Signs of a Dying Empire

[pbrower2a]

The Roman Empire was a rotten order from its inception, and the dying Roman Republic was doomed from the dubious victory of the slave-holding elite in the Servile Wars. But the Empire in the West lasted five centuries after Julius Caesar took power.

[Kinser79]

(10-14-2017, 09:55 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(10-05-2017, 05:21 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-15-2017, 03:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The degradation of American democracy has happened in stages, and the election of Donald Trump could be the start of the last stage. Could be. My most optimistic hope is that America reverts to its old pattern of a liberal-conservative divide in which quality matters more in politics than does ideology.

The problem the US empire faces is the changing logic violence where projecting power is becoming harder relative to defense.   As James Dale Davidson have said, "The most important causes of change are not to be found in political manifestos or in the pronouncements of dead economists, but in the hidden factors that alter the boundaries where power is exercised. Often, subtle changes in climate, topography, microbes, and technology alter the logic of violence."  This is what is shaping the demise of the nation-state and the US empire.  Trump is an effect not a cause.

The petrodollar is what has been keeping the US empire going since 1973 and the middle east wars of the last sixteen years are part of an effort to keep it going.  Once the petrodollar goes down, which looks like it will happen in the next five to ten years, then the US empire goes down with it.  I suggest you read the following two articles which describe the current state fo the empire as well as anything I have seen recently.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...in-us.html
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...-gold.html

While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it.  The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

"Cultures are not matters of taste but systems of adaptation to specific circumstances that may prove irrelevant or even counterproductive in other settings."

-James Dale Davidson, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

The US empire existed for a quarter century before the petrodollar.  Ultimately it's based on geography - the US geographic position on both of the world's major oceans.  There's every likelihood that the US could find a way to keep the empire going for the rest of the century, should it so choose.

I think you're missing a key factor.  What are the top exports of the US by volume.  Corn, Soybeans and timber.  What are is top imports, oil and consumer goods.  Considering that countries that typically export food and raw materials and import finished goods are third world countries, by definition, the end of the petrodollar would necessitate a transition to third world living standards.

And that assumes the state survives the hyperinflation that will ensue once all that debt starts coming back home.  Governments typically don't survive periods of hyperinflation, as Latin America can attest to (never mind Africa).

Since unlike Zimbabwe we don't have a single party state headed by a charismatic strong man (protests by the libtards not withstanding) the most likely outcome would be a military coup d'etat in the US should the petrodollar fail.

The fact is that the petrodollar allows the US to export its inflation problem (a problem inherent to fiat currencies) because if one cannot use US dollars to buy anything but corn, soybeans or timber then there is no reason to hoard vast reserves of US debt.

As for the US' geography, that is as much a hinderance as it is an asset.  Having lived many places in the US and abroad, I can tell you that Florida is vastly different from Illinois which is yet still different to Texas almost to the point of being almost completely different countries.  I suspect that the federal government failing under pressure of hyperinflation would likely result in states, or collections thereof forming into blocks and confederacies of their own.

Instead of a Soviet Union we'll end up with a CIS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonweal...ent_States

[David Horn]

(10-14-2017, 10:17 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: ...  What are the top exports of the US by volume.  Corn, Soybeans and timber.  What are is top imports, oil and consumer goods.  Considering that countries that typically export food and raw materials and import finished goods are third world countries, by definition, the end of the petrodollar would necessitate a transition to third world living standards.

The highest value exports from the US are intellectual property, which have little if any volume to them.  Measuring tonnage is no longer a valid exercise, if it ever was.

[Eric the Green]

(10-14-2017, 09:55 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(10-05-2017, 05:21 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-15-2017, 03:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The degradation of American democracy has happened in stages, and the election of Donald Trump could be the start of the last stage. Could be. My most optimistic hope is that America reverts to its old pattern of a liberal-conservative divide in which quality matters more in politics than does ideology.

The problem the US empire faces is the changing logic violence where projecting power is becoming harder relative to defense.   As James Dale Davidson have said, "The most important causes of change are not to be found in political manifestos or in the pronouncements of dead economists, but in the hidden factors that alter the boundaries where power is exercised. Often, subtle changes in climate, topography, microbes, and technology alter the logic of violence."  This is what is shaping the demise of the nation-state and the US empire.  Trump is an effect not a cause.

The petrodollar is what has been keeping the US empire going since 1973 and the middle east wars of the last sixteen years are part of an effort to keep it going.  Once the petrodollar goes down, which looks like it will happen in the next five to ten years, then the US empire goes down with it.  I suggest you read the following two articles which describe the current state fo the empire as well as anything I have seen recently.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...in-us.html
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...-gold.html

While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it.  The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

"Cultures are not matters of taste but systems of adaptation to specific circumstances that may prove irrelevant or even counterproductive in other settings."

-James Dale Davidson, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

The US empire existed for a quarter century before the petrodollar.  Ultimately it's based on geography - the US geographic position on both of the world's major oceans.  There's every likelihood that the US could find a way to keep the empire going for the rest of the century, should it so choose.

And probably longer, although it will be in a long decay unless it is reformed; chiefly by removing Reaganomics, and by removing any further plans for a New American Century through imperial wars.

