Newsweek: American May Truly Be In Decline

[liberal N proud]

Call it America's Age of Angst. The buzz of negativity seems to be everywhere. DECLINE AND FALL: WHEN THE AMERICAN EMPIRE GOES, IT IS LIKELY TO GO QUICKLY reads the cover headline for British historian Niall Ferguson's article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Faced with an unemployment rate near 10 percent, a ballooning deficit, and a grueling partisan battle over health-care reform, both President Barack Obama and his Republican critics in Congress are complaining loudly about the government's inability to get things done. In the meantime, there's a growing sense that others—here, China is always first on the list—are steadily chipping away at America's leadership position in the world.

The messages from the White House are somewhat schizophrenic. In his State of the Union Message, Obama expressed frustration about the gridlock in Washington. "I have one simple question: How long should we wait? How long should America put its future on hold?" he asked. "You see, Washington has been telling us to wait for decades, even as the problems have grown worse. Meanwhile, China is not waiting to revamp its economy. Germany is not waiting. India is not waiting." While claiming that he will not accept second place for the United States, he made it sound like that's where the country is heading if it doesn't change course.

Vice President Joe Biden, who is dependably blunt, echoed that sentiment, charging that "Washington right now is broken." But in an interview with Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, he also lashed out at the "ridiculous" talk of America's decline. "Give me a break," he complained. Alluding to historian Paul Kennedy's 1988 book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers that argued the United States was next in line for a fall (in fact, it was the Soviet empire that crumbled the following year), Biden noted that such predictions have been wrong before and are likely to be wrong again. "So many people have bet on our demise that it absolutely drives me crazy."

Biden has a point. But this time, the anxiety seems like more than a feeling. It is more deeply rooted in concerns about long-term trends, and warning lights are flashing in several places. It's harder now to shrug off the America-in-decline theories than ever before.

In his Foreign Affairs article, Ferguson points to two of the most troubling trends. According to one projection by the Congressional Budget Office, America's public debt could skyrocket from 44 percent of GDP before the 2008 financial crisis to 716 percent in 2080. If legislative reforms don't expand the size of government, the CBO dials the projection back to 280 percent. Hardly reassuring either way. As are the projections Ferguson cites about China's GDP overtaking U.S. GDP by either 2027 or 2040, depending on which calculation you choose. And India, he notes, is projected to overtake the U.S. in 2050.

The rest of at: http://www.newsweek.com/id/234965


The messages from the White House are somewhat schizophrenic???

[Luciferous]

1. Geez, that's surprising

:eyes:

[NYC_SKP]

2. Should have written this ten years ago. The writing was on the wall that long ago, longer.

[arcadian]

14. He who has the biggest penis wins.

[timeforpeace]

3. Right, and they wait until Obama is president to declare this.

[GoCubsGo]

22. Anyone expect something different from that rag?

I have to say, when I saw that headline, my only thought was, "You're just NOW figuring that out??? Where the hell have you people been for the last 30 years???" Of course it's all Obama's fault. He has usurped Bill Clinton's position as The Root of All Evil.

[midnight armadillo]

4. No big surprise

Congress is owned lock, stock, and barrel by the wealthiest persons and corporations in the country. These same people approve appointments to the judiciary. No one becomes president who might truly threaten the moneyed interests. The wealthiest few percent of the US own most of everything in the country while kicking the middle class in the nuts. Congress is a few hundred people attempting to represent 300+ million people. We do not have representative democracy, we have a farce, a charade of government.

Every empire declines.

[marmar]

5. This is news to Newsweek?

Reagan got that ball rolling 30 years ago.

[Marr]

6. How did I know they were going to fixate on the deficit?

Of course. That's always the cause of decline if you listen to corporate types, and the solution is always the same: cut entitlements. Can't cut back on military spending or wars for fat cats, of course. No, we've got to boost the handouts to crooks in suits and cut everything else. After all, they're the heart of the system! They make the whole thing run! Except when it's not running well. Then they need MORE! To make things run!

