The eventual decline of America (Barf Alert!)

The Nation ^ | April 1, 2004 | Jeffrey D Sachs

[Mathlete]

The first anniversary of the war in Iraq has arrived, and America’s reputation continues to sink. One year ago, the US tried to bully the world into supporting an unprovoked war, claiming that anybody who didn’t believe in Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was either a fool or an accomplice of terrorists.

Now we know that the US government and its few allies were themselves either fools or liars.

But this has not stopped the Bush administration’s thuggish behaviour.

The US could be a great force for good. Studies like one by the World Health Organisation’s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health show that with an US$11-trillion (Bt434 trillion) annual national income, America could finance the control of Aids, malaria, tuberculosis, and many other killer diseases for a small fraction of the money it wastes in Iraq.

Instead, US financial assistance to the world’s poor countries as a share of national income is the lowest of any donor country.

The US can also be a force for great ill. America’s military budget is currently about $450 billion, roughly equal to the rest of the world’s combined military spending. The Bush Administration believes that US military power buys security, even though terrorism has increased since the Iraq War.

But despite its wealth and military might, America’s ability to project political power – for good or ill – will decline in future years, for at least five reasons:

1. America’s budget is in crisis. Thanks to Bush’s tax cuts and military spending, which have contributed to budget deficits of $500 billion per year, the US will have to raise taxes and limit budget spending, whether or not Bush is re-elected. The annual military budget, which has increased by $150 billion since Bush took office, will need to be cut in coming years to get the budget under control.

2. The US is borrowing massively from abroad. Asia’s central banks have bought hundreds of billions of dollars of US securities. Japan alone has foreign exchange reserves of around $750 billion, much of that in US treasury bills. China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan together have another $1.1 trillion or so in reported foreign exchange reserves.

In short, the US is in deep and growing debt to Asia. Only massive buying of treasury bills by Asian central banks has prevented the dollar from falling even more precipitously than it has.

3. The rest of the world is catching up. America’s big technological lead will narrow relative to Brazil, China, India, and other major economic regions of the developing world. China will have an economy larger than the US economy within 25 years – potentially 50-per-cent larger by 2050. India, considerably poorer on average than China, will also close the wealth gap.

By 2050, India will conceivably have an economy the size of America’s, with four times the population and roughly one-fourth of the average income level per person.

4. A narrower economic gap will reduce America’s relative geopolitical power. China and India, which together account for about 40 per cent of the world’s population, will begin to play much larger roles on the world scene. The current xenophobic reactions to “outsourcing” of jobs to India’s software engineers – a hot political issue in the US – reflects the underlying anxiety of a US population that wants to stay in the economic lead.

With or without American protectionism, Asia’s technological capacities and incomes will grow. This will be good for the world because prosperity will be more widely spread, even if America’s ego gets hurt in the process.

5. Demographics will weaken America’s militaristic approach to the world. Much of Bush’s support comes from white fundamentalist Christian men. This, in my opinion, is a social group that is fighting a rearguard battle against the growing social power of women, immigrants and other religions. It is also fighting against secularism, such as the teaching of modern biology and evolutionary theory.

The religious right’s backward – looking agenda – and the Manichaean worldview that underlies it – is doomed. The US Census Bureau recently found that by 2050, the non-Hispanic white population of the US is likely to be only half of the total US population, down from 69 per cent currently. By 2050, 24 per cent of the population will be Hispanic, 14 per cent will be African-American, and 8 per cent Asian.

The US will look more like the world, especially Latin America.

In the face of these five factors, the dream of global empire held by many US right-wingers will most likely fade. This may happen sooner rather than later if Bush loses this November in an election that is certain to be very close. But whatever the outcome, the US cannot postpone forever its inevitable decline relative to the rest of the world.

