) they are not actively hammering on the foundations of Democracy. Their leader did not just attempt to overthrow an election. They aren't actively undermining the ability to vote, or trying to put corrupt officials in place who will overthrow elections that don't go their way. The Republicans have done or are doing all of these things.

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#36

The book "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail" by Ray Dalio compares the rise (and decline) of the American "world empire" to prior world empires. The two most recent are the U.K. and the Netherlands. The same things that are happening now have happened before -- just not in our lifetimes. The history and his analysis is quite instructive. The book was refreshing in its…

Ray Dalio is an international treasure. When I watch the Davos videos he often seems like the only one who's not in a quiet state of panic.

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#37
post #9
post #3

I lol'd at this oil analysis. The author had no idea what technological developments would be widely deployed in just the next couple years after they wrote this

> I lol'd at this oil analysis. You really shouldn't tho. > The author had no idea what technological developments would be widely deployed in just the next couple years after they wrote this None of the technological developments created since then [2010] are able to mitigate an oil shock of the kind described in the article given their current deployment levels. Actually, not even any developments that might be cre…

> None of the technological developments created since then [2010] are able to mitigate an oil shock of the kind described in the article given their current deployment levels.

May I suggest the combination of hydraulic fracturing with centimeter-precise horizontal drilling allowing oil producers (many of whom are badly run, granted) to access massive crude and natural gas resources previously unreachable?

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#38

America will not collapse, but American democracy likely will collapse. At the end of 2022, GOP will win the mid-term elections and have the majority in the house and the senate. They already have state legislatures effectively under control, and the supreme court is full of conservative judges. In 2024 Ron De Santos, or another authoritarian candidate, will win the GOP nomination and easily win the election because…

Not sure why you think Ron desantis qualifies as an authoritarian. Also you admit the GOP will win the elections and Biden is a loser. Sounds pretty democratic. Predicting that the republican majority will inevitably establish an autocracy is birther level Dem propaganda. You shouldn't watch MSNBC.

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#39

America will not collapse, but American democracy likely will collapse. At the end of 2022, GOP will win the mid-term elections and have the majority in the house and the senate. They already have state legislatures effectively under control, and the supreme court is full of conservative judges. In 2024 Ron De Santos, or another authoritarian candidate, will win the GOP nomination and easily win the election because…

People seem to forget that even if this happens, even the GOP will splinter and some point. When that happens, it'll be right back to split elections.

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#40

America will not collapse, it will become less relevant. The multipolar world is going to be more prominent going forward. Even France's Macron is talking about making EU independent of US influence. And with emerging country like India already having a DNA of non-alignment, it looks like the US will have a say in global world order but the influence will be far more limited than what it use to be.

Good, US has been spending unfair share and has been the nanny of the world. One thing I agreed with Trump policy was this inward-looking aspect - no more stupid wars, no more pulling the weight of NATO and no more nation building in ME. Note that these policies were bipartisan - Bushes and Clintons/Obama supported them and spun the military industrial complex slot machine. What Trump did was very much in the stark c…

> Good, US has been spending unfair share and has been the nanny of the world.

Unfair share? Based on what? The spending is directly correlated to USA's interests, there is no nanny-ing or "good will" going on, it's a matter of purely international interests. Looking at this with the patronising "unfair share" is a bit preposterous.

I'd say it's pretty unfair to a lot of countries being forced under the sphere of influence of the US to be continuously subjugated, through foreign policy or direct meddling in internal affairs, like the whole of Latin America. That is really fucking unfair.

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