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Why America Fell So Far … So Fast
Thomas Edison said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” And because I love my country, I frequently criticize America’s shortcomings in the hopes of making her better.
But the truth is that the United States is not unusual … it is just like all other empires which have hit their peak and then quickly crashed.
We noted in 2008:
Political insider and veteran reporter Kevin Phillips has documented that every major empire over the past several hundred years has undergone a predictable cycle of collapse, usually within 10 to 20 years of its peak power.
The indications are always the same:
- The financialization of the economy, moving from manufacturing to speculation;
- Very high levels of debt;
- Extreme economic inequality;
– And costly military overreaching.
We wrote in 2009:
In 2000, America was described as the sole remaining superpower – or even the world’s “hyperpower”. Now we’re in real trouble (at the very least, you have to admit that we’re losing power and wealth in comparison with China).
How did it happen so fast?
***
How Empires Fall
Paul Farrel provides a bigger-picture analysis, quoting Jared Diamond and Marc Faber.
Diamond’s book’s, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, studies the collapse of civilizations throughout history, and finds:
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…
One of the choices has depended on the courage to practice long-term thinking, and to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible but before they reach crisis proportions
And PhD economist Faber states:
How [am I] so sure about this final collapse?
Of all the questions I have about the future, this is the easiest one to answer. Once a society becomes successful it becomes arrogant, righteous, overconfident, corrupt, and decadent … overspends … costly wars … wealth inequity and social tensions increase; and society enters a secular decline.
[Quoting 18th century Scottish historian Alexander Fraser Tytler:] The average life span of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years progressing from “bondage to spiritual faith … to great courage … to liberty … to abundance … to selfishness … to complacency … to apathy … to dependence and … back into bondage”
[Where is America in the cycle?] It is most unlikely that Western societies, and especially the U.S., will be an exception to this typical “society cycle.” … The U.S. is somewhere between the phase where it moves “from complacency to apathy” and “from apathy to dependence.”
In other words, America’s rapid fall is not really that novel after all.
How Consumers, Politicians and Wall Street All Contributed to the Fall
On the individual level, people became “fat and happy”, the abundance led to selfishness (“greed is good”), and then complacency, and then apathy.
Indeed, if you think back about tv and radio ads over the last couple of decades, you can trace the tone of voice of the characters from Gordon Gecko-like, to complacent, to apathetic and know-nothing.
On the political level, there was no courage in the White House or Congress “to practice long-term thinking, and to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions”. Of course, the bucket-loads of donations from Wall Street didn’t hurt, but there was also a religion of deregulation promoted by Greenspan, Rubin, Gensler and others which preached that the economy was self-stabilizing and self-sustaining. This type of false ideology only can spread during times of abundance and complacency, when an empire is at its peak and people can fool themselves into thinking “the empire has always been prosperous, we’ve solved all of the problems, and we will always prosper” (incidentally, this type of false thinking was also common in the 1920′s, when government and financial leaders said that the “modern banking system” – overseen by the Federal Reserve – had destroyed instability once and for all).
And as for Wall Street, the best possible time to pillage is when your victim is at the peak of wealth. With America in a huge bubble phase of wealth and power, the Wall Street looters sucked out vast sums through fraudulent subprime loans, derivatives and securitization schemes, Ponzi schemes and high frequency trading and dark pools and all of the rest.
Like the mugger who waits until his victim has made a withdrawal from the ATM, the white collar criminals pounced when America’s economy was booming (at least on paper).
Given that the people were in a contented stupor of consumption, and the politicians were flush with cash and feel-good platitudes, the job of the criminals became easier.
A study of the crash of the Roman – or almost any other – empire would show something very similar.
We pointed out in 2010 that more empires have fallen due to reckless finance than invasion. (Whichever side of the stimulus-austerity debate you agree with, spending walls of money on things which neither help people or stimulate the economy is idiotic.)
Inequality was – indeed – one of the main reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire … and inequality in America is much worse than in Ancient Rome. In fact, inequality in America today is twice as bad as in ancient Rome , worse than it was in in Tsarist Russia, Gilded Age America, modern Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen, many banana republics in Latin America, and worse than experienced by slaves in 1774 colonial America.