[Galen]

(10-14-2017, 10:17 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(10-14-2017, 09:55 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(10-05-2017, 05:21 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-15-2017, 03:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The degradation of American democracy has happened in stages, and the election of Donald Trump could be the start of the last stage. Could be. My most optimistic hope is that America reverts to its old pattern of a liberal-conservative divide in which quality matters more in politics than does ideology.

The problem the US empire faces is the changing logic violence where projecting power is becoming harder relative to defense.   As James Dale Davidson have said, "The most important causes of change are not to be found in political manifestos or in the pronouncements of dead economists, but in the hidden factors that alter the boundaries where power is exercised. Often, subtle changes in climate, topography, microbes, and technology alter the logic of violence."  This is what is shaping the demise of the nation-state and the US empire.  Trump is an effect not a cause.

The petrodollar is what has been keeping the US empire going since 1973 and the middle east wars of the last sixteen years are part of an effort to keep it going.  Once the petrodollar goes down, which looks like it will happen in the next five to ten years, then the US empire goes down with it.  I suggest you read the following two articles which describe the current state fo the empire as well as anything I have seen recently.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...in-us.html
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...-gold.html

While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it.  The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

"Cultures are not matters of taste but systems of adaptation to specific circumstances that may prove irrelevant or even counterproductive in other settings."

-James Dale Davidson, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

The US empire existed for a quarter century before the petrodollar.  Ultimately it's based on geography - the US geographic position on both of the world's major oceans.  There's every likelihood that the US could find a way to keep the empire going for the rest of the century, should it so choose.

I think you're missing a key factor.  What are the top exports of the US by volume.  Corn, Soybeans and timber.  What are is top imports, oil and consumer goods.  Considering that countries that typically export food and raw materials and import finished goods are third world countries, by definition, the end of the petrodollar would necessitate a transition to third world living standards.

And that assumes the state survives the hyperinflation that will ensue once all that debt starts coming back home.  Governments typically don't survive periods of hyperinflation, as Latin America can attest to (never mind Africa).

Since unlike Zimbabwe we don't have a single party state headed by a charismatic strong man (protests by the libtards not withstanding) the most likely outcome would be a military coup d'etat in the US should the petrodollar fail.

The fact is that the petrodollar allows the US to export its inflation problem (a problem inherent to fiat currencies) because if one cannot use US dollars to buy anything but corn, soybeans or timber then there is no reason to hoard vast reserves of US debt.

Unlike the libtards and Dims you have grasped why the US Empire is coming to the end of the line.  Davidson and Lord Rees-Mogg once noted that the Soviet Union was Bangladesh with nuclear weapons.  This is the ultimate destination of the US unless it starts downsizing its empire and government which I don't see the political class being willing to do.

Its for damn certain that the libtards and Dims won't and there is only a slim chance of that happening with the R's.  The R's have a slightly stronger sense of self-preservation which makes them only slightly more likely to accept the end of the empire.  Either way the odds are not particularly promising.

[Galen]

(10-16-2017, 11:46 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote:

(10-14-2017, 09:55 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: The US empire existed for a quarter century before the petrodollar.  Ultimately it's based on geography - the US geographic position on both of the world's major oceans.  There's every likelihood that the US could find a way to keep the empire going for the rest of the century, should it so choose.

And probably longer, although it will be in a long decay unless it is reformed; chiefly by removing Reaganomics, and by removing any further plans for a New American Century through imperial wars.

I would mark the Spanish-American War or possibly the First World War since that marks the failure of the British Empire with the interwar period as the transition between the two empires.  The US Empire has been fighting against the rising costs of projecting power from the center that helped kill the British Empire.  This is why the the US will not stay in power as long and also why it went much faster into currency debasement than the British did.

As usual Eric the Obtuse completely misses the point.  Reagan was a step on the trend to fiscal dissolution that was well under way by the mid-sixties thanks to LBJ and his Great Society programs along with the war in Vietnam.  The need for congress critters to bribe voters was enough to keep that spending and borrowing going which has continued to the present.  The wars are necessary to continue the surveillance state.

I often wonder how someone like Eric the Obtuse manages to remember to keep breathing.

[David Horn]

(10-18-2017, 05:27 AM)Galen Wrote: Unlike the libtards and Dims you have grasped why the US Empire is coming to the end of the line.  Davidson and Lord Rees-Mogg once noted that the Soviet Union was Bangladesh with nuclear weapons.  This is the ultimate destination of the US unless it starts downsizing its empire and government which I don't see the political class being willing to do.

Its for damn certain that the libtards and Dims won't and there is only a slim chance of that happening with the R's.  The R's have a slightly stronger sense of self-preservation which makes them only slightly more likely to accept the end of the empire.  Either way the odds are not particularly promising.

No one wants to see the US as the permanent cop-of-the-world, but, much like a land mine, once you step on it, lifting your foot is nigh to impossible.  If you have a plan that leaves the world in decent shape after we retreat from world leadership, let's hear it.

[noway2]

(10-18-2017, 12:02 PM)David Horn Wrote: No one wants to see the US as the permanent cop-of-the-world, but, much like a land mine, once you step on it, lifting your foot is nigh to impossible.  If you have a plan that leaves the world in decent shape after we retreat from world leadership, let's hear it.

