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The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (2010)

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Re: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (2010)

#41

Post by notastartup »

belluchan wrote: post #28
notastartup wrote: post #25

This is my opinion. The world is built on American financial institutions such as World Bank, World Trade Organization. These entities ensure American dominance when it comes to economic power. China maybe taking the 2nd spot, but that's where it ends. The stage is always rigged so that United States prevails. The rules change in favor of United States, at the whim of it's administration. Then comes the military powe…

> The world is built on American financial institutions such as World Bank, World Trade Organization. Those are not American financial institutions. The World Bank is an international organization and the WTO's headquarters are in Switzerland.

If you consider that bulk of cotton is produced in African nations but they have very little chance in getting paid at the rate American cotton output gets through subsidies from the government, poverty is inevitable. If the subsidies disappear, the prices will be allowed to correct and those African nations would be able to lift themselves out of poverty with the earnings. The free market is not at all governed by supply and demand, it's being interfered with the country with the most power. It doesn't end there, by increasing the price of an essential commodity, it's able to deny poorer countries from accessing it without not going into debt with World Bank, and with very little ability to repay the debt, the country is wide open for American corporations to set up whatever operation they can be allowed to by bribing that country's elite, and extracting any other remaining resources in that country or by blood. The men and women in those countries wearing American uniform, firing American guns, flying American fighter jets, fighting along side with America's war.

It's essentially how pimps work by coercing prostitutes into a large debt they can never repay, and must work the rest of their lives to pay off the debt, with a large amount of it being paid to the biggest pimps in the area, and tribute payments to the king of all pimps.

It's cleverly hidden through the language of international economics, and things like "freedom and democracy" for all parts of the world. Of course money and freedom sounds a lot better than trying to sell communism, but I personally believe, it's still a form of world domination. The marginal materialistic life we enjoy in North America and the West, someone on the other side of the world is dying for it, because the market favors those with the greatest power, and by which the rest of the world must play by.

Nevertheless, I choose the lesser evil between the two evils. Democracy and freedom it is because communism produces barbarians.

Happy new year.

Re: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (2010)

#42

Post by treenyc »

memracom wrote: post #23
dasil003 wrote: post #14

The ridiculous thing is that there's no reason America has to be in decline right now except hubris. The idea that military superiority is the end-all-be-all of power, the idea that every American deserves to be richer than than the average Chinese, etc. We still have amazing natural resources and an amazing entrepreneurial can-do cultural attitude. The problem is too many resources devoted to skimming the cream at t…

Empire is built on the back of military power and political influence. America's military power is in decline, but more importantly, its political influence is tanking. So the end of empire is here. At this point it looks like Russia will be the next imperial world power although they are certainly doing it differently than other empires of the past. The Euro-Asian Union is likely to officially hold the crown but as…

I am not big fan of US imperialism. However, if one examine the facts, it is unlikely that China and Russia/Europe will be the dominant force anytime soon. US still can dominates EVERYTHING if they really wanted to with their military, political and economic power.

If you read

The Oil Card: Global Economic Warfare in the 21st Century

Jim Norman

http://www.amazon.com/The-Oil-Card-Economic-Warfare/dp/09777...

A high oil price checkmates China (with its large population) but puts money in Putin’s coffers. Going back to the cold war one will see the fall of Soviet Union is engineered by suppression of Oil Prices during the cold war. After 1989 the Soviet reexamine, they agrees that it is cheap oil price that checkmated them.

The trick now has a lot to do with strategy and game theory. I find that to be a bit depressing. As Dave Logan who wrote Tribal Leadership says:

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast."

It would be nice to see the countries foster a kind of culture that will generate wealth for all, instead of devising game theory and strategy to out compete each other or different corporate factions.

Healthy competition is a great instrument on small individual scale, it is idiosyncratic/inefficient on the country scale.

Re: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (2010)

#43

Post by userulluipeste »

jf22 wrote: post #34
michaelochurch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War will not happen between the US and China (2 economies which are inexorably intertwined) for no other reason than it will be exceedingly bad for business. One could have said this about the U.S. and Germany in 1927. I don't think war between the U.S. and China is likely, and I certainly hope it would never happen because no one would win that, but I don't think that argument has historic validity.

>One could have said this about the U.S. and Germany in 1927. Source? I read about history sometimes and am a big fan of WW2. I've never heard Germany and the US being "inexorably intertwined" and find the comparison to China/US almost preposterous given the modern global economy and the feeder/lecher relationships we have now.

German was(/still-is) the biggest community in USA:

"They comprise about 50 million people, making them the largest ancestry group ahead of Irish Americans, African Americans and English Americans."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American

Re: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (2010)

#44

Post by gremlinsinc »

Yes, America will decline, yet it'll survive, the only thing that will ever Kill America, is the unrest of it's people, and as long as consumerism keeps everyone complacent and enslaved, people won't rise up, to enact any real change.

It's a fact that short of nuclear war(global suicide), nobody can invade/destroy America militarily, but our presence worldwide, will, and SHOULD end. We need to go back to being neutral and not giving a shit about world affairs, -- people in America are starving, yet we spend trillions to police other countries. -- Some protectionism, and pull-back on military spending would make for a stronger, more private America.

Personally, I'm all for a contracting America, that stops worrying about global affairs, and worries more about feeding, clothing, and putting everyone to work, and combatting poverty at home.

We have real problems here in America such as : A failing war on drugs, Healthcare issues, Education, NSA/Security scandals, Poverty/Unemployment, Securing our borders/ports of entry, Mental Health(school shootings, etc..), Bloated government spending -- gov't should not be allowed to spend more than they bring in via taxes, period - end of discussion.

I say AMEN to the end of America's world domination, and Hello to the era of "let's take care of our own".

Re: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (2010)

#45

Post by amagumori »

Tloewald wrote: post #36
amagumori wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

genuinely curious here, why would a bigger economy mean a better quality of life for regular citizens? who's to say the wealth wouldn't be all concentrated in one area of society? as far as i've understood it, in free market capitalism, companies increase their profits by cutting their marginal costs (like worker's wages)

The basic tenet of free market economics is that people engage in transactions voluntarily and with good information. GDP is a crude measure of all the transactions that take place in an economy, and from the preceding tenet each transaction makes both parties happier (or why would they take part?). It follows that happiness monotonically increases with economic activity. In theory. In practice it works pretty well.…

hmm. i agree about the subtle racism of the job-exporting argument. well not that the argument itself is racist, but that it goes hand in hand with xenophobia.

the core problem though is that free trade has created a race to the bottom where american workers' wages will have to drop to meet those of malaysian / mexican / chinese / taiwanese workers, who have a pretty terrible quality of life. we are competing with countries with ingrained caste systems in their cultures, countries that completely accept treating some people like dirt.

the basic tenet of real life is that people have to get jobs to survive, it's not a voluntary choice. yes, the transaction of paying a sweatshop worker $1/day for stapling fabric to a chair will make that worker happier than he would be with $0, but one party is clearly coming out much better in this scenario. when the best deal you can get is based on exploiting a human being, imo, it is not OK to look for the best deal you can get. not moral, at least. we can have capitalism, a robust economy for business, and treat workers ethically as well.

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