Finacialization? Yup, we’ve got that in spades … Economist Steve Keen has also shown that “a sustainable level of bank profits appears to be about 1% of GDP”, and that higher bank profits leads to a ponzi economy and a depression). But government policy has been encouraging the growth of the financial sector for decades:
Corruption? Check … the government and big banks are all wallowing in a pig sty of criminal fraud. The economy has been hollowed out due to looting and fraud. And our institutions are so corrupt that people have lost faith in the economy. They are so corrupt and oppressive that people are more afraid of the government than of terrorists.
The bigger the bubble, the bigger crash … and we’ve just come out of the biggest bubble in history.
Costly military overreaching? Definitely…
The war in Iraq – which will end up costing between $5 and $6 trillion dollars – was launched based upon false justifications. Indeed, the government apparently planned both the Afghanistan war (see this and this) and the Iraq war before 9/11.
It is ironic that our military is what made us a superpower, but our huge military is bankrupting us … thus destroying our status as an empire.
Empires which fight “one too many wars” always collapse:
“Just one more surge!” — The Indus
“Just one more surge!” — The Kushan
“Just one more surge!” — The Scythians
“Just one more surge!” — The Parthians
“Just one more surge!” — The Saffarid
“Just one more surge!” — The Ghaznavid
“Just one more surge!” — The Ghorid
“Just one more surge!” — The Timurid
“Just one more surge!” — The Hotaki
“Just one more surge!” — The Durrani
“Just one more surge!” — The Aryan
“Just one more surge!” — The Persians
“Just one more surge!” — The Sassanids
“Just one more surge!” — The Hephthalites
“Just one more surge!” — The Huns
“Just one more surge!” — The Mughals
“Just one more surge!” — The Arabs
“Just one more surge!” — The Turkic
“Just one more surge!” — The Hazaras
“Just one more surge!” — The Khwarezmids
“Just one more surge!” — The Mongols
“Just one more surge!” — The British
“Just one more surge!” — The British (again)
“Just one more surge!” — The British (Yet again)
“Just one more surge!” — The USSR
“Just one more surge!” — The United States
»
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Joseph Stiglitz, "War and the Economy: The True Cost of Conflict" {~47minutes}
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRPYq2Ndzfk
Ike nailed it when he left office:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/15026-1
Just think of it this way. Our best and brightest scientists, engineers, programmers are designing military equipment while those in Japan, Germany and South Korea are designing motor vehicles and other commercially sellable items. Yes, some of our military stuff gets commercialized over time, but net/net, we end up giving away much of our commercial markets to others.
wonder if he's related to THIS man;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdlM2VZujOc
So how does one know the peak when one gets to it?
The simple answer to this question is when your main trading partners are falling over themselves to lend you money and the fed can take a back seat. Ooops!
Ask the Fonz...
It's long past. You're living through the death throes. Your question is of no practical importance.
We are watching echoes of illusions, shadows of dreams long since dreamt play on the walls distracting us from the blaze comsuming Rome. we are content to listen to the MSM fiddle us into oblivion with trivialities and distractions.
All we need are the barbarians sneaking across the border to loot whatever isn't carved in stone.
How can you tell the peak? 50 million on foodstamps is a good clue. Major cities like Detroit falling into such disrepair they can't light the streets. basic services unaffordable and most people don't notice or don't care.
The peak is gone, that raw sore on your backside is from sliding down the economic collapse, watch out, that last drop is a doozy.
living in a van down by the river may turn out to be the lap of luxury.
Merry Prankster I hope you don't work at a suicide hotline.
Yep certainly a half-glass empty kinda guy.
Not that I disagree ;-)
Don't you mean a "glass half-empty" kinda guy?
When edible arrangements is a viable business.
the dollar as reserve currency is the only thing propping up this tower of warm jello.
currency collapses happen relatively fast. i, for one, hope to be outa here before that occurs.
Being early is okay; being late sucks.
Outa here, and miss all the action!!
just to get in before anyone else comes along.
there you go again gw, bashing the usa without any substance. how dare you call yourself, gw. USA!USA!USAS! WE ARE NUMBER 1! OH, SAY CAN YOU SEE.........
i hope you feel better now. what would one of your posts be without the usual ignorance spewing crap at you.
