The Collapse of American Power

[Orion]

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/080318_collapse.htm

Interesting site. It seems America's in a lot of financial trouble. What happens now?

[Belle Hibiki]

America's been in huge financial trouble before. Yet somehow we're still the undisputed hegemon.

[Pink Underoo]

America is always on the brink of some disaster.

Even the Great Depression didn't stop us, so I doubt this recession is really going to put an end to our power.

[Talon Holmes]

Our power hold depends on three things. How far away from capitalism we become (The further away we trend the worst off we will be). Then there is how we keep up our military power and how we use it. The final is government size and spending. The ultimate base of our power depends upon these variables over all else.

At the moment we have to worry about government size and spending the most, followed by our further trend away from capitalism. Honestly though one can argue that these two problems are interconnected with one another.

[Saz]

Huh, so America needs to borrow money from other countries. That's quite surprising. I was under the impression that America was the richest country in the world.

[Nappa]

>.>

Buahaha!

We're trillions of dollars in debt from all the money we've borrowed from other Countries.

[Tobias]

See there are two political economic ideologies, conservatives to save money and liberals to spend it. Both are necessary to the advancement of a nation.

We haven't had a conservative in a long while.

[Orion]

But according to that article, America is trillions of dollars (1,000 billion) in debt, and they're still borrowing. How do you come back from something like that in a short amount of time without losing power?

[Tobias]

Stick your fingers in your ears and pretend it never happened.

Or a world war, in which we sell arms and fuel but don't enter until the final stages. Its worked before.

In all seriousness I fully believe is that all it would take is an honest president with a good financial mind. We have been known to be economically powerful in the past, all we need is someone with the balls and brains to cripple monopolies and cut pork and other superfluous spending. No ones asking for their money back in a long time.

[Raditzu]

There are other ways of consolidating debt, too. Its not like the US would just be writing checks to the people they owe.

[Tobias]

In all honesty I find the notion of national debt, and most forms of modern currency in general, hard to accept. I'll admit my knowledge isn't great on it but as far as I can tell Its all based on faith, and the whole thing'll probably collapse eventually. I will be sitting in a forest with my guns and a tinfoil hat when it happens.

[Raditzu]

Its all based on faith, and the whole thing'll probably collapse eventually.

That's pretty much my take on it. I look at it as a measure of how nice one country is supposed to be to another.

[Bra]

America's been trillions of dollars in debt for years.

The ultimate sticking point, though, is, if you wanna collect from someone like America, and they decide they don't want to pay, what do you do?

You can piss and moan, or you can get irate and have your country obliterated in retaliation. =\

One thing I've always thought was bewildering, is that Canada and the United States are in debt to each other. From the last information I read, you guys owe us more than we owe you, but that seems totally retarded either way.

Why not cancel out the debts and leave the difference toward whichever nation owed less?

[Orion]

Why not cancel out the debts and leave the difference toward whichever nation owed less?

Because that would be intelligent.

[Tobias]

Because that would be intelligent.

But pointless I gather. The debt isn't a tangible thing and ignoring it works the same as not having it at all, but also with the added benefit of the confidence in the dollar not taking a hit. Its all really delaying the inevitable but all outcomes lead the same way, either we get a leader or succession of leaders with the balls and ability to get us back on track or we lose even the illusion of a superpower status.

[Nori]

America's been in debt since since the country has existed, I remember hearing about how we never fully payed off the countries that helped our freedom in the American Revolution, and how we still owed money from other wars.

This is just, a lot of debt.

[Orion]

So big debt = who cares? Maybe Australia should do that too.

[Aero]

America's been in debt since since the country has existed, I remember hearing about how we never fully payed off the countries that helped our freedom in the American Revolution, and how we still owed money from other wars.

This is just, a lot of debt.

Actually, Bill Clinton got America out of debt. Then Bush got us back into debt. =(

[Pink Underoo]

Actually, Bush Sr.'s tax hikes and the Republican Congress's legislation during Clinton's terms is what got us out of debt. Clinton was just there to sign the legislation into law.

[Nori]

Actually, Bill Clinton got America out of debt. Then Bush got us back into debt. =(

Well, according to some website I went onto for a class project, that was a .gov site, we owe quite a few billion dollars on PAST wars.