Economic Recovery, Plunder, and the End of an Empire?

Joel Bowman writes:

...Wrote the French libertarian philosopher in his 1850 classic, The Law:

“See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”

The obvious – and fallacious – rebuttal here is that Wall Street fat cats earn tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of times the salary of government employees. And that’s true. But you don’t have to pay it. If you don’t agree with excessive executive compensation, don’t buy that company’s products. Don’t invest in its stock. Simple. Of course, that won’t stop the government gifting your tax dollars to its Wall Street buddies…but you can hardly blame the grafters on The Street for taking what’s offered. Call it corporatism. Call it crony capitalism. Call it whatever you like. Just don’t call it the free market.

But just because the state can avoid consequences in the short term, that doesn’t mean it can avoid them indefinitely. “Imperial suicide,” as Bill calls it, is nothing new. In 1917, the year of Russia’s October Revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin offered a few predictions for the century ahead:

“Germany will militarize herself out of existence,
England will expand herself out of existence,
and America will spend herself out of existence.”

Had he known the inherent shortcomings of his own political ideology, Bolshevism’s bad boy might also have added, “And Russia…she will plan herself out of existence.”

As for the United States, it seems she is not content with simply spending more than she produces, foisting the unfunded obligations onto future generations; instead, she militarizes, expands, spends AND plans toward her own demise…as all once great empires eventually do.

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Empire in Decline?

Bill Bonner writes:

Is that what we have to look forward to in America…a post-imperial decline, where our standard of living stagnates…our economy limps…and our place in the world frays and crumbles?

Yes. Most likely.

Why? Because the government is taking a larger and larger role in the economy. Because US social programs are too costly. Because we don’t have enough money to pay for them. Because not enough money has been invested in productive business. Because our military burden is too heavy…and difficult to escape. Because we have no savings. Because we will likely spend the next 10 years paying down private debt. Because the rest of the world is racing ahead. Because we are growing older. Because our leaders are corrupt and incompetent. And because the whole society becomes more zombified every day.

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Collapse of the American Empire

"One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations collapse," warns anthropologist Jared Diamond in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Many "civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society's demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power."

Now, Harvard's Niall Ferguson, one of the world's leading financial historians, echoes Diamond's warning: "Imperial collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine. A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice." Yes, America is on the edge.

Dismiss his warning at your peril. Everything you learned, everything you believe and everything driving our political leaders is based on a misleading, outdated theory of history. The American Empire is at the edge of a dangerous precipice, at risk of a sudden, rapid collapse...

Ferguson's final message about America's destiny comes from Foreign Affairs: "Conceived in the mid-1830s, Cole's great five-part painting has a clear message: all empires, no matter how magnificent, are condemned to decline and fall." Throughout history, empires function "in apparent equilibrium for some unknowable period. And then, quite abruptly ... collapse," a blunt reminder of the sudden, swift, silent, certain timetable in Diamond's "Collapse" where a "society's demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power."

You are forewarned: If the peak of America's glory was the leadership handoff from Clinton to Bush, then we have already triggered the countdown to collapse, the decade from 2010 until 2020 ... tick ... tick ... tick ...

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