I think it was the British who said something about the end being near when it became fashionable to bash your own country. There is something...wrenching watching packs of wolves salivating at our coming destruction and ruin. My America is, alas, gone forever - the innocent, proud, free folks from that aspirational society who knew that hard work, democracy, etc would lead us out of the wilderness. Now it's constant war, constant debt, constant alienation. I hope we can manage the slow decline at least as well as the British have done.
America was never an Empire. At some point it was conquered by the Empire and became the Empire's fist.
Guess you never heard of the concept of "Manifest Destiny."
Absolutely. Most of those who run the FED aren't even americans.
Whether the US is seen as an Empire only depends on what country or people are viewing it. Probably billions have no doubts that it is an Empire, it just has no continuous Emperor.
Whatever you want to call it, it is what it does, and it is Rome, by another name.
Not Rome, america is the 4th reich. See project paperclip.We invited the Nazi's into the government and guess what? we wound up with a Nazi government!
Waaait up! WHo invited a host of retired "nazis" into America?? Who be this we... that you speak of>>?????
Fourth Reich operates outta Dachau ... German DVD - controlled by international HQ BnaiBrith... aka "crypto"-jewish masonic lodge top hierarchy. It be the actual S.P.E.C.T.R.E that Ian Fleming fictionalised.
It was their operatives and henchmen... DullesBros\Donovan\JJA\PrescottBush &Co who invited Gelhen\Canaris Nazi-Sionist factions to nest in Amerika... not some kind of 'we the people' as your post implies.
The rest is hitstory... Heinrich Muller and the birth of the two-bullet suicide!
What else do you need to know?
Oh man, forget the meds again.
As per usual... not even the weakest of rebuttals managed by the limp wristed finger jocks amongst us...
jus deflection. I recommend you do refill that prescription... prolly covered by that .gov benefits package!
Rome made the USA look like a party of school kids on spring break. Rome was a real Empire. Rome conquered and ran Iraq, Iran, and Syria; as well as Judea; and England. And they all paid their taxes on time. The USA is just the result of a bunch of more or less dumb bunnies ripping off the resources of a virgin continent; and then proving that really didn't have a clue.
Rome lasted for far longer than the US will.
It's easy to become rich and powerful when you inherit most of a continent rich in natural resources (well, TAKE it from far less advanced locals) and remain geographically isolaced from major threats for over a century while others elsewhere destroy each other on a regular basis).
Rome grew fighting for its survival, defeating powerful rivals in costly wars, growing and expanding. BUT Rome also respectedf those it conquered and felt no need to impose its ways on them - Rome made others PART of its Empire - it was INCLUSIVE and those that wanted to be included could benefit handsomely from being part of the larger Rome. Riome was also far more vicious and ruthless with those that stood against it.
The hope and promise of the US was its focus on rights and the individual - values that attract and inspire others but work against the management of an Empire overseeing those who may not want to 'belong'
It's official - you're an idiot. Anyone with an atom of sense who has read even a smattering of history would know that the US led the world into the modern era - not by "ripping off the resources of a virgin continent" (lol) but by invention, hard work and the most limited government in the world at the time. Those same resources existed in Asia, Europe, AFrica and South America - North America is not geologically unique. It was the political system and character of the populace that made the difference then and sadly, the same thing could be said in reverse today.
Onward!
The American Empire is turning inward on itself. Different factions of our country are posturing against each other in major ways that are chipping away at our means of standing tall as one people. The "trust and confidence" is coming apart on a macro level.
That's what happens when the entity is littered with cancer. The longer you take to remove it, the sicker the whole thing gets. The sad thing is that the most severe of the cancer is in the head region in this case and it's the thing making the decisions about what needs to stay and what needs to go. We have a quite a few "white blood cells" here on ZH but not nearly enough to fix this contaminated mess of ideology, ignorance, entitlement, selfishness, greed, etc. to save this patient.
We're not "one people". Our official party line is that we're a melting pot. Also, according to our official party line, the IQ90 Africans are "equal" to the Europeans who built this place. There's never been any trust and confidence, nor is there any reason for it.
The politically correct description, as dictated to me by my college sociology professor (one of those 'required' classes to get an accounting degree) is that the U.S. in NOT a melting pot; it is a salad bowl.