In some ways, I would simply say fuck'em and let them clean up their own mess while we simply retreat to our corner of the globe. Yet, at the same time I do realize that as a nation we have taken on certain responsibilities and have a duty to withdraw from those positions in a responsible manner. I see this as one aspect of how this current 4th turning we're dealing with issues that arose as a result of the last one.

[Galen]

(10-18-2017, 12:02 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-18-2017, 05:27 AM)Galen Wrote: Unlike the libtards and Dims you have grasped why the US Empire is coming to the end of the line.  Davidson and Lord Rees-Mogg once noted that the Soviet Union was Bangladesh with nuclear weapons.  This is the ultimate destination of the US unless it starts downsizing its empire and government which I don't see the political class being willing to do.

Its for damn certain that the libtards and Dims won't and there is only a slim chance of that happening with the R's.  The R's have a slightly stronger sense of self-preservation which makes them only slightly more likely to accept the end of the empire.  Either way the odds are not particularly promising.

No one wants to see the US as the permanent cop-of-the-world, but, much like a land mine, once you step on it, lifting your foot is nigh to impossible.  If you have a plan that leaves the world in decent shape after we retreat from world leadership, let's hear it.

The British didn't step away but rather circumstances such as their fiscal condition in the wake of the First World War forced them to.  As things are now, the permanent bureaucracy in DC still hasn't figured out that their actual ability to project power has dramatically decreased in the last twenty years.  It is not the responsibility of the US to fix the problems of the rest of the world which really hasn't worked out all that well.

[David Horn]

(10-18-2017, 03:35 PM)Galen Wrote:

(10-18-2017, 12:02 PM)David Horn Wrote: No one wants to see the US as the permanent cop-of-the-world, but, much like a land mine, once you step on it, lifting your foot is nigh to impossible.  If you have a plan that leaves the world in decent shape after we retreat from world leadership, let's hear it.

The British didn't step away but rather circumstances such as their fiscal condition in the wake of the First World War forced them to.  As things are now, the permanent bureaucracy in DC still hasn't figured out that their actual ability to project power has dramatically decreased in the last twenty years.  It is not the responsibility of the US to fix the problems of the rest of the world which really hasn't worked out all that well.

This is actually a good example. The Brits had to fold; they were nearly bankrupt. We opted to give world leadership a pass because, well, we just did. The result: World War II. QED.

[Galen]

(10-19-2017, 02:51 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-18-2017, 03:35 PM)Galen Wrote:

(10-18-2017, 12:02 PM)David Horn Wrote: No one wants to see the US as the permanent cop-of-the-world, but, much like a land mine, once you step on it, lifting your foot is nigh to impossible.  If you have a plan that leaves the world in decent shape after we retreat from world leadership, let's hear it.

The British didn't step away but rather circumstances such as their fiscal condition in the wake of the First World War forced them to.  As things are now, the permanent bureaucracy in DC still hasn't figured out that their actual ability to project power has dramatically decreased in the last twenty years.  It is not the responsibility of the US to fix the problems of the rest of the world which really hasn't worked out all that well.

This is actually a good example.  The Brits had to fold; they were nearly bankrupt.  We opted to give world leadership a pass because, well, we just did.  The result: World War II.  QED.

The traditional position of the US prior to the First World War was neutrality.  Ironically it was the Lost that were anti-war and opposing entry into the Second World War.  It took FDR goading Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor to change that.  Consult Infamy by John Toland for more details.

[pbrower2a]

(10-20-2017, 03:01 AM)Galen Wrote:

(10-19-2017, 02:51 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-18-2017, 03:35 PM)Galen Wrote:

(10-18-2017, 12:02 PM)David Horn Wrote: No one wants to see the US as the permanent cop-of-the-world, but, much like a land mine, once you step on it, lifting your foot is nigh to impossible.  If you have a plan that leaves the world in decent shape after we retreat from world leadership, let's hear it.

The British didn't step away but rather circumstances such as their fiscal condition in the wake of the First World War forced them to.  As things are now, the permanent bureaucracy in DC still hasn't figured out that their actual ability to project power has dramatically decreased in the last twenty years.  It is not the responsibility of the US to fix the problems of the rest of the world which really hasn't worked out all that well.

This is actually a good example.  The Brits had to fold; they were nearly bankrupt.  We opted to give world leadership a pass because, well, we just did.  The result: World War II.  QED.

The traditional position of the US prior to the First World War was neutrality.  Ironically it was the Lost that were anti-war and opposing entry into the Second World War.  It took FDR goading Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor to change that.  Consult Infamy by John Toland for more details.

Some of the anti-war Lost were better described as defeatists than as pacifists. Defeatists want their countries to fail to prepare to resist aggression so that they can get special benefits (including power and gain, or the satisfaction of their hatred) from the hostile victor. Among defeatists were pro-Nazi groups who saw themselves taking over Jewish properties cheaply after a Nazi victory or even restoring slavery. Until the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, many Communists went for the line that fascism was the last gasp of capitalist plutocracy that would make obvious the 'need' for Marxist-Leninist revolution.

