Is this the end of the American era? (No really)

Times of London ^ | 10/12/08 | Paul Kennedy

[TigerLikesRooster]

October 12, 2008

Is this the end of the American era?

Paul Kennedy

A few nights ago, having read far too much about the alarming drop of share prices on Wall Street, I fell asleep trying to remember those lines from Shelley’s Ozymandias that were drummed into my skull at school long ago: . . . Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare . . . Has it come to this for the American imperium as well? Will George Bush’s vast legs of stone lie in the desert outside Crawford, Texas, like Ozymandias’s crumpled statue at Luxor? Given the number of e-mails that I have received – from Brazil, Korea, China and beyond – this is the burning issue. What is more, most presume that the fundamental answer is “yes”.

Yes, the American “mission impossible” 500 lb gorilla is crumbling into the sands, its pretentious military overstretch now compounded by its loose fiscal stupidities. Don’t you agree with that, Professor Kennedy? Hasn’t your controversial prediction in the closing parts of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers been realised?

Well, slow down a minute. It is one thing to argue that the United States has been weakened by fiscal extravagance and military overstretch. It is a separate thing to recall that, regardless of regime follies, from century to century economic and military balances do shift gradually from one country or part of the world to another.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Pretty much what I thought. However, if Americans let morons continue to run wild, things can unravel fast.

Time to eradicate leeches. Start with those who think that the border is merely an outdated impediment to making profit. And those who want to care about 'little people' with tax payer's money. Especially, overeducated liberals, who live on doles from 'caring' hedge funders.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[ken21]

ibd the other day was arguing that the u.s. economy will

be double europe’s within a decade.

[Radl]

This guy is writing an article about the fall of the U.S. and he is in England? Good God his country is going to hell, overrun by foreigners and he is too busy watching Manchester United.

[bilhosty]

We cannot do anything with a Republican party that has become completely unresponsive to most people including its conservative base. It advances no ideas except tax cuts for country clubbers. It spends its entire political capitol on same while the borders remained insecure. does nothing to shape the political terrain. Hopes high medical prices will just take care of themselves instead of coming up with ideas to trim the costs of same and all we have to do is give medical tax accounts to people when 40 % are not paying taxes any way. They show no capacity to think beyond the next election. Show no ability to deal with the media imbalance or for that matter nothing else. frankly, I hope if Obama is elected he really does tax these people. that will teach them good (it used to be that lowering taxes was the only issue for me,, but not any more). YOU NEED TO RESPOND TO THE NEEDS OF THE AVERAGE PERSON.

[TigerLikesRooster]

The way European system works these days makes Europe difficult to bounce back once it takes a serious hit.

[aclusux.com]

To see a Radical Islamic Militant like Farrakhan call Obama the Messiah paints a very dim future for America. You are about to witness massive voter fraud. Our country is being overrun by terrorist supporters like this and the change you will get will not resemble Obama’s message.

Obama is a puppet in the hands of Islam. Some else will be pulling his strings. I am just curious as to why W’s faith was so scary and Obama’s faith seems so tame to the Liberals?

[Travis McGee]

"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

-~~Ludwig Von Mises

[TigerLikesRooster]

Actually average people are the main base of conservatism. Rich folks? They can live well one way or the other. They can certainly better off when conservatives are in power. However, they don't want to get their hands dirty in advancing and consolidating conservative system.

Some of them really care more about how they look good among those overeducated liberals.

[Dallas59]

Yes. Look at who may be going to the White House...( I ain’t talkin about McCain)

[stevem]

Is this the end? Who knows? Nations do rise and fall. If not now, then surely sometime.

The $640,000,000,000.00 question is has anyone learned anything? Does anyone ever, really?

In a putatively free nation, if individuals aren't going to be allowed to fail, the nation must fail. This is so even when the individuals are large feckless organizations managed by arrogant and stupid people.

Still, the end of the United States has been predicted and pined for more than once in the past.

[djsherin]

Ah, Mises. If only more people knew about and understood Austrian economics...

[TigerLikesRooster]

They are not going to change. Some won't even when their throat is being slowly slit, while their teenage daughters are dragged away to become some old Muslim's fourth wife.

All they feel is just disbelief. They can't understand nor make sense out of. You don't know unfathomable conceit inside them. Their intellect only magnifies their conceit just as derivatives amplifies some financial whiz's arrogance and reckless greed.

[Travis McGee]

We’ll all be getting a hard lesson in Austrian economics very soon.

Most won’t know what they are learning though, and will beg for central planning to save them.

For example, what is McCain’s “buy all the bad mortgages” program but a macro example of price control?

When has this ever worked, ever? When has it not made a bad situation worse, ever?

And he’s the “conservative!” Obama will be ten times worse!

We’re screwed.

[detective]

Richard Nixon said in 1969 that Democrats wanted to turn America into a “pitiful helpless giant” and predicted that they would do so if given the opportunity. In the 1970’s Democrats controlled government and America became a “pitiful helpless giant”. Reagan was able to reverse the trend but the ideals of Reagan have been systematically destroyed. There is a very real possibility that America will soon be a “pitiful helpless giant”.

[TigerLikesRooster]

As you said, it depends on how much people learn from their failure. Learn to regain healthy appreciation of risk and failure. You cannot talk your way out of it just as many smart boys do. Intellect is such a corrupting tool for them. It is a handy tool to rationalize and explain away their stupidity or conceit. Once hooked to such an easy way of dodging hard question, they never rise up to be great ones. The whole life turns into pathetic series of self-justification and rationalization.

[nathanbedford]

Military power is ultimately dependent on economic power. Economic power is absolutely dependent on the maintenance of the rule of law. The question for America's recovery depends on whether Obama and his gang of Democrats who will have virtual unrestrained control of the American political apparatus will subvert our system or merely pervert it.

[LS]

In the Great Depression, the U.S. and Britain had serious problems. They were light years better off than everyone else. When there is international turmoil there is a flight to safety that can only benefit the U.S. It may be hard but the U.S. can gain relatively while losing some in the short term.

[LS]

Almost certainly correct.

And by the way, will everyone please repeat after me:

AMERICA IS NOT AN EMPIRE! AMERICA IS NOT AN EMPIRE!

It doesn't matter how much Patsy Buchanan and Paul Kennedy say it, AMERICA IS NOT AN EMPIRE!

[Jo Nuvark]

Thomas Jefferson - 3rd. President, Democrat
Term of Office: March 4, 1801 to March 4, 1809

“A government big enough to give you everything you
want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”