The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization

[Wolf]

Just some interesting op-ed I stumbled across that I thought was more than fuel enough for a PRP fire:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1074110.html

Of particular note are the following excerpts:

Meanwhile, the man who accurately predicted the stock market crash of 1987 and the collapse of the Soviet Union has an intriguing prediction that goes even further. Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, has forecast that by 2012 there will be a revolution in the U.S., accompanied by food riots and tax rebellions.

One possibility is that the United Nations will take on the role of a global government. This theory seems to be supported in a speech by then-president George H. W. Bush before Congress on March 6, 1991, following the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

The only such event that seems even remotely likely is the end of Western global dominance and the transfer of global hegemony to the Eurasian powers. Perhaps it would not be a "global government", but a "new world order", with the central power of the world residing in Asia.

This seems to be the most realistic scenario, particularly as China is the largest creditor to the U.S. If the Chinese government decided to dump all of its U.S. dollars, the entire U.S. economy would collapse overnight.

But would China do that? The motivation would be two-fold; firstly, the U.S. Federal Reserve's "inflationary policies" (as described by Ron Paul) devalue the U.S. currency to the point that China no longer has an incentive to hold U.S. dollars, and secondly, China sees an opportunity to become the dominant player in the new world order.

Looking at history, there is only one circumstance under which a very large and diverse population would be willing to accept such a massive override and restructuring of the global order. That circumstance is chaos.

The collapse of the United States of America would certainly create the chaos necessary to justify the formation of a new global reserve currency and ultimately a new world order, with its central power residing in Eurasia.

...really?

[chatfsh]

I would love to believe that the article is just a bunch of doom and gloom, and that Mr. Obama will swoop in and save the day, but all indicators point to the very opposite happening.  Every day it becomes more apparent that we are living in remarkable and unprecedented times.  And yes, I believe that we are about to witness the total economic collapse of the United States.  Given that the American consumer, to a large extent, has been the economic engine driving many of the major world economies, you can fully expect that those economies will be plunged into the same chaos as the U.S.

Regarding the potential for riots and rebellion in this country, there is evidence that this will be a reality all too soon.  There are estimates that there were close to a million Tea Party participants protesting across the nation in April.  Several states have enacted legislation for Sovereignty bills stating that the federal government is getting too large and overreaching its constitutional boundaries, interfering with states rights to govern themselves.  The rising unemployment rate only adds to the disenchantment.  Every month half a million more Americans lose their jobs.  All this while the government continues to grow larger, accumulating ruinous mountains of debt - the likes of which this country has never seen, and the Federal Reserve continues to print money in a misguided effort to revive the economy.  Of course this will only result in the devaluation of the dollar leading to hyperinflation.  The primary buyer of Treasuries, MBS, and other junk paper is the federal reserve because no foreign investors in their right mind will touch these toxic securities.  Where is the fed getting all the billions of dollars to buy the garbage?  Why from their handy little printing presses.  It

[Sneakgab]

''Looking at history, there is only one circumstance under which a very large and diverse population would be willing to accept such a massive override and restructuring of the global order.''

''accept'' the new global order? I was more under the impression that these things ''just happened'' (not exactly but...) and that there wasn't too much accepting to be had. Eg: The rise of Rome. Don't think Greeks, Persians and others had any interest in accepting the new world order but I don't think they had much of a choice. I don't think that Romans were too interested in the new world order after their fall (to the barbarians you might say, though many would say that Rome mostly brought down itself).

Not sure what is meant by global order here anyway though (maybe I'll read the article). Am I to take it that according to the article the current global order is supposed to be America or an American led world or economy or something? Not really sure at all what is meant by the term now that I think about it.

[Tatar Khan]

Too much gloom and doom. People like to paint every recession like the end of the world's economy is coming. How many of the terrible crisis the world was through and everybody is still here. The 1970s collapse of the Dollar based exchange system due to the large American deficits that originated from the economic problems and the spending on Vietnam war did not kill of US's economic power. So in my opinion the article is exaggerating too much.

Second of all if China does dump US dollar and cause US economic problems it will kill its economy that needs US consumer.

Dollar is no longer the sole reserve currency of the many countries. Yen and Euro have been among the reserve currencies for a while now.

[Wolf]

I pretty much agree with you Tatar... I don't think the current recession is enough to cause a collapse in the US economy or government--not when 1/3 of the world's millionaires are still American, and so many American people stand behind their government. "Tea parties" are vastly different things than what is implied by "tax rebellion," and the fact that people expressed their displeasure nonviolently and publicly only goes to show how stable the political situation really is--if anything, I think our chief complaint with the American political system is that it is "too" stable.