The United States could have avoided war with Thug Japan (as opposed to the more decent Japan that we now know) through only one means: complicity. The United States refused to sell motor fuels to Japan for use in the Japanese war machine that was doing horrible things in China. The United States as a partner in crime with Thug Japan could have likely taken big chunks of the British, Dutch, and French colonial empires in the Pacific basin and established Australia and New Zealand as American protectorates. Meanwhile American oil companies would have made killings by selling oil to the Japanese to support their mass-killing in China and probably India as well. Basically this would have been Manifest Destiny run amok. But this presumes that America would be practically a fascist state.

[David Horn]

(10-20-2017, 03:01 AM)Galen Wrote:

(10-19-2017, 02:51 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-18-2017, 03:35 PM)Galen Wrote:

(10-18-2017, 12:02 PM)David Horn Wrote: No one wants to see the US as the permanent cop-of-the-world, but, much like a land mine, once you step on it, lifting your foot is nigh to impossible.  If you have a plan that leaves the world in decent shape after we retreat from world leadership, let's hear it.

The British didn't step away but rather circumstances such as their fiscal condition in the wake of the First World War forced them to.  As things are now, the permanent bureaucracy in DC still hasn't figured out that their actual ability to project power has dramatically decreased in the last twenty years.  It is not the responsibility of the US to fix the problems of the rest of the world which really hasn't worked out all that well.

This is actually a good example.  The Brits had to fold; they were nearly bankrupt.  We opted to give world leadership a pass because, well, we just did.  The result: World War II.  QED.

The traditional position of the US prior to the First World War was neutrality.  Ironically it was the Lost that were anti-war and opposing entry into the Second World War.  It took FDR goading Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor to change that.  Consult Infamy by John Toland for more details.

The war was already on and the results could have been much much worse.  Asia might have been a cluster of Japanese conquests that would have been the worse kind of colonization on the planet.  Europe would have been split between the Soviets and Germans, because neither could defeat the other ... unless it had devolved into the first nuclear war.  The Germans were close.

No nation can sit on its hands and do nothing when chaos reigns, unless they can contribute most by doing so.  I give the Swedes and Swiss a pass here,  They did great work by staying neutral.  We, on the other hand, were a titan.  We had no choice, unless we were satisfied with Soviet/Nazi/Imperial rule.

[Warren Dew]

(10-14-2017, 10:17 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(10-14-2017, 09:55 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(10-05-2017, 05:21 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-15-2017, 03:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The degradation of American democracy has happened in stages, and the election of Donald Trump could be the start of the last stage. Could be. My most optimistic hope is that America reverts to its old pattern of a liberal-conservative divide in which quality matters more in politics than does ideology.

The problem the US empire faces is the changing logic violence where projecting power is becoming harder relative to defense.   As James Dale Davidson have said, "The most important causes of change are not to be found in political manifestos or in the pronouncements of dead economists, but in the hidden factors that alter the boundaries where power is exercised. Often, subtle changes in climate, topography, microbes, and technology alter the logic of violence."  This is what is shaping the demise of the nation-state and the US empire.  Trump is an effect not a cause.

The petrodollar is what has been keeping the US empire going since 1973 and the middle east wars of the last sixteen years are part of an effort to keep it going.  Once the petrodollar goes down, which looks like it will happen in the next five to ten years, then the US empire goes down with it.  I suggest you read the following two articles which describe the current state fo the empire as well as anything I have seen recently.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...in-us.html
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...-gold.html

While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it.  The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

"Cultures are not matters of taste but systems of adaptation to specific circumstances that may prove irrelevant or even counterproductive in other settings."

-James Dale Davidson, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

The US empire existed for a quarter century before the petrodollar.  Ultimately it's based on geography - the US geographic position on both of the world's major oceans.  There's every likelihood that the US could find a way to keep the empire going for the rest of the century, should it so choose.

I think you're missing a key factor.  What are the top exports of the US by volume.  Corn, Soybeans and timber.  What are is top imports, oil and consumer goods.  Considering that countries that typically export food and raw materials and import finished goods are third world countries, by definition, the end of the petrodollar would necessitate a transition to third world living standards.

Sure.  In the era of the petrodollar, there was little point to producing consumer goods ourselves when they could be bought with pieces of paper or electronic signals.

Without the petrodollar, that will change.  For example, a border adjustment tax could be used to level the playing field for consumer goods.  People on welfare or entitlements might have to start working again, but maybe that wouldn't be such a terrible thing.

And frankly, it's not us who produces the oil that supports the petrodollar.  Nothing says dollar denominated trade has to be supported by a US export.  In the extreme, the US Navy might provide protection from piracy only to ships carrying dollar denominated goods.

Incidentally, modern corn and soy are not raw materials.  They're essentially industrial products created from petrochemical based fertilizer.

Quote:And that assumes the state survives the hyperinflation that will ensue once all that debt starts coming back home.  Governments typically don't survive periods of hyperinflation, as Latin America can attest to (never mind Africa).

Since unlike Zimbabwe we don't have a single party state headed by a charismatic strong man (protests by the libtards not withstanding) the most likely outcome would be a military coup d'etat in the US should the petrodollar fail.

