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America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

salon.com

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Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#81

Post by tablespoon »

davideous wrote: post #19

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…

> 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.

Why should I put much stock in historical analysis done by a "American billionaire investor and hedge fund manager" [1]? My gut feel that someone like that probably has so much other stuff on his plate that the analysis would be in many ways superficial, and such a person likely has enough status that large numbers of people would indulge his pretensions at being a polymath even if it's not actually true.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dalio

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#82

Post by wcoenen »

300bps wrote: post #28
coldtea wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The article's oil analysis is laughable in hindsight. Look at this chart: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc... Almost immediately after the article was written, US oil production hockey-sticked up to the point we were a net exporter of oil starting in 2020. The Salon analysis is actually hilarious against what actually happened.

This energy miracle may be a bit of a short lived illusion. The shift to fracking also resulted in a much lower EROEI (energy return on energy invested). Quote from [1]:

> Two aspects of shale production make it radically different from conventional production. First, it takes a lot more energy (including many miles of steel tubing per well, for example) to extract energy out of these wells. Traditional wells have a ratio of energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) of 10- or 20-to-one, or an energy cost factor of 5 to 10%. The EROEI with fracking is in the range of 5- or 10-to-one, or a cost factor of 10 to 20%

The oil from fracking also runs out very quickly. From the same article:

> A conventional well’s production declines at about 5-8% per year, and it can remain productive for decades. By contrast, the first-year decline in shale wells is over 60%, and about 90% of a well’s production occurs in the first five years. That creates a "drilling treadmill," as new wells are needed simply to replace production from wells drilled a few years before.

[1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-01-07/is-fracking-a-...

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#83

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

parkingrift wrote: post #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 bu…

Income security spend was much higher in 2020 than prior years:

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55343 - 2018

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56325 - 2019

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57171 - 2020

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#84

Post by yakz »

TameAntelope wrote: post #47
anonporridge wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of America's secret sauces is that everyone in the world is welcome to defect from their home regime and come here. Hell, there's even a chance we'll make your children our leaders (Obama and Harris for example). And you personally have a chance to start a business and become a billionaire or advance up the corporate ladder to CEO of existing giants. The inverse is not true. The best and brightest Americans (rega…

We’ve substantially curbed immigration into the US, so I wonder how that might affect this “secret sauce”.

Have we? With the exception of 2020 due to the pandemic, how much has immigration declined?

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#85

Post by orev »

JavaBatman wrote: post #25

Even if we transition to a multipolar world order and renewed great power competition, America will still be the strongest and most secure global power. It has hegemony in the western hemisphere through its enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine; it is protected by the two largest oceans; it has historical, linguistic, and cultural ties to two regional powers on both sides of the ocean (UK and Ireland in Europe, Australi…

Every (at least most) past conflicts that toppled the dominant players brought with it a new type of combat that those players were not ready for. Troop tactics, air power, etc. In the next one, it will be cyber.

We have opened a direct line for all of our enemies to be able to attack us without any regard to geography whatsoever. Critical infrastructure is all online and barely protected by even the most basic security. We’ve already seen multiple utilities go down due to hacks, and those were probably accidents where the attackers were overzealous. It’s not unreasonable to assume that we’re already completely pwned, with foreign interests just sitting back and waiting for the right time to flip a switch.

Military and geographical advantages are irrelevant in this scenario.

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#86

Post by BitwiseFool »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #75
BitwiseFool wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a terrific, albeit deep dive into the topic. https://www.lynalden.com/fraying-petrodollar-system/ Broadly speaking, the US has to run trade deficits in order for the rest of the world to have the dollars they must use to buy oil. This severely handicaps our ability to manufacture and produce things domestically. During the past century the US Government took on lots of debt with the understanding that our eco…

Alden’s analysis is certainly thought provoking, but it doesn’t made broad statements about the impact on US global power, which is the topic at hand here.

Gotcha. The article itself doesn't go into the global power aspect, but I was looking at it through the lens of implications. Mainly, how the trade deficit has made us particularly vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and how the domestic knowledge to produce certain vital things (like chip manufacturing) has been gutted. Confidence in the US and it's ability to deliver on it's obligations also diminishes as the debt grows and the growth of our economy stalls. I just don't see how we can grow our way out of debt after reading just how badly the deck is stacked against non-tech and non-intellectual sectors of the economy.

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#87

Post by tablespoon »

notacoward wrote: post #68
djohnston wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My counterpoint is that you can make a rational decision and still be wrong. Ad click business is how they can build a facial recognition database of 3 billion people, and China is uniquely positioned to immediately apply that dataset to training ML with military applications.

It's absolutely possible to be rational and yet wrong. It's also entirely possible to promote or allow something for a while and then decide it has finished serving its purpose.

> It's absolutely possible to be rational and yet wrong. It's also entirely possible to promote or allow something for a while and then decide it has finished serving its purpose.

Yeah. Also, generalizations can be true but misleading in a particular instance. I think a lot of people make that mistake with China, assuming because in general democracies have been more successful than autocracies [1], they can be complacent because China will fail. There's no reason autocracy with a talented leader (or one who's lucky) can outperform a democracy.

[1] People also often say that free markets are "more successful" than less free markets, and it's probably true to an extent, but there's also a lot of problems/disagreement defining what "success is." For instance, the US has traded away a lot of its general manufacturing capacity leading to more "success" by some financial metrics but failure by many others.

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#88

Post by logifail »

vidanay wrote: post #70
wbsss4412 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you pose is the implication of that?

Yeah, I don't really get that either. If push comes to shove and we (the US) devalue our currency, then all the other foreign debt holders are left holding the bag while we just suffer through a couple years of recession.

> If push comes to shove and we (the US) devalue our currency [..]

Against what, and by what means?

(Perhaps naively) I'd always assumed the markets decide the exchange rates of (most) Western currencies against each other.

Obviously with a dollop of central bank intervention here and there(!)

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#89

Post by wbsss4412 »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #86
wbsss4412 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alden’s analysis is certainly thought provoking, but it doesn’t made broad statements about the impact on US global power, which is the topic at hand here.

Gotcha. The article itself doesn't go into the global power aspect, but I was looking at it through the lens of implications. Mainly, how the trade deficit has made us particularly vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and how the domestic knowledge to produce certain vital things (like chip manufacturing) has been gutted. Confidence in the US and it's ability to deliver on it's obligations also diminishes as the de…

The implication of the article, though, is that eventually the regime will end, and the structural factors that force the US in trade deficits will end. This will allow the dollar to finally be devalued, and the value of exports to rise, resetting the ability for the US to build its industrial base.

Also, the notion that domestic knowledge on how to build things like chips has been gutted is just flat out false. Intel is still close to the cutting edge in chip fabrication, they just aren’t #1 anymore.

Re: America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

#90

Post by Auracle »

avgDev wrote: post #52
piva00 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 inf…

OP completely missing the point why US is spending so much money on military. US doesn't care about ANYONE but US. All moves and "nannying" is strategical in nature and to US benefit.

I mean, that’s the whole point of a country - to serve it’s citizens. Luckily that usually works out for the best.
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