Jeffrey D Sachs

Jeffrey D Sachs is Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, March 2004

[Mathlete]

My dad, who I thought was a Republican, just sent me this article. I hope he's just looking for counter arguments. My response was to consider the source, but that doesn't seem to be good enough. If any of you have good sources and additional comments about this, I would certainly pass them on in hopes to sway him back.

[BenLurkin]

Can America decline? Yes.

But it won't be because we project power overseas.

OTOH, failure to cloase our borders will certainly be our doom.

[BenLurkin]

Failure to use spell check may also prove fatal.

Cloase = close.

[Trueblackman]

Well thank goodness this is on the computer because of it was on paper I would use it for my upcoming trip to the bathroom.

[Viking2002]

The eventual decline of America is being brought on by mewing, hand-wringing, jelly-spined Clymers like Jeffrey D NutSachs.........

[Archangelsk]

Eh, we're all

DOOMED!

Click on the doomed cast of this commercial.

[68skylark]

What a bunch of anti-American rubbish. The Nation just hopes for America to decline -- that would be their fondest wish.

[ATCNavyRetiree]

My dad, who I thought was a Republican, just sent me this article. I hope he's just looking for counter arguments. My response was to consider the source, but that doesn't seem to be good enough. If any of you have good sources and additional comments about this, I would certainly pass them on in hopes to sway him back.

My friend, I am in similar situation. My dad still believes that the D party is still the party of JFK. He refuses to believe that it has gone too far left. He was a steel worker (union) in Pennsylvania for 30 years, and still believes that the R party is only for the "rich." I can't even talk to him about it, he gets too angry right off the bat (now I know what my mom went thru on a daily basis...I always thought it was her fault *sigh* (at least my dad led me to believe it was).

Hope your dad is more receptive...after I served our nation for 20 years and then graduated from college Summa Cum Laude, he says I am now a "disappointment" because I have become a Republican!

[rageaholic]

America’s reputation continues to sink

Why should I care? Yeah I'm real sad the French don't like us anymore.

[Unam Sanctam]

Jeffrey Sachs was once a respected economics professor. I knew he was active in the financial reforms in Russia after the fall of communism. I didn't realize he was such an anti-American and anti-religious Left-wing bigot.

[stillafreemind]

I too believe that America will take a sharp decline. I believe it is well under way now. I do not base this so much on the monetary side of things..I leave that to those who know about it.

I base it on the moral decline in this country. On the "I got what I need .. I ain't gonna worry about nothin' or nobody." way of thinking and living. I base it on the absolute corruption in our government at many levels.

I base it on our courts deciding to "make" law .. rather than uphold it.

I base it on precious life being so meaningless and easy to take for some. Whether it is the unborn child, the abused child and/or woman, the elderly. There is no respect for life anymore.

I base it on the perversion of sex and it being not only accepted but taught in our schools.

I base it on taking God out of everything in this country. This is by far and above the main reason I say America is in a decline. We have been blessed and we have taken the blessing and thumbed our noses at Father. What..is He supposed to find a sense of humor about this? Or just say hey..children will be children? I think not.

Everything seems to be political. Nothing seems to be just because we are Americans..united under God..and trying to be good tenders of the life we have been blessed with.

To me..if indeed a decline is headed our way...we deserve it. We are spoiled and ungrateful.

But hey!! Its just my opinion!!

[Argus]

A: America could finance the control of Aids, malaria, tuberculosis, and many other killer diseases for a small fraction of the money it wastes in Iraq.

B: Demographics will weaken America’s militaristic approach to the world.

Not if we let all those diseases in paragraph A kill the buggers off first. On the other hand, if we re-elect the thug Bush, he'll just nuke 'em for us en masse. No more "demographic" problem either way.

[Unam Sanctam]

I don't think the is the US lefty magazine. It appears to be a Thailand-based publication.

[68skylark]

I think your response was a good one. There's no substantive way to respond to this dumbass, since he's wrong on so many different levels. Just consider the source -- Columbia is the capital of anti-Americanism, and so is The Nation.