The fact is that the petrodollar allows the US to export its inflation problem (a problem inherent to fiat currencies) because if one cannot use US dollars to buy anything but corn, soybeans or timber then there is no reason to hoard vast reserves of US debt.

As for the US' geography, that is as much a hinderance as it is an asset.  Having lived many places in the US and abroad, I can tell you that Florida is vastly different from Illinois which is yet still different to Texas almost to the point of being almost completely different countries.  I suspect that the federal government failing under pressure of hyperinflation would likely result in states, or collections thereof forming into blocks and confederacies of their own.

Instead of a Soviet Union we'll end up with a CIS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonweal...ent_States

I'm not ruling out a change of government.  The seat of government might move, too, perhaps to wherever the nuclear weapons are or wherever they are produced.

[pbrower2a]

Revived with a warning after nearly a year: official cruelty is an obvious sign of national decadence in need of official rectification. When the cruel deeds are done to children and officials trivialize the harm done to children, we have a huge problem.


Children Separated From Parents At The Border Heard In Heartbreaking New Audio

An eight-minute audio clip released by ProPublica features a U.S. Border Patrol agent making jokes about an “orchestra” of wailing children.

Quote:ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, published audio on Monday of children crying out for their parents at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility.

The nearly eight-minute recording is of 10 Central American children who were separated from their parents last week by immigration authorities at the border, according to ProPublica.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent can be heard in the audio clip making a joke about the wailing children.

“Well, we have an orchestra here,” the agent says. “What’s missing is a conductor.”


The person who made the recording asked not to be identified out of fear of retaliation, ProPublica reports. HuffPost has not independently confirmed the authenticity of the recording.

At one point in the clip, a 6-year-old Salvadoran girl begs a consulate worker to call her aunt, whose number she’d memorized in case she was separated from her family.

“My mommy says that I’ll go with my aunt and that she’ll come to pick me up there as quickly as possible,” the unidentified girl says.

President Donald Trump’s administration announced the family separation policy in May as a part of a “zero tolerance” crackdown on illegal immigration to the United States. The practice of taking children from parents who illegally enter the country has ignited bipartisan backlash.

Trump has blamed Democrats amid mounting criticism, saying the crackdown was a result of inaction on border security in Congress. However, the family separations are entirely the result of Trump administration policy.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen also falsely purported the claim that the Trump administration’s tactic of taking children from their families at the border was an enforcement of the law.

There is no law requiring immigrant families to be separated, even if they are crossing the border illegally. Previous administrations allowed families to face deportation proceedings together in civil court. 

Nielsen said at a Monday press briefing that she did not hear the recording of the children and referred reporters to the department’s “standards” in treating the kids.

Strictly speaking, a vocal ensemble is a chorus or choir and not an orchestra, an instrumental group...

Cruelty is a fount of nothing but evil.

[Kinser79]

(10-22-2017, 12:40 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(10-14-2017, 10:17 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(10-14-2017, 09:55 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(10-05-2017, 05:21 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-15-2017, 03:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The degradation of American democracy has happened in stages, and the election of Donald Trump could be the start of the last stage. Could be. My most optimistic hope is that America reverts to its old pattern of a liberal-conservative divide in which quality matters more in politics than does ideology.

The problem the US empire faces is the changing logic violence where projecting power is becoming harder relative to defense.   As James Dale Davidson have said, "The most important causes of change are not to be found in political manifestos or in the pronouncements of dead economists, but in the hidden factors that alter the boundaries where power is exercised. Often, subtle changes in climate, topography, microbes, and technology alter the logic of violence."  This is what is shaping the demise of the nation-state and the US empire.  Trump is an effect not a cause.

The petrodollar is what has been keeping the US empire going since 1973 and the middle east wars of the last sixteen years are part of an effort to keep it going.  Once the petrodollar goes down, which looks like it will happen in the next five to ten years, then the US empire goes down with it.  I suggest you read the following two articles which describe the current state fo the empire as well as anything I have seen recently.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...in-us.html
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...-gold.html

While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it.  The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

"Cultures are not matters of taste but systems of adaptation to specific circumstances that may prove irrelevant or even counterproductive in other settings."

-James Dale Davidson, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

The US empire existed for a quarter century before the petrodollar.  Ultimately it's based on geography - the US geographic position on both of the world's major oceans.  There's every likelihood that the US could find a way to keep the empire going for the rest of the century, should it so choose.

I think you're missing a key factor.  What are the top exports of the US by volume.  Corn, Soybeans and timber.  What are is top imports, oil and consumer goods.  Considering that countries that typically export food and raw materials and import finished goods are third world countries, by definition, the end of the petrodollar would necessitate a transition to third world living standards.

Sure.  In the era of the petrodollar, there was little point to producing consumer goods ourselves when they could be bought with pieces of paper or electronic signals.

Without the petrodollar, that will change.  For example, a border adjustment tax could be used to level the playing field for consumer goods.  People on welfare or entitlements might have to start working again, but maybe that wouldn't be such a terrible thing.

And frankly, it's not us who produces the oil that supports the petrodollar.  Nothing says dollar denominated trade has to be supported by a US export.  In the extreme, the US Navy might provide protection from piracy only to ships carrying dollar denominated goods.