But to say that some "Eurasian" center of power can emerge is absurd, especially as I can pin all of these complaints against the US against other countries: China is facing eventual environmental collapse, to say nothing of food shortages of its own--most of China's food is already imported. Their growth has ground to a halt, they lost over 20 million jobs in one month, to say nothing of the totals (that's more than twice what the US lost, already), and their government has serious issues with maintaining internal order. And as for Russia... Russia, who's own economic growth has ground to a halt after 10 years of frankly surprising success, is facing a demographic collapse, with a birth rate of -0.5 and an unbalanced net migration rate, Russia stands to lose 40 million of her 140 million people by end of century. And since Russian males rarely live to see a day over 54, their workforce is unusually small given the size of their economy. If any powers are struggling, the United States is not alone on the list.

But this is not to say that these questions being raised about the US are not legitimate--certainly, the debt is enormous and potentially crippling. That absolutely needs to be dealt with. However, if a new "center of power" emerges, it's going to be the Soft Power Hegemony of the EU. No one wants Russia or China in power, but no one would mind the EU. Only Western liberal democracies possess the political capital and the inclusive ideologies necessary to maintain any sort of "world order," which is a dubious term in and of itself. US collapse is unlikely, but given the US' massive defense obligations in those 150 countries around the world, I suspect instead that the United States might lose its decision-making status in favor of becoming the chief military wing of the EU. I'm okay with that.

[chatfsh]

The protests haven

[Wolf]

"Losing one's position of supremacy" and "totally collapsing" are different things. Certainly, I think the most probable outcome is a gradual reduction of US influence a la the United Kingdom: however, this doesn't mean that the United States won't be a major world power for... probably the next 100 years. I think we're past the point of Glorious Revelations just as we're past the point of World Wars--it's just not economical for that to be the way things are done. What I think is more likely is a gradual reduction of the influence of national governments in general in favor of supranational organizations and entities. Even if the US loses its influence as this occurs, and say, the EU or the UN take on more prominent roles in the world, even that won't mean that the "center of power"--a dubious concept in and of itself--will shift away from the West. The center of power likes to stay where flow of communication and ideas are the freest, where society and culture is the most enjoyable and inclusive, and where security and protection are the most highly guaranteed. The Eurasian powers, save potentially for Japan, don't seem to really meet some or all of these qualities as well as do Western powers.

[chatfsh]

The extent to which the U.S. economy will collapse depends largely upon how strong our perceived role is in the global economy.  The world may determine that the repercussions and fall out from the collapse of the American economy may be too disastrous to their own economies.  This despite the fact that the Federal Reserve is doing everything in its power to take us down the same road as the Weimar Republic.  Our saving grace may be that the U.S. economy is simply too big to fail.

We need only to look to the outcome of AIG and the various financial institutions in this country.  Were these companies poorly run and mismanaged?  Yes, most assuredly.  Did they deserve to fail as a result?  Yes, absolutely.  Did they? Obviously, they did not.  Why?  The U.S. government determined that these institutions were just too big to fail and that the consequences would be so far reaching and the impact so detrimental that it was in everyone

[Wolf]

A fair analysis, but I take issue with the assessment that "when you consider all of the evidence and the indications, the U.S. economy should collapse." Really? What evidence and indications are so disastrous that they must rationally demand a collapse in the U.S. economy? The value of the dollar actually went up immediately following the crash, the VIX volatility index has been, somewhat ironically, volatile, but definitely within a range far lower than that of the past fall. Unemployment may be near 10%, but Germany--the largest economy in Europe, and an economy equal in size to China--has had near- or over-10% unemployment for the last generation. I don't see the "evidence and indications" pointing to a failure of the United States economy, or any economy. For that matter, I see it as a culling of the irresponsible and the stupid. Even then, many of the irrepsonsible and the stupid--or if you prefer a far nicer appellation, the "misled"--are actually being protected by the government. The United States' problem is not that it is unstable, or facing a future of instability, the problem is that it's just too damn stable. Our biggest fear isn't uncertainty, it's the depressing certainty that it's too hard for this country to move in any direction. We need forge ahead in fields such as green energy and green food production, but are slow to do so, or else we'll stagnate. GM, AIG--the days of the U.S. being a financial and automotive giant may be over, but so what? We were once a steel giant, and that day is long, long past. There are absolutely dozens of areas where the U.S. stands to profit a great deal and continue to add positive value to the world, but we hesitate from doing so. Why? Because, as you said, our system is so massive, it tends to self-perpetuate more of the same. Well, then this crash has been good. A bigger crash would have been better. As long as we take the opportunity of this healthy dose of chaos to find new ways to add desperately-needed positive value to the world, I guarantee you we'll be fine. People pointed to the Rome of 476 as being the "fall" of civilization, but often forget that the Eastern Roman Empire persisted and sometimes even thrived for a thousand years after that fact.

