Well I'm going to try to respond to the assertions in this thread, but It will take some time
I believe that the United States today is treading the same path followed by the former USSR up to its collapse in 1991. There were three main causes of the Soviet disintegration, all of which are starting seriously to assail the United States.
First, extreme rigidity in economic institutions, dictated by an overly literal reading of either Marxist-Leninist or capitalist ideologies. The U.S. today is characterized by a union between capitalist robber-barons and extreme right-wing politicians, much like the so-called "gilded age" of 1890 to 1914.
I think this is a highly contestable concept. The US clearly is not a rigid economy, and likely the most dynamic in the world. Remember that countries all try to export to the United States to keep their growth, not the other way around. European states are clearly having even worse problems, the German and French governments are unable to maintain growth, consistently run high deficits and can't seem to generate more employment. Japan has similar problems. And to claim that China is ﾂ"dynamicﾂ" being a half state run system, that relies on foreign wellﾂ… that's just ludicrous.
Corruption in government-business relations is deep and institutionalized, as we see in cases like Enron, the weak governmental oversight of the pharmaceutical industry, and in the gutting of the environmental protection laws for the sake of big corporations. The second cause was imperial overstretch, as defined by historian Paul Kennedy. The U.S. today has over 700 military bases in 132 countries and is going deeply into debt maintaining them, on top of its military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a fatal condition.
The trend of corruption happening is not unique to the US, and neither is it endemic as he would like to claim. Parmalat, Bre-X, Barings, Daiwa Bank, and Hollinger international are all examples of major scandals that had nothing to do with the US. Pointing to Worldcom/Enron/Anderson and saying this is the warning signs of American capitalism's demise is being very naive to the fact that corruption occurs everywhere.
The US spends around 3.7% of its GDP on the military, compared to 5.0% during the Cold War, and not even close to the estimated 30% that the USSR was spending during the last years of the Brezhnev and Gorbachev. The current US deficit isn't coming from Military spending. It is because of the 1.3 Trillion Dollar Tax cut that was instituted by the bush administration.[
I won't deny that the US may be headed for a market correction due to high levels of public debt, but its not nearly as bad as the 1970s oil/Vietnam shocks. Even if this is the case, America will soon emerge from this. Unlike Europe and Japan, the United States and Canada maintain high levels of immigration, and have been largely successful in integrating immigrants into citizens. Inequality has been raised in the US, but I'd attribute it more to globalization (as it mirrors that trend) than a failure of US capitalism.
The world changed on November 2, 2004. Until then, ordinary citizens of the United States could claim that our foreign policy, including our invasion of Iraq, was George W. Bush's doing and that we had not voted for him. In 2000, Bush lost the popular vote. This time he won it by over 3.5 million votes. The result is that Bush's war has changed into America's war
Was Kerry really an alternative? He pushed the same policies on the international sphere, offered nothing more than better domestic management. The American public wasn't happy about being in Iraq during the election, but Kerry didn't give any real viable alternative to bush. Bush's election was because of Kerry;s weakness, not because the people supported him. The Democrats are doing nothing. This is the weakest period the Dems have been since the early 1980s. Domestic support and public approval ratings for Bush are both lower than 50%. Its really a question whether or not the Dems can utilize it, especially since the disaster in New Orleans.
The U.S.'s military stance in East Asia is anachronistic. The major trends in the area are commercial, including China's decisive turn toward capitalist economic development, free-trade agreements between the Southeast Asian countries and China, and the growing economic integration between Taiwan and the Chinese Mainland. As China begins to achieve levels of wealth comparable to those of the rest of East Asia, a basis for genuine stability, not one imposed by military force, is created. The main cause for pessimism in East Asia is the political and economic situation in Japan. The twenty-first century will certainly be dominated by a rich, confident, and well-educated East Asia but it will also feature the continued integration of the European Union and the development of a genuinely anti-American bloc in Latin America and the Caribbean. The most important developments are the opening of the China market to Latin American agricultural exports, China's competition with the United States for Canadian oil, and China's long-term investments in countries like Iran and Kazakhstan. The old-fashioned reliance on military force will probably drag the United States down and Japan with it.
This statement just indicates the sheer bias and limited grasp of the situation. Competition for Canada's oil? That's REALLY rich. 87% of Canada's exports go to the United States, and building a pipeline from Canada to China is would cost billions, while one from anywhere in Canada to the US is only millions. Culturally the two countries are closer. China doesn't have a chance.
Moreover China is being balanced against, whether it likes it or not. Russia is making deals with Japan and India more than it is with the Chinese. With the exception of the Kuril Islands dispute, Russia and Japan are well matched trade partners. China and Russia are less so. Chinese immigration into the east is starting to become a worrying problem, and a balancing alliance with Japan will only add to its security in the east, rather than one with China which would keep the status quo or slowly degrade Russia's hand.
The main feature to watch for within the United States is the progressive enlargement of the power of the Pentagon leading eventually to a military take-over of the government. The Roman Republic, from which the founders of the United States drew many institutional precedents (separation of powers, term limits, fixed elections, toleration of slavery), offers the best example of the pattern. The Roman republic, which collapsed in 27 BC, failed to adjust to the unintended consequences of its imperialism, leading to a drastic alteration in its form of government. The militarism that inescapably accompanied Rome's imperial projects slowly undermined its constitution as well as the very considerable political and human rights its citizens enjoyed. The American republic, of course, has not yet collapsed; it is just under considerable strain as the imperial presidency-and its supporting military legions-undermine congress and the courts. However, the Roman outcome-turning over power to an autocracy backed by military force and welcomed by ordinary citizens because it seemed to bring stability-suggests what might happen after Bush and his neoconservatives are thrown out of office.
When you don't have any argument desperately grasp at straws by invoking history. That's what this author has done here. Make some really vague comparisons and voila, you have a theory. The US military has seen budget cutback after budget cutback, and the US isn't a military controlled state. The US has made terrible errors before in foreign policy. And its still far too early to understand what the implications of Iraq will be. Its not clear that it will change over to a completely Islamic government Aka S. Vietnam 1975, or if that sort of regime will be fundamentally against the US. This assertion here is pure fabrication.
Oh and KEoland. If the US goes down, China goes with it. It and japan have been buying massive amounts of US securities to keep the Yuan artificially low to the dollar... I suspect most of its reserves are denominated in dollars. Buying Euros does little for them in this case
