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The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (Party is Over in 2015 Barf Alert)
cBS News ^ | 12/6/2010 | Alfred W. McCoy

Posted on 12/06/2010 2:26:33 PM PST by Dallas59

A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don’t bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: america; bankrupt; collapse; empire; over; teotwawki; usa
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1 posted on 12/06/2010 2:26:41 PM PST by Dallas59
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To: Dallas59

With Obammy in the drivers seat...I predict lights out in 2012....


2 posted on 12/06/2010 2:28:03 PM PST by Dallas59 (President Robert Gibbs 2009-2013)
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To: Dallas59

I was thinking 10 years, but that was before all of this present mess we are in.


3 posted on 12/06/2010 2:29:56 PM PST by Colvin (Proud Owner '66 Binder PU, '66 Binder Travelall,)
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To: Dallas59

Yep...next year should be even more dramatic than this one. It’s like I said in Nov/08....all things changed on 11/4/08...nothing will ever be the same again.


4 posted on 12/06/2010 2:33:17 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
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To: Dallas59

What the author fails to deal with is that the two other big economies, the EU and China, are not in much better shape than we are. Both are dependent on us for exports.

I think the fall will be sooner than later, and the dominoes will all fall with us.


5 posted on 12/06/2010 2:34:45 PM PST by Free Vulcan (The battle isn't over. Hold their feet to the fire.)
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To: Dallas59

Wow, so pick events that are not necessarily connected, pick a year that had events that you didn’t like, make comparisons of the random and unreconciled, and make a prediction.

So what would this fool say if I predicted that 2008 was the pivotal year, and we have until 2030 by his math. It’s just as logical.


6 posted on 12/06/2010 2:35:20 PM PST by Hawk1976 (It is better to die in battle than it is to live as a slave.)
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To: Colvin

This guy is pulling stuff from Sci Fi writers.


7 posted on 12/06/2010 2:35:31 PM PST by Dallas59 (President Robert Gibbs 2009-2013)
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To: Dallas59
this is what I don't get and wonder why no one ever talks about it..

If the baby boomers getting old and retiring is causing the strain on the safety net... then wouldn't them getting even older and eventually dying fix the problem naturally?

8 posted on 12/06/2010 2:36:26 PM PST by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama = Epic Fail)
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To: TexasFreeper2009
If the baby boomers getting old and retiring is causing the strain on the safety net... then wouldn't them getting even older and eventually dying fix the problem naturally?

But having older, experienced more highly-paid workers retire and leave the labor pool opens up even more entry level jobs for recent grads to replace them...

Assuming...the jobs themselves did not disaapear for good. For example, there are not a lot of openings for blacksmiths or FORTRAN programmers.

Many assembly line production jobs are not coming back because of robotics. I saw it happen.

9 posted on 12/06/2010 2:44:17 PM PST by Gorzaloon ("Mother...My Couric itches.")
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To: Free Vulcan

China has some real big time problems that nobody ever talks about. I will be surprised if they are still around in their present form in 2025.


10 posted on 12/06/2010 2:46:57 PM PST by jospehm20
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To: anniegetyourgun
Baloney. This is the same crap they said when Carter was in office. It takes literally a heartbeat to turn a country around, and the "declinist" commentators are going to wrong as usual when the next real leader shows up.

The problem is always that there are often 20-30 years between real leaders, but that's not unusual in world history. Anyway, glad to see all the "declinists" out there---gloomsters we called them in the Carter days.

11 posted on 12/06/2010 3:01:13 PM PST by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." (Hendrix))
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To: jospehm20
Exactly. For Pete's sake, doesn't anyone remember JAPAN, INC? It was supposed to dominate the world just 20 years ago. I attended a presentation by a Sinologist from Heritage or one of the big think tanks at Hillsdale a few years ago and there were so many BIG problems facing China that any one of them would cause it to utterly collapse.

There is only one nation on earth that is grounded in Christianity, common law, and constitutional representative government. It ain't China.

12 posted on 12/06/2010 3:03:59 PM PST by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." (Hendrix))
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To: LS

I would expect that response from a historian. However, we aren’t simply “in a cycle.”


