Discussion on America's future

[The Beatles]

Don't get me wrong, the collapse of the largest economy in the world would send shockwaves through the system, leading to a worldwide slump. But I'm saying it wouldn't be a worldwide depression -- after all, it's not just the US who buys oil from the Arab states for instance. My guess is that the US and its strong trading partners would go into varying degrees of economic depression with rising unemployment etc. while other countries would experience slowdown but not a crisis.

Consider the First World War. Most of the industrial base in the world went out, with the two leaders -- the UK (and remember the pound was the dominant reserve currency at the time) and Germany -- being rather wrecked. Did the economy go boom? Nope. (All right, not the same, as the US picked up the slack, and there was a depression 10 years later for unrelated causes.) But the point is, I rather doubt there would be a repeat of the Great Depression, which was international in scale.

[edit] By the way, when I say ``American Empire'' I don't mean to offend... I don't inherently dislike empires, but judge them as they do -- so for instance I would tend to classify the overall influence of the Roman, British and American empires as positive; the Spanish and the French negative. (And I do believe that you form an economic and informally military empire.)

[Gen. Volkov]

We probably do constitute an Empire militarily, though certainly not like the Roman or British Empires. Both of those kept large populations of people from other formerly independent countries under direct rule for hundreds of years. The biggest population currently under our control of this type is the American Indians, which isn't all that large, we had the Phillipines for awhile, but they rule themselves now. I suppose you could count Iraq as a temporary imperial possession, but we're in the process of giving it back to them.

Economically, we are almost unquestionably an empire. I mean there are Pizza Huts in Eygpt. My relatives were there visiting, and took a picture of the Great Pyramid out of the window of a Pizza Hut.

The largest purchasers of Arabian oil are the US and it's strong trading partners. They go into depression, the Arab states lose a very large chunk of their income and go into depression. The trading partners of the Arab states that haven't been affected yet lose that money. They go into depression, and so on in a domino effect until the entire world is in a depression. Together, the US, Western Europe, China, and Japan make up a very significant fraction of the world's GDP. It just so happens that the US, Western Europe, China, and Japan are very strong trading partners with each other. And with most of the rest of the world too, all taken together. That causes big problems when the US falls, as Western Europe, Japan, and China all depend heavily on US trade.

The world is just too connected. There is no one out there to pick up the slack like the US did. We still had people to buy our products. Britain and Germany's industrial bases were ruined, but their economies still functioned. Everyone's economy still did, they just didn't have anyone to buy from until the US stepped up. Totally different situation when the US goes under. We aren't the big producer, we are the big buyer. People will be making things, but have nowhere to sell them. It's just not a comparable situation at all. What it is comparable too is the Great Depression. One big economy tanked, and then the ones that depended on it tanked, and then the ones that depended on them tanked, until the whole world was in a depression. The US was one of the early ones, though I don't think it was the first one. The same thing would occur if the US economy tanked.

[The Beatles]

I don't judge an empire for the worse merely because it keeps a formerly self-governing area from self-government, or because it took self-government away from all the little factions in an area and consolidated it. Obviously the benefit of an empire runs out at one point, the nice thing though is that for instance the British usually gave it up at that point. The only exceptions (where the population had reached autonomous maturity) I can think of are the 13 colonies (albeit those were under different circumstances) and Ireland. (Kenya et al don't count -- I don't think they were ready even so.) As for France... Korea? Chad? End of discussion. Spain... there's a great human rights record. And the Romans? Granted they were brutal by modern standards, but as Monty Python said, what have the Romans ever done for us?

So yes, that's not my criterion for an Empire. Now look at NATO -- military arm of the US for a great amount of time. Today that role is served by the UK and Israel basically. Anyway, empire in my book, but for the better overall.

I looked at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... by_imports

From a brief sum, the US seems to account for about 15-20% of the world's imports. Rather hefty, but it's debatable whether the economy's complete tanking (unlikely, as not all imports would cease) would tank the world economy. I think it would only throw it into a slump, but not a full-scale depression...