[chatfsh]

Wolf, as I

[Wolf]

Well... right... but we're still dancing around the main point. I still maintain that the indicators you've presented, bad and very bad though some of them may certainly be, are not enough to justify the statement "the U.S. economy should collapse." But even if they were that bad, or worse, you yourself concede that the United States economy may, in fact, be too big to collapse due to a variety of factors that are not immediately obvious.

That being said, we seem to agree that we are "on the precipice of great change," though I would hate to word things so dramatically--I tend to reserve drama for titles and titles alone. Anyway, what sort of change are we in for? The United States faced serious challenges before--it's economy has collapsed, half the nation once fanatically dedicated itself to the destruction of the other half, and so on--and none of those have ever seriously undermined the notion of "America" or "the United States" as an institution. The changes have only forced a critical re-evaluation of how that notion (note, I don't use the word "dream," it's debatable whether such a thing really materially existed in the first place, and, even if it did, all it really sufficed to accomplish was to cement a vague notion of national identity where there wasn't one before) was articulated.

That being said, I stand by my earlier point: this is a huge opportunity. We can use this moment to re-evaluate who we are, to re-orient the country in a more productive direction, and to re-group its disparate resources and agendas. Frankly, I hope we see some positive goods such as the abolition of all political parties in the original Washingtonian ideal, or perhaps a renewed commitment to eschew entangling foreign commitments. Who knows, but seeing as the crash isn't (or can't) be so bad as to wipe the slate clean, all I can think to imagine is that the pragmatic, decision-making and capital-possessing elements left in the country will find themselves forced to play things smart again. Knocking a little sense into the masses won't be a bad thing, either.

[chatfsh]

The dollar continues to weaken as the rest of the world is betting that America

[Wolf]

So... why havn't you left yet? And... where would you go?

[chatfsh]

Aren

[Wolf]

Dead serious. Evidently you believe the evidence to be overwhelmingly in favor of US collapse--I don't, and since neither of us are actually qualified to make bold statements regarding the future of the economy, I believe we're at an intellectual impasse.

But there is a next step. You yourself said that it was "only a matter of time" until the rich leave. If you truly believe that this is the future we face, that there is no avoiding it, and you possess the courage of your convictions, then you must have concluded that you are going to leave at some point. So, I ask again, what are you waiting for? And where will you go?

[chatfsh]

Had I the wealth to do so, I might be inclined to take up residence in another country.  Not that any other region will be immune to the economic fall out, but some countries are due to be hit harder than others.  And of course, if you are wealthy enough, you will be able to shield yourself from most of the unfortunate consequences that will befall the average citizen regardless of where you live.

Since I do not possess the financial resources to shield myself, family or friends, I suppose that I am destined to suffer the same fate as my fellow countrymen. 

Don

[Wolf]

Fair enough. But, I don't think it will be that bad, really. I think the US-as-the-new-Britain is probably the most likely meta-outcome, even in terms of standard of living and economic influence.

[athanasios]

Maybe this fits under this thread. If not please move it to a more appropriate one:

Utah Pushes To Accept Gold, Silver As Alternative Currency

Just reminds me of the days of WWII and the following years (Greek civil war).

[athanasios]

Good old days of WWII...

[ErasOmnius]

Crazy what The West is coming to.

[athanasios]

Here is where the west is heading to:

(A few English links, but very important, in this fine analysis, again in Deep Red:)

http://tsak-giorgis.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog-post_3120.html

[ErasOmnius]

Here is where the west is heading to:

(A few English links, but very important, in this fine analysis, again in Deep Red:)

http://tsak-giorgis....-post_3120.html

And it will not change, till the return of You Know Who.

[athanasios]

Agreed.

-

In the meantime, yesterday was the coldest day and night in Athens and 3 homeless died in the streets...

[Lord J]

Lord Voldemort? ;)

Actually, many states and cities are accepting alternative monies and have been doing so for some time. In New York, as I understand, signs saying "Euros accepted here" are somewhat common.

[ErasOmnius]

What do you do when nobody wants to own $14.5 trillion worth of bonds?