[Mari333]

7. GOOD RIDDANCE to american empire. nt

[Warpy]

8. If we don't give up empire willingly and soon, we are finished

We can't afford empire. Oh, we might have been able to had the rich among us decided they wanted to get richer faster and refused to pay the taxes that supported their empire. That left the full burden of Empire on the shoulders of working people who were paid less in terms of purchasing power every single year. Now it's obvious that we can't afford it at all, not even if the wealthy realize they have to pay for the thing that most benefits them.

We as a people are sick and getting tired. Our infrastructure has been allowed to rot. Our industry has been exported in the name of making the rich richer. Our country is just about exhausted. Only by giving up our claim to Empire and the accoutrements like those 700+ foreign bases, can we possibly manage to rebuild.

Offhand, I'd say it's already collapsed. If we give it up before anybody notices, we'll get through it a lot better.

[skeptical cynic]

9. Empires come and go

Our huge military budget is probably one sign that we're not going to decline peacefully.

In an age of science and technology, half the US population believes the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

On the bright side of the end of our hegemony, no more sending the children of the poor to fight the wars of the rich.

[Loge23]

10. Ya' think?

The U.S.A. is falling in so many important measures: financially, educationally, infrastructure, health, and certainly in civic pride. We don't live together well anymore and we've essentially killed off our own symbolic spirit of pioneerism, freedom, and independence. We willingly stand in lines, barefoot, at airports so that we can assuage our misplaced fear of being involved in a terrorist attack. We sacrifice basic liberties allowing cameras everywhere because "we are not doing anything wrong and we don't have anything to hide".
Many of our children graduate from high school without the skills to work for minimum wage let alone go to college.
Our health care delivery system is the best in the world, we tell ourselves - even as we watch the rest of the world pass us in life expectancy and outcomes.
We sit for hours in choking traffic jams while Europeans whisk by in high-speed rail cars.
We make up the difference in longer work hours and little or no vacations, still being one of the most productive work force in the world - even as our jobs are sold off to low wage countries and our own quality of life continues to deteriorate.
BUT!
We have some hell of a military - a military that remains largely mired in WWII and Cold War strategies even as our enemies have morphed into a sophisticated guerrilla operation.
We have a government brought and paid for by the elite few - a government that can't govern but can borrow enormous sums from a former (and possibly still) hostile foe in order to pay for their own ineptness.
But no decline. Us?? The U.S.A?? Didn't you see the Olympics?

[kestrel91316]

11. Good. Maybe when we're not an "empire" anymore we can quit with the fucking

wars of foreign conquest.

[Subdivisions]

12. American bagan to decline the moment our oil production peaked. And,

now that the world's oil production has peaked, the decline is accelerating. In fact, we are full-blown collapse. It took the Roman Empire 80 years to collapse. We're nearly 40 years into ours. Our empire will collapse quicker than the Romans' did.

[raccoon]

19. Yes, because things change faster than they did 2000 years ago. nt

[David Zephyr]

13. May be? LOL!

Our standard of living began the great decline with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

[latebloomer]

15. No shit, Sherlock

:eyes:

[unblock]

16. whenever republicans have control for too long, it all goes to hell.

[Kablooie]

17. We can thank the Project for a New American Century

They masterminded the whole thing and implemented their destruction of the country during Bush's 8 years.

[MadHound]

18. Well D'uh!

The American Empire has been on the decline for a long while. We had a chance to change that direction when Clinton came into office, but that simply didn't work out.

[RainDog]

20. During the Bush admin. Ferguson was on tv telling Americans to embrace Empire

I remember this distinctly.

now he's saying that empire is on its way out? THE SAME MAN who tried to convince America to be an imperial dick in Iraq???

While it's clear that 30 years of conservative rule has driven this nation into the ground, the way out is to reject this same degrading philosophy and remember that we were created to be a republic, not an empire.

that was the way out when Ferguson was pimpin' empire, too.

this article has the bullshit to claim that republicans are complaining about an unworkable govt when THEY ARE THE REASON WHY THINGS ARE SO FUCKED UP!

American new propaganda organs are bullshit. this includes Newsweek, Time, CNN, Fox...

anyone who reads them or watches them who expects to know the truth is bullshitting themselves.

[LeftinOH]

21. ..and we already know the Republican strategy to reverse the decline-

Invade some country, somewhere, under some phony-ass pretext.

[RainDog]

23. that's the reason for the decline

we are spending far too much money on military and far too little on the common good.