My take on it is: You've got various social vegetables that remain distinct up until the point a smothering coverage is applied shortly before being chewed to shit.
It's really all in the speed in which you integrate the ingredients. If you toss disparate ingredients together quickly then you end up with a salad but if you blend them slowly into a cohesive and complimentary mixture, you'll get a melting pot. Our gov't leaders decided a quick and large salad was better for their corporate sponsors because "lettuce" was so cheap and inexhaustible across the border.
H E,
Really..?? This is 'new'..??
Look, in the beginning, we had Tories v Colonists. Then we had N v S. Now we have the makings of a new civil war along class lines.
Us v Them conflict is in our bones and DNA.
I will grant you that 'this time' is could get VERY ugly.
"In the beginning," we had Eve saying, "You don't want me to eat an apple because then I'll know some shit? Fuck that."
Maybe right there. But if (however remote) a critical mass of Americans wake up and actually start talking with each other, TPTB will have a big, big problem holding power in the US.
I disagree in that I don't necessarily think TPTB (although still responsible for morphing this system) are the problem as much as the SYSTEM itself is the problem now. You can switch out the current heads of this system with new one's and it's not going to change much because it's the human being that is the most flawed aspect in this equation. In that regard, the system has to change to accommodate flawed humans with their greed, selfishness and all other fallible traits. This system REWARDS those traits rather than serves to mitigate or protect others from them. The more narcissistic and psychopathic you are in this system, the more you'll prosper. As a result, every decision that is made must be made with the consideration of how a "bad" person will respond or deal with it instead of the BS idea that you always here by so called optimists that they always consider people "generally good". Thus, when a "generally good" stranger tells you that "greed is good" then your going to approach his selfish argument with general optimism instead of the necessary pessimism. This is the "nice guy" concept that allows these manipulators to take an optimistic inch and steal a mile and completely change a well functioning "healthy" system to one that serves their every desire and they always seek positions of control.
As a result, unless some one comes up with a "template" or system that establishes fairness and opportunity back into the system that people see as one worth fighting for, I don't see a productive "revolution" happening as much as I see an ongoing and accelerating decay of society. This will likely and unfortunately happen within the lower class while barely having an effect on the upper class with the resources to wall themselves off from any dissent. I can assure you that such a "template" is necessary as few people will choose the risk of the "unknown" as opposed to the system they already know especially if your asking them to risk anything for this change. This is especially true after SO MANY people placed so much emotional trust into Obama's "Hope & Change" and now understand that it was no different than any other self serving political slogan as he squandered opportunity after opportunity to make any real changes. Now, he's just desperate to make any change with his influence weakening to account for some kind of legacy. While the people's anger may linger and eventually ignite a firestorm, that will be short lived just like "Occupy WallSteet" protest unless there is a plan which that movement lacked to keep people engaged. The first rule of this template can be that Corporations are not people and Corporations are not allowed to own more than 5% of the shares of any MSM.
Greed is good. It has lifted billions out of poverty globally. But that said, societies must recognize that unfettered greed will lead to their ultimate collapse as pointed out by GW above.
Herein lies the conundrum. Most people think in terms of black or white. Greed is always good - extreme conservatism. Greed is always bad - extreme progressivism. In truth, greed is good as it motivates individuals within society to individually improve their lot thereby collectively I proving society. However greed must be controlled through intelligent laws and regulations so as to prevent it's self-destructive tendencies. This is where we are failing.
Greenspan has taken a lot of crap - much of it deserved. However he also admitted he was wrong in one of his fundamental beliefs that financial markets would self-regulate before they turned destructive. Charlie MUnger takes a lot of crap. But he is spot on when he likens bankers to heroin addicts who will extend credit for as long as they can without regard to consequences.
It is far easier for one to look at the world's issues in black-white terms. This requires little cognitive thought. It is far more difficult to think in terms of a proper balance between conflicting objectives to achieve the best outcome. Judgement is required. In depth analysis and relative risk-reward thought processes are necessary. But this is the correct approach and the only one that will allow us to avoid a collapse of the empire.
Aristotle developed an entire philosophy rooted in the belief that moderation in all aspects of individual behaviors was the highest form of being. Well, this same philosophy should be applied to the collective behaviors and actions of society. Strive to make the difficult, slow-brain, balanced decisions rather than the knee-jerk ideology-based reactions.