Incidentally, modern corn and soy are not raw materials.  They're essentially industrial products created from petrochemical based fertilizer.

Quote:And that assumes the state survives the hyperinflation that will ensue once all that debt starts coming back home.  Governments typically don't survive periods of hyperinflation, as Latin America can attest to (never mind Africa).

Since unlike Zimbabwe we don't have a single party state headed by a charismatic strong man (protests by the libtards not withstanding) the most likely outcome would be a military coup d'etat in the US should the petrodollar fail.

The fact is that the petrodollar allows the US to export its inflation problem (a problem inherent to fiat currencies) because if one cannot use US dollars to buy anything but corn, soybeans or timber then there is no reason to hoard vast reserves of US debt.

As for the US' geography, that is as much a hinderance as it is an asset.  Having lived many places in the US and abroad, I can tell you that Florida is vastly different from Illinois which is yet still different to Texas almost to the point of being almost completely different countries.  I suspect that the federal government failing under pressure of hyperinflation would likely result in states, or collections thereof forming into blocks and confederacies of their own.

Instead of a Soviet Union we'll end up with a CIS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonweal...ent_States

I'm not ruling out a change of government.  The seat of government might move, too, perhaps to wherever the nuclear weapons are or wherever they are produced.

I'm dispensing with the stripped format because it is getting too labourious to continue.

1.  A "Border Adjustment Tax" is typically called a Tariff.  I support raising tariffs, and raising them sky high.  I'm willing to pay more to buy Americans and to hire Americans.  Mind you I actually run a business which is more than be said of many posters on this forum.

2.  How to people get US dollars?  They accept them in exchange for things they sell to the US.  Given we're a largely consumer society this means they have to sell things to individual Americans be that in the form of Dollar Store bullshit, or iShits or whatever.  The actual commodities themselves do not matter, what matters is their willingness to accept those dollars as payment for those commodities.  If the only thing one can buy with US Dollars is corn and etc, then there is no reason to hold US dollars as a reserve.  Corn can be found anywhere,  soy the same.  We just have the largest surpluses and can sell those at bargain basement prices.

3.  The US Navy requires that the Dollar be able to support its operations.  After all countries whose main exports are bananas do not have blue water navies capable of protecting assets denominated in Colons or Pesos or whatever.  The loss of reserve status of the dollar would mean that the large military the empire relies on will be unsustainable.  Indeed it is likely unsustainable should the petrodollar be preserved.

4.  By your line of reasoning that soy and corn are fertilized and harvested with petroleum produced chemicals and using machines that use petroleum products one could argue that iron ore and coal aren't raw materials either because both are mined with machines that use petroleum.  Anyone who uses this line of argument usually gets laughed at by any serious economist.  Mostly because that argument is...how do I put this delicately...fucking stupid.

5.  Possible but unlikely.  There is no reason to change the capital from Washington unless modern mosquito control methods fail.  After all the Russians still use Moscow as opposed to some remote Siberian city.

I'm going to ignore PBR's reposing of fake news.  The separation of undocumented children from undocumented adults has been the law for ages.  Indeed considering that such children are possibly victims of human trafficking not doing so would be a greater crime and cruelty.  Also the law was passed by his good buddy that rabid fascist William Jefferson Clinton.  That is to say the President is enforcing the law.

[pbrower2a]

Well... Democrats won the majority in the House and won key statewide offices in the three states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) that made the difference between a Trump loss and a Trump win. Disapproval of this President remains high. It is theoretically possible for Trump to win re-election in the sense that a car in the Indy 500 is behind by four laps after 130 laps (nearly 300 miles into the race). A hundred years after Warren Gamaliel Harding coined the awful word normalcy, we may be headed back to a return to what existed before Trump.

[pbrower2a]

(08-19-2018, 02:32 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(10-22-2017, 12:40 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(10-14-2017, 10:17 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(10-14-2017, 09:55 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(10-05-2017, 05:21 AM)Galen Wrote: The problem the US empire faces is the changing logic violence where projecting power is becoming harder relative to defense.   As James Dale Davidson have said, "The most important causes of change are not to be found in political manifestos or in the pronouncements of dead economists, but in the hidden factors that alter the boundaries where power is exercised. Often, subtle changes in climate, topography, microbes, and technology alter the logic of violence."  This is what is shaping the demise of the nation-state and the US empire.  Trump is an effect not a cause.

The petrodollar is what has been keeping the US empire going since 1973 and the middle east wars of the last sixteen years are part of an effort to keep it going.  Once the petrodollar goes down, which looks like it will happen in the next five to ten years, then the US empire goes down with it.  I suggest you read the following two articles which describe the current state fo the empire as well as anything I have seen recently.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...in-us.html
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2...-gold.html

While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it.  The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

"Cultures are not matters of taste but systems of adaptation to specific circumstances that may prove irrelevant or even counterproductive in other settings."

-James Dale Davidson, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

The US empire existed for a quarter century before the petrodollar.  Ultimately it's based on geography - the US geographic position on both of the world's major oceans.  There's every likelihood that the US could find a way to keep the empire going for the rest of the century, should it so choose.