One of the most glaring errors is his assumption that conservatives are unhappy if other countries improve their economies. On the contrary, (most) conservatives know that when some countries get richer, it lifts the living standards in other countries, and all get richer. It's a good thing for other countries to improve their economies. Think how much better off we'd be if Mexico could get their act together enough to have a big, rich, thriving economy -- it would be wonderful for us.

Alas, it's unlikely to happen in most of the world, since most of the world is mired in corruption and leftist, Nation-type economic systems.

[RightWhale]

the dream of global empire held by many US right-wingers

There seems to be a typo here. It should say left-wingers, not right-wingers.

[Mathlete]

My friend, I am in similar situation. My dad still believes that the D party is still the party of JFK. He refuses to believe that it has gone too far left. He was a steel worker (union) in Pennsylvania for 30 years, and still believes that the R party is only for the "rich." I can't even talk to him about it, he gets too angry right off the bat (now I know what my mom went thru on a daily basis...I always thought it was her fault *sigh* (at least my dad led me to believe it was).

My father-in-law was MACVSOG, Vietnam Green Beret, 1969, who went on to become the Republican Mayer of his township. I tend to get along much better with him. My real dad, a very hard-working person, whom I love dearly nevertheless, has just discovered that he's old (64) with upcoming medical problems. I suspect that he's moving into the stage of possible dependency. This would explain why liberals tend to be young and dependent, or old and dependent.

As once said, a child thinks in the present, an adult thinks in the future, and the elderly think in the past. I guess statistically that means that liberals are more concerned with the past and the present, whereas conservatives think to the future.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Even Sachs can't say the U.S. is in decline. He says it's in decline "relative to the rest of the world."

Yeah, the Asian countries are becoming more powerful. But to a great extent it's because they are more and more like the U.S. -- capitalist consumer cultures. Of course, they're going to become more powerful, if they're pursuing the right policies.

India in particular is looking more and more like America. Dealing with Islamofascist terrorists within their own borders, they're building closer ties with the U.S. and Israel. They have a decently working democracy. I expect that their rise to power will be one of the major stories of the 21st century, by the time the 22nd rolls around.

If these countries continue to develop in the direction of upholding individual rights and free markets, that is good for the world. If that means they catch up to the U.S., so be it. I would rather Americans be one of many free nations sharing power than on-top of the world by virtue of being the only free nation.

I don't mind white males having if a smaller share of power, if it's because non-whites are learning the wisdom and lessons taught by white males from Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith to William Deming and Ronald Reagan.

America was not founded on the basis of ethnicity or religion or even geographic location. It was founded on an ideal of individual rights and liberty. If others in the world are striving for that ideal as well, more power to them. Their nations may be in Asia. Their soul is becoming American. This is -- and will be -- America's real empire.

[TomB]

1. America’s budget is in crisis. Thanks to Bush’s tax cuts and military spending, which have contributed to budget deficits of $500 billion per year, the US will have to raise taxes and limit budget spending, whether or not Bush is re-elected. The annual military budget, which has increased by $150 billion since Bush took office, will need to be cut in coming years to get the budget under control.

He's right here, I mean, look at how the defecits of the 1980s caused a decline in our political power.

Just ask the Soviet Union.......

[Celtjew Libertarian]

One more thing... You'll note that the nations Professor Sachs refers to as cathing up to the U.S. are (unless I missed one) all Asian or Latin/South American. That Europe that John Kerry wants to model us on is nowhere to be seen.

[68skylark]

Conservaitves (most of us, anyway) want the rest of the world to have the liberty, prosperity, tolerance and pluralism that we enjoy. We may disagree about how this could happen, and how much the U. S. should invest in these hopes, but we all want the best for people. In the eyes of left wingers, that makes us evil empire-builders.

There's no way to get along with someone like this author. And there's no way to change his mind. We just have to defeat this type of mean, un-patriotic attitudes at the ballot box.