Unfortunately, the most 'unfettered greed' is that of government and that is not on very many people's radar.
So how would the other 'unfettered greed' do without government?
Mannual +1 here as well. There is a template on how to reform this system to turn the tables on the bad guys, including virtual corporate ones. http://www.amazon.com/Localism-A-Philosophy-Government-ebook/dp/B00B0GACAQ/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_t_2_GB3H
I can't up arrow you because where the quote from my post was pasted in your post.
So, Plus 1, long form.
Everyone knows how to surrender; even the SS Panzer divisions; they just had to learn on the job. Your collective of citizens will be introduced to the wonders of "Air supremancy"; and the results may or may not appear on the news.
Air supremacy? Didn't we have that in the occupation of Iraq? Seems to me we still did not win until after the local Sunnis turned on Al-Quaeda. I am sitting here wondering what a relative handful of impoverished semi-literate Arabs in an open desert have that we don't have?
Dronemania...could very well happen
How about one more splurge. .....
I've been on this planet for 58 years and I have never seen the wholesale level of governmental fraud and corruption, crony capitalism, income and wealth disparity, elitism and hypocracy, that I am witnessing today. All of these things have always been around, but like the above chart comparing the financial economy with the real economy, each of them has gone exponentially off the charts over the past decade. There once were statesmen srpinkled in with the self-serving politicians. You no longer see them. Instead they all are motivated by personal greed and power lust. The Clintons, Gore, Obama, Pelosi, members of Congress who "day traded" the financial meltdown, green energy deals with bailouts for major contributors, tax loopholes for major contributors, Boehner selling his soul to Wallstreet immediately after the meltdown. The FDA approving "herion in pill form" with no one having the courage now to take it off the market even though our prisons and communities are today full of addicts who have zero employability skills. Both parties are doing it and they are doing it at local, state and national levels. Hell, even judges are getting into the game.
The modern nation-state had its beginnings in the 13th century, finding its justification in the social contract theory propounded in Hobbe's Leviathan. There was no "contract," however, never has been, and never will be, as the state is everywhere and always an aggressor, its source and sustanence being a territorial monopoly on the use of force. And now that the world is ruled exclusively by these aggressors, which are united in the manner of a den of thieves — "a gang writ large," as Rothbard wrote — it is little wonder that the vast money and banking fraud they've perpetrated for decades is collapsing under its own weight, or rather, the increasing weightlessness of its paper IOUs.
That this global ponzinomics has also destroyed the moral fabric of society is thus no surprise and is merely its logical consequence. And however difficult the return to self-reliant interdependence will be, there is simply no alternative to it if humankind is going to realize its all but limitless potential.
Our species is barely two hundred thousand years old, the merest eye-blink in a universe that is some 14 billion years old. Which is to say that we are at most teenagers at his point, if not still children, with the Internet entering our collective consciouness with monumental, paradigm-shifting power. And while we may not know what to do with it yet, we will either do with it or die, as we simply weren't made to be ruled by others of our own kind. For as Jefferson asked rhetorically: "It is sometimes said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"
The answer is a resounding No!, and as the reality of this fact makes itself painfully clear in the coming years, the more who learn to say Yes! to our true nature — to our innate ability to cooperate for our mutual benefit rather than be coerced into doing the bidding of others — the sooner we will be on our way to a genuine fulfillment that will remain joyously beyond our grasp.
The mental make-up of the creators of a civilization is very different from the mental make-up of its destroyers. The inheritors eventually degenerate and are also diluted by less capable outsiders. Motivations and behaviors change to the extent that the civilization fails.
Like in Detroit.
Civilization still has a very thin veneer, due exclusively to the endless predations of the state and its precusors. Without them, humankind's innate capacity for social cooperation and integration would have thickened that veneer into a protective coating that would easily deflect the relatively sparse, incidental aggression of the common criminal. Yes, there is organized crime but nothing approximating the institutionally organized crime of the state, which provides the legal cover — the prohibitions — without which most organized crime wouldn't exist.
Thus, the state must be eradicated if civilization is to prevail and humanity is to rendezvous with its destiny.
In the meantime, the state can kiss my ass.