I think you're missing a key factor.  What are the top exports of the US by volume.  Corn, Soybeans and timber.  What are is top imports, oil and consumer goods.  Considering that countries that typically export food and raw materials and import finished goods are third world countries, by definition, the end of the petrodollar would necessitate a transition to third world living standards.

Sure.  In the era of the petrodollar, there was little point to producing consumer goods ourselves when they could be bought with pieces of paper or electronic signals.

Without the petrodollar, that will change.  For example, a border adjustment tax could be used to level the playing field for consumer goods.  People on welfare or entitlements might have to start working again, but maybe that wouldn't be such a terrible thing.

And frankly, it's not us who produces the oil that supports the petrodollar.  Nothing says dollar denominated trade has to be supported by a US export.  In the extreme, the US Navy might provide protection from piracy only to ships carrying dollar denominated goods.

Incidentally, modern corn and soy are not raw materials.  They're essentially industrial products created from petrochemical based fertilizer.

Quote:And that assumes the state survives the hyperinflation that will ensue once all that debt starts coming back home.  Governments typically don't survive periods of hyperinflation, as Latin America can attest to (never mind Africa).

Since unlike Zimbabwe we don't have a single party state headed by a charismatic strong man (protests by the libtards not withstanding) the most likely outcome would be a military coup d'etat in the US should the petrodollar fail.

The fact is that the petrodollar allows the US to export its inflation problem (a problem inherent to fiat currencies) because if one cannot use US dollars to buy anything but corn, soybeans or timber then there is no reason to hoard vast reserves of US debt.

As for the US' geography, that is as much a hinderance as it is an asset.  Having lived many places in the US and abroad, I can tell you that Florida is vastly different from Illinois which is yet still different to Texas almost to the point of being almost completely different countries.  I suspect that the federal government failing under pressure of hyperinflation would likely result in states, or collections thereof forming into blocks and confederacies of their own.

Instead of a Soviet Union we'll end up with a CIS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonweal...ent_States

I'm not ruling out a change of government.  The seat of government might move, too, perhaps to wherever the nuclear weapons are or wherever they are produced.

I'm dispensing with the stripped format because it is getting too labourious to continue.

1.  A "Border Adjustment Tax" is typically called a Tariff.  I support raising tariffs, and raising them sky high.  I'm willing to pay more to buy Americans and to hire Americans.  Mind you I actually run a business which is more than be said of many posters on this forum.

Tariffs are taxes -- bad taxes that distort the usual signals of a free market. The increase the cost of making any export and the overall cost of doing business. The promote monopolies and cartels at the expense of comsumer choice and social equity. They gut efficiency. It is far more appropriate to tax even-handedly, understanding of course that taxing the poor is ultimately futile.

Quote:2.  How to people get US dollars?  They accept them in exchange for things they sell to the US.  Given we're a largely consumer society this means they have to sell things to individual Americans be that in the form of Dollar Store bullshit, or iShits or whatever.  The actual commodities themselves do not matter, what matters is their willingness to accept those dollars as payment for those commodities.  If the only thing one can buy with US Dollars is corn and etc, then there is no reason to hold US dollars as a reserve.  Corn can be found anywhere,  soy the same.  We just have the largest surpluses and can sell those at bargain basement prices.

Let's start by recognizing who buys in dollar stores -- the poor. Likewise Wal*Mart. It is safe to assume that the poor are as rational as any in making their purchases of just about everything. It is a survival skill. The poor buy the crappier stuff, especially including what economists call inferior goods -- things that people buy more expensive and more desirable things as substitutes that make life more enjoyable and less precarious. Examples of such inferior goods and services include potatoes, hamburger, canned goods, sugary sodas, mass-market beer, credit life insurance, purchases from rent-to-own emporia and cars from tote-the-note lots (from the sorts of places that offer 'easy weekly payments'), thrift-store purchases, and payday lending. As people go higher in the economic pecking order or get more economic security they are more likely to get fresh fruit and vegetables, better cuts of beef (as well as seafood), wine, better grades of beer, less-restrictive life insurance, books, and newer vehicles.

Don't knock the poor; they make the lives of our economic elites far easier as the domestics, cleaners, and restaurant help.

As for the electronic junk -- and it is junk -- I know one way to cheat the cost.. be a late adapter (but not so late that one can't enjoy what one buys). I was slow to get a VCR, a compact-disc player, a wide-screen TV, and a cell phone. I don't buy such things until I can no longer imagine living without them, which is typically after the production lines lengthen and prices come down -- unless, of course, I have a use for them in making money. My cell phone came from a dollar store; it is a smart phone and costs about $50, and I cannot understand why people would pay $500 for a smart phone as computer access when one can barely get much enjoyment with of the screen size.

Quote:3.  The US Navy requires that the Dollar be able to support its operations.  After all countries whose main exports are bananas do not have blue water navies capable of protecting assets denominated in Colons or Pesos or whatever.  The loss of reserve status of the dollar would mean that the large military the empire relies on will be unsustainable.  Indeed it is likely unsustainable should the petrodollar be preserved.

All empires eventually go into decline, and how nations deal with such says much about the People of that country. Do the British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, or Belgians want their old colonial empires back? Do people in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Brussels really miss the alleged benefits of colonialism?