13 posted on 12/06/2010 3:08:09 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
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To: LS
Baloney. This is the same crap they said when Carter was in office. It takes literally a heartbeat to turn a country around, and the "declinist" commentators are going to wrong as usual when the next real leader shows up.

The problem is always that there are often 20-30 years between real leaders, but that's not unusual in world history. Anyway, glad to see all the "declinists" out there---gloomsters we called them in the Carter days.

Bingo. I was around in the 70's when the conventional wisdom was that the U.S. was in decline because of Vietnam and Watergate and we would have to accept the Soviet Union and live with a crappy economy.

Today's defeatism is called the "new normal" by the later day group of declinists dummies.

A good conservative President with a conservative Congress can turn America around. Reagan did it without a conservative Congress.
14 posted on 12/06/2010 3:12:34 PM PST by Ticonderoga34 (Free Obama's Birth Certificate!)
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To: Dallas59
First and foremost, the USA is not an empire.

We are not sending colonists to other countries, we are not forcing other countries to change their religion and their systems to match ours, and we do not ultimately rely on them for our survival. All of these other “empires” were heavily dependent on other countries for their basic necessities.

We might have a hard time of it if China called the debt, but it would not destroy the country. The only ones who can destroy this country is us.

15 posted on 12/06/2010 3:17:09 PM PST by wbarmy (I chose to be a sheepdog once I saw what happens to the sheep.)
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To: anniegetyourgun

First, I’m not a cyclical historian. It is nonsense that we are “in decline.” You’d be amazed what a leader will do for a nation “in decline.” But if you want to be in decline, be my guest. I’m gonna be here to see that this place is again the envy of the world.


16 posted on 12/06/2010 3:17:23 PM PST by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." (Hendrix))
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To: Ticonderoga34

It can happen so fast it will make people’s heads spin. Thatcher turned Britain around from 40 years of decline in less than three years, and with less to work with.


17 posted on 12/06/2010 3:18:34 PM PST by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." (Hendrix))
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To: Dallas59
Enough from the little guy on Gulliver's Travels that always said, We're doomed.”

We might be doomed if we allow 0bama, Pelosi, Reid and the rest of the Communist crones and cronies to turn us into a totalitarian Green/Marxist state.

I believe that enough Americans have woken up to what the Left is trying to do to us that we are still strong enough to survive and even thrive!

Needs rewrite:

“A soft landing for America 40 years from now? If Conservatives control the government you can bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower has been greatly exaggerated. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, we can stop them by voting the Dems out in 2012 and continue to vote them out until the century actually ends in 2099 (or 2100 if you're a stickler for millennium trivia).

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. However, America is unique an exception. Despite the Left brainwashing the children in public schools an in our pathetic Left-biased media. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: two years for the Soviet Union because it was Communist and Communism, by definition, is failure itself.”

The rest of the predictions are not worthy of rewrite as they sound to me like a small child or a person in an asylum putting his finger up and down over his lip and making a “B” sound.

18 posted on 12/06/2010 3:21:18 PM PST by PATRIOT1876 (The only crimes that are 100% preventable are crimes committed by illegal aliens)
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To: LS
Yup, I remember the Carter years. The economy stunk, our auto industry was an embarrassment, and the Soviet Union with its wonder weapons was going to slowly defeat us.

Then came Reagan, and the economy recovered, the US auto industry recovered (for a while), and ten years later the Soviet Union was gone.

I hope and pray we have at least one more "Reagan" left in us.

19 posted on 12/06/2010 3:25:12 PM PST by TwelveOfTwenty (Compassionate Conservatism? Promoting self reliance is compassionate. Promoting dependency is not.)
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To: LS

If I saw things only in the temporal, I might agree with you. After all, most want to believe that “it can’t happen here” and that everything will return to former “glory.” No one wants to believe that their president has an agenda of destruction of the nation & spreading chaos throughout the earth.

Lastly, your argument that somehow folks like me have “given up” on the nation is ridiculous. I am the resistance. Just because I know what/who is operating here doesn’t mean I stop standing for what is right. In fact, because I know that, I am the most optimistic person I know.


20 posted on 12/06/2010 4:19:34 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
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