After reading Dave Stockman’s 768 page soul crushing book about crony capitalism and our unpayable debt, I’m pretty pessimistic.
“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
—Cicero, 55 A.D.
Science and technology are the wild card.
Look at how fracking has radically altered the energy environment. Ten years ago Boston was running out of natural gas in cold spells, and it looked like we'd have to import LNG.
Then there's the Internet, which has revolutionized commerce, among other things.
All that makes it hard to predict the future.
““Why is America falling?” “
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I say that the American population is no longer the people that I grew up with and around.
So called minorities and immigrants will soon outnumber the traditional Americans. Marxism, once despised, is becoming fashionable under the Marxist POTUS.
Another idiot looking for an explanation that doesn’t blame the media’s profits from deficit spending.
And he even referenced ‘Rome’!
Matt, listen... you listening?
The ‘Bread and Circus’ is here and the media is making a fortune off it. The media controls the public square and they won’t allow criticism of ‘Bread and Circus.
Just like it was in Rome, so it is today in America.
Priscus is accosted by a former wealthy Greek Roman citizen who had lost everything and was taken prisoner, but by his long efforts had established himself among the Huns. The spelling is British from the text.
"The spoils of war had restored and improved his private property; he was admitted to the table of his former lord; and the apostate Greek blessed the hour of his captivity, since it had been the introduction to an happy and independent state; which he held by the honourable tenure of military service. This reflection naturally produced a dispute on the advantages, and defects, of the Roman government, which was severely arraigned by the apostate, and defended by Priscus in a prolix and feeble declamation. The freedom of Onegesius exposed, in true and lively colours, the vices of a declining empire, of which he had so long been the victim; the cruel absurdity of the Roman princes, unable to protect their subjects against the public enemy, unwilling to trust them with arms for their own defence; the intolerable weight of taxes, rendered still more oppressive by the intricate or arbitrary modes of collection; the obscurity of numerous and contradictory laws; the tedious and expensive forms of judicial proceedings; the partial administration of justice; and the universal corruption, which increased the influence of the rich, and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor. A sentiment of patriotic sympathy was at length revived in the breast of the fortunate exile; and he lamented, with a flood of tears, the guilt or weakness of those magistrates who had perverted the wisest and most salutary institutions.
Morals were exchanged for fun. The media monster replaced religion. The weed seeds were planted in the 60s. Now the once-beautiful garden is overrun and in need of a serious pruning. We had a really good gardener in the 80s but he’s gone. The new gardener is now picking out the flowers as quickly as possible while he continues to plant more weeds.
Truthfully, I do believe America is indeed in a death-spiral. Economically, culturally, and morally decaying. When I see so much of America embracing deviant crap like homo-marriage, I view it a symbol that America has given itself over to evil, and its days are numbered.