Posted on 04/21/2005 5:16:24 AM PDT by FlyLow
For over a century European intellectuals have predicted the decline of the United States. The German philosophers Hegel, Nietzsche and Spengler saw Western democracy and capitalism as pernicious — the unfortunate wages of a classical civilization that had lavished upon natural man too much wealth and indulgence.
Later the Nazis bragged that they were descendants of untainted Germanic tribes of old, and promised that poorly-disciplined American "cowboys" wouldn't stand a chance against their Panzers. The Japanese militarists claimed that their ultra-nationalist Bushido code would give them an edge over the "decadent" GIs.
During the Cold War, hardcore socialists pontificated that the (soon-to-collapse) Soviet Union was ascendant, inasmuch as it had realized Karl Marx's triumphant New Man who was reborn from the ashes of capitalism.
In President Jimmy Carter's days of "national malaise," the state-subsidized industries of Japan, Inc. were supposedly making us all wage slaves to Sony and Toyota — until the Asian financial meltdown.
Now a new generation of pessimists is warning that it is the turn of the European Union, flush with trade surpluses, a small defense budget and a strong Euro. Larger in size than us, with a greater population, a better educated youth and a supposedly more humane social net, will Europe gradually nudge the United States from its world preeminence? Or does the new Asian axis of 2 billion in China and India instead foretell American decline?
Some long-term indicators here at home are indeed worrisome. The deficit is again spiraling. Our trade debt is enormous. The dollar is weak. Materialistic Americans are buying more consumer goods than their global scorecard might otherwise warrant — all predicated on borrowed money from Asia that could be recalled with little warning.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
America has the scientific and industrial capability to survive without oil if this eventually becomes necessary. The oil-producing Gulf nations have nothing else than their oil, which they can not even pump out of the ground without the help of Western engineering.
I sure hope so. My wife and I were considering the CDA area, and we are both very conservative. That article made me a bit nervous.
Bump. Great read. Hanson is right on the money.
China is in a bubble right now with overinvestment from their currency manipulation. Rather than investing to improve their productivity they are investing in speculative stocks because the inevitable currency adjustment will guarantee a profit. After that, they will crash hard.
I have a feeling that many of the limp-wristed Euro-peons would back China.
I think that the US Army's and Navy and Air Corp) defeat of the Wehrmacht was the greatest achievment in it's history, as the German Army was THE outstanding tactical fighting force of the war, even with the dead strategic hand of Adolph Hitler at it's controls. Never has any army in history fought so well for so monstrous a cause.
In assesing our victory, we must acknowledge that we were tasked with confronting only 20% of that formidable German enemy in NW Europe. 8 of every 10 German soldiers who died in WWII were killed by that other monstrous regime, Stalin's Soviet Russia. Just think of our casualty lists had we had to face just another 25% of the German Army in the West. While we would not have been has inhumanly profligate as the Soviets were in expending human capital, it is safe to say that ten of thousands of baby boomers alive today would have perished with their fathers in the mud of European battlefields.
I am just trying to keep our victory in perspective and to make the case that even though I think that we would have ultimately prevailed, it would have been at the price of the greatest death toll in our history without the contributions of the Reds. I think our fight was nearly as much to prevent the westward Soviet advance as to defeat the Germans.
Ughhuh.. thats it..
Not in the short term, which is the only one that counts with our politicians.
More generally, imagine a US - China confrontation resulting in a break in trade; modern inventory practices mean there aren't any warehouses here full of goods from China that can be sold after trade is disrupted - but such goods are the basis of retail trade today.
So retail trade stops. WalMart and all the rest of them close with attendant income loss; business slows generally, tax revenues fall and politicians panic. A negotiated settlement follows, in which we give the Chinese what they want in return for a fresh supply of microwave ovens, clock radios and a face-saving joint statement.
As for the notion that China would hurt itself worse with trade sanctions than it would us, remember that there's a lot of world out there to trade with and China isn't so enlightened a place these days that they still can't tell their citizens to suck it up.
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