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Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

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Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#61

Post by pmiller2 »

pdonis wrote: post #33
pmiller2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you’re referring to Bush v. Gore and the 2016 electoral / popular vote inversion, both of which benefited Republicans. We’re there any scenarios in recent history of the sort that benefited Democrats? I can’t think of any. That said, the solution to both of these is to abandon the Electoral College. This can be done either by Constitutional amendment, or by the agreement of a certain number of states [0]. What…

> the solution to both of these is to abandon the Electoral College This would certainly benefit the Democrats, but I don't see it as a "solution". It would give states without large urban areas even less political leverage than they have now. Presidential campaigns would not even bother visiting most states, since locking up enough votes in large urban areas (all of which are solidly Democratic) would be sufficient…

> The purpose of the Electoral College was to prevent a slim 51% majority of the country from running roughshod over the rest. It is serving that purpose.

At that it succeeded. Instead, we have a minority running roughshod over the majority. Trump was elected with 46.1% of the vote to Clinton's 48.2%.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#62

Post by zelon88 »

rmrfstar wrote: post #56
zelon88 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus the US has one advantage that previous stable empires didn't have- federalism, a decentralized system. Even in an emergency, we'd just see power shift to local state leaders. The fed gets it's money from GDP producing states. There are far more GDP draining states the further inland you go. If those states don't get federal funds, they will not be able to have a functioning judicial branch which is the only on…

Care to name these "GDP draining states"?

Kentucky [1]

[1] https://www.wkyufm.org/post/kentucky-second-most-dependent-s...

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#63

Post by rumanator »

pinkfoot wrote: post #58
eel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The raw data can be gathered from congress.gov, but here's a summary graphic for 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/... It depends on your definitions of entitlements and military, but for example, social security spending was at $1.0 trillion compared to $676 billion for defense.

Notice that veterans affairs and a lot of the DOE is filed under 'not military'.

To be fair, some of the US's defense spending sounds like a way to covertly fund "socialist" programs in a way that's politically tolerable. For example, a bunch of weapons programs appear to be driven by the need to artificially create jobs in some precise locations.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#64

Post by hash872 »

zelon88 wrote: post #50
hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> Plus the US has one advantage that previous stable empires didn't have- federalism, a decentralized system. Even in an emergency, we'd just see power shift to local state leaders. The fed gets it's money from GDP producing states. There are far more GDP draining states the further inland you go. If those states don't get federal funds, they will not be able to have a functioning judicial branch which is the only on…

Eh, I don't really agree with that. All the states really need are a paramilitary branch- the state police, local police, and maybe the local National Guard. You need rough men with guns to stop looting, bandits, etc.- and they'd probably do some bad stuff as well, but I mean that's the most fundamental level of civilization: the guys with guns. Judicial branch is quite a bit further up there on a Maslow-like hierarchy.

Plus the red states mostly grow their own food, which would be pretty huge

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#65

Post by frank2 »

zelon88 wrote: post #50
hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> Plus the US has one advantage that previous stable empires didn't have- federalism, a decentralized system. Even in an emergency, we'd just see power shift to local state leaders. The fed gets it's money from GDP producing states. There are far more GDP draining states the further inland you go. If those states don't get federal funds, they will not be able to have a functioning judicial branch which is the only on…

>If those states don't get federal funds, they will not be able to have a functioning judicial branch

Your phrase "GDP draining" probably refers to the fact that some states receive more in federal services than their population pays in federal taxes, which has nothing to do with whether such a state will be able to continue to fund and administer its own "state" court.

Most matters, e.g., most murder trials, are adjudicated in the 50 state courts, not in the US federal court. When OJ Simpson was put on trial for the murders of Ron Goldman and Nichole Brown Simpson, for example, he was put on trial in a state court.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#66

Post by pdonis »

pmiller2 wrote: post #61
pdonis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the solution to both of these is to abandon the Electoral College This would certainly benefit the Democrats, but I don't see it as a "solution". It would give states without large urban areas even less political leverage than they have now. Presidential campaigns would not even bother visiting most states, since locking up enough votes in large urban areas (all of which are solidly Democratic) would be sufficient…

> The purpose of the Electoral College was to prevent a slim 51% majority of the country from running roughshod over the rest. It is serving that purpose. At that it succeeded. Instead, we have a minority running roughshod over the majority. Trump was elected with 46.1% of the vote to Clinton's 48.2%.

> Instead, we have a minority running roughshod over the majority.

No, we have government that is more limited in what it can do because of lack of consensus between different parts of it (the President, Senate, and House). Which is exactly what should happen if the country is closely divided.

> Trump was elected with 46.1% of the vote to Clinton's 48.2%.

Which indicates that neither side has a majority, let alone enough of a majority to justify running roughshod over everyone else (which IMO is a lot more of a majority than just 51%).

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#67

Post by throw1234651234 »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #59
throw1234651234 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had very little to do with Chernobyl and Afghanistan, which were minor interventions. Had everything to do with Gorbachev's policies and underlying LONG-TERM economic problems.

this is false. Long term economic problems were there for years and it could have continued to hobble along with those problems for many more years. But cleaning up Chernobyl specifically cost so much money, that dealing with those problems became practically impossible. Soviet Union couldn't just print dollars like US can.

"Soviet Union couldn't just print dollars like US can."

Any country can print more currency according to Modern Monetary Theory. Also, from Wikipedia:

"The production of Soviet rubles was the responsibility of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise, or Goznak, which was in charge of the printing of and materials production for banknotes and the minting of coins in Moscow and Leningrad. "

If you are trying to draw some sort of conclusion from the idea that the US is an international reserve currency - that has nothing to do with printing money. You can further read the "Economic role" section to understand that the USSR currency was not pegged to PMs or baskets of securities, making it easier to "just print".

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#68

Post by neffy »

zelon88 wrote: post #50
hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> Plus the US has one advantage that previous stable empires didn't have- federalism, a decentralized system. Even in an emergency, we'd just see power shift to local state leaders. The fed gets it's money from GDP producing states. There are far more GDP draining states the further inland you go. If those states don't get federal funds, they will not be able to have a functioning judicial branch which is the only on…

If one was to be brutally fair about this, those so called "GDP" draining states, otherwise known as the Farmers who not only feed the USA but also sell half of their crop abroad, would be far better off as separate countries, with their own currencies and local banks to provide lending, rather than being the source of financial flows that prop up places like New York city.

And in this putative local warlord future that you're imagining for the US, I rather suspect ownership of food production will matter quite a lot.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#69

Post by vasilipupkin »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #67
vasilipupkin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is false. Long term economic problems were there for years and it could have continued to hobble along with those problems for many more years. But cleaning up Chernobyl specifically cost so much money, that dealing with those problems became practically impossible. Soviet Union couldn't just print dollars like US can.

"Soviet Union couldn't just print dollars like US can." Any country can print more currency according to Modern Monetary Theory. Also, from Wikipedia: "The production of Soviet rubles was the responsibility of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise, or Goznak, which was in charge of the printing of and materials production for banknotes and the minting of coins in Moscow and Leningrad. " If you are trying to draw some…

I mean, sorry, this is a nonsensical point. Of course, Soviet Union could physically print their own currency. This is completely irrelevant - they couldn't print hard currency and that is what they needed to import lots of things, including food.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#70

Post by manfredo »

rumanator wrote: post #37
hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you Do you have a source that supports your statement?

This isn't just by a small margin. Both Social Security and Health and Human Services are close to twice the amount spent on defense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

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