We can count on much the same as other countries catch up with us in living standards and economic prowess per capita. Let's put it this way -- do the poor really have much of a stake in "American interests abroad", the usual description of American overseas investments? That mine in Chile or that sweatshop factory in Indonesia, even if owned by American investors, is doing the poor little obvious and direct good.

We are approaching the point -- if we aren't already there -- in which more industrial production does not improve our economic lot. That is the ultimate triumph of capitalism, when industrial capitalism has done all that it can.

Quote:4.  By your line of reasoning that soy and corn are fertilized and harvested with petroleum produced chemicals and using machines that use petroleum products one could argue that iron ore and coal aren't raw materials either because both are mined with machines that use petroleum.  Anyone who uses this line of argument usually gets laughed at by any serious economist.  Mostly because that argument is...how do I put this delicately...fucking stupid.

I do not draw that conclusion. If a consequence of a line of thought is an absurdity, then that line of thought is either fallacious or based on questionable assumptions.

Quote:5.  Possible but unlikely.  There is no reason to change the capital from Washington unless modern mosquito control methods fail.  After all the Russians still use Moscow as opposed to some remote Siberian city.

What if Chesapeake Bay expands to inundate Washington, DC (as well as Baltimore and Richmond)? We might have to rely on such a city as St. Louis or Chicago as the capital of the United States. That said, the capital of the US moves perhaps to Manchester...

Quote:I'm going to ignore PBR's reposing of fake news.  The separation of undocumented children from undocumented adults has been the law for ages.  Indeed considering that such children are possibly victims of human trafficking not doing so would be a greater crime and cruelty.  Also the law was passed by his good buddy that rabid fascist William Jefferson Clinton.  That is to say the President is enforcing the law.

It is not fake news. The difference is that Trump is using the children as cudgels to get illegal aliens to accede to deportation even faster. Human trafficking? There's nothing wrong with human trafficking that well-tied ropes and appropriate drops would not solve. But also, maybe Americans ought to think twice about visiting ill-disguised whorehouses that call themselves 'spas' or 'massage parlors' where many of the trafficked people are put to work as near-slaves.

[Eric the Green]

This topic needs a definition of the USA "empire." Strictly speaking, the USA has divested itself of much of its empire already, after its conquests in the 1890s. It still holds some conquered territories though. It absorbed Hawaii into itself, and holds on to Puerto Rico and Guam. It let the Philippines go in 1946, after successfully seeking to hold on to it in 1899-1902. It let Cuba go sometime ago, and it has stopped joining the other powers to enforce their will on China after the Boxer Rebellion.

Since WWII, American imperialism revolved around the Cold War and then the War on Terror, so-called. It has not conquered territory directly, but going back to TR has demanded what kind of government some other countries must have. This process was stepped up after FDR. The USA kept South Korea from being conquered by the Communist North, but failed to keep the manufactured country of South Vietnam from being conquered by their Communist North. The USA conducted coups in such countries as Guatemala, Iran and Chile to keep them from going communist, and helped repress a movement in Honduras for much the same reason. It supported right-wing contra rebels in Nicaragua who failed to recaptured the country from a native left-wing Sandanista movement, but Nicaragua went moderate on its own anyway. It imposed sanctions on Venezuela against the allegedly socialist government here, and has recently stepped them up under Trump to drive the country and its people to total ruin. It conquered Panama to topple the Noriega dictatorship and then let it go, and had already relinquished the Canal Zone that TR had conquered. It helped prop up Israel in a region whose regimes were largely allied with the Soviet Union.

It continues to support Israel from the terrorist movements against it, starting in the 1970s. It waged campaigns against Palestinian terrorists in the 1980s, and recaptured Kuwait by organizing and leading a coalition against Saddam Hussein of Iraq in 1991. Then in 2001 the USA supported an alliance against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan after 9-11, and eventually invaded the country to keep the Taliban out of power. Then in 2003 it invaded Iraq, deposed Saddam, and imposed an ineffective parliamentary government there. It re-invaded Iraq and Syria with Kurdish and Iraqi support and participation to roll back the Islamic State conquests in 2014-2017. It has continued to impose its military influence in various and limited ways in parts of such regions as the Sahel in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and South-east Asia.

But all this has not resulted in any further direct territorial conquests by the United States of America. So what is the empire today? Is it our campaigns to influence other countries? Is it the dominance of our currency, especially in regard to oil (the petrodollar)? Is it the worldwide economic control by multi-national corporations, many of whom originally grew and became wealthy and powerful in the USA, and benefited from free trade agreements?

If so, what are the consequences of the "fall" of this "empire" of world-wide military and economic influence? Does it mean that the USA will break-up or lose territory? Does it mean it will decline in power and influence?

Or will divesting itself of much of this role as world cop and decider, and by gaining regulatory control of and re-distributing the wealth and power of the multi-national corporations, and their trade/currency behavior and offshore tax evasion, as the progressives and green new dealers propose, actually benefit the United States and its wealth and power by allowing it to become a more middle-class and more peaceful country again?

[Bill the Piper]

India could be another democratic superpower, the Indian economy could be the largest in the world by 2050. If so, I'm looking to US-UK-India alliance, all three nations share the English language as well.

Down with China and their social credit sySStem!