[Gen. Volkov]

You did forget one little area where the British didn't have that great a track record when it came to autonomy. India. They didn't really let it be on it's own, even though it was clearly ready, until after WW2.

I get your point though. By your definition, the US has an empire.

I still don't get why you don't think the Soviets were an Empire, if you do think the Romans were an Empire. The Soviets were not a very nice empire certainly, but they meet all the requirements for one. As well as for a superpower.

Ok, US by itself accounts for 15-20%. That means that more than one country depends on the US as a place to sell does it not? For many of the world's countries, the US is the largest or certainly one of the largest, trading partners. So us tanking would be a very big deal to them, and likely would cause a depression in those countries. Now, look at the countries that are large trading partners with us on that list. The are also big importers aren't they? So if they tanked after we tanked, what's going to happen to the countries that they trade with, and that depend on them as a place to sell? (No not complete loss of trade, but a very large reduction certainly) That's right, they will tank as well. Hence the domino effect I keep talking about. The world is just too interconnected at this point for anyone to really isolate themselves from the US economy collapsing. If someone else's economy runs into trouble we can keep the world going, but if we run into trouble, well then there's going to be major issues.

[The Beatles]

I do think the Soviets were an empire; rather evil one too. I didn't mention them much because their heyday was rather recent and rather short-lived, and they weren't that evil after Stalin, really.

Right... India ready? Notice Kashmir? Heck, they had to be split up to stop killing each other (Hindu-Muslim tensions)! Besides, they were on the way to self-government it was just WWII came along.

I don't think the domino effect would work quite like that. I mean I'm not sure there would be one. But hard to tell, and there's no doubt it would be a calamity and we're just arguing on scale. So I think we can set that difference aside.

[Gen. Volkov]

About the Soviets: Ah, ok.

Still, India was pretty much ready. But I wouldn't say they were on their way, remember, it took Gandhi to finally move the British to do anything about Indian autonomy. And even then, it did take until after WW2, which is quit long, considering Gandhi was doing his thing in alot earlier than that.

Yes, I think we do just disagree on scale. I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree again. It certainly would affect everyone adversely enough that they want to avoid the US collapsing. That's why the Chinese and the Japanese keep supporting our debt, and why the Chinese do not want the dollar to fall.

[The Beatles]

WWII was a period of great interruption though. Remember, Ireland was given home rule without any bloodshed, but WWI interrupted and they ended up in a war and creating a separate country. World Wars are rather interrupting things.

I would qualify your last sentence with the suffix " yet".

[Gen. Volkov]

Well yes, if the Chinese ever manage to get on par with the US and find other markets for their goods, then they might not mind so much if the US economy collapsed. But I don't see that happening in the next 30 years. Maybe within my lifetime, but I doubt that as well. It took China 60 years to get to the spot they are at now.

Hmm, I suppose you are right about the World Wars, but in the case of India, Gandhi was around well before WW2, but it still took until after WW2 for anything to happen. I'm fairly sure the British would have wanted to keep India, it was WW2 that cost them the resources that they could have used to maintain it as part of their Empire.

[Nuclear Raunch]

Delayed response so there's a lot to cover.

Windy: I'm with Volkov on the ICBM thing.

Those were not stats on the mining of raw materials, rather the process of refining them. The point I was trying to make was in support of Bjorn's position that moving all our industrial capacity to other countries would put us in a bind if/when WW3 breaks out. It was a rebuttal to the thinking that an empty factory can just be magically filled with the equipment needed to mass produce whatever products are required.

Your National Geographic article, are you sure that said the mean age was 60? That seems awfully high. Median age maybe although that in itself is also an unusually high number.

Freen: You can check the unemployment rates for Michigan here. The minimum wage increase became effective on Jan 1 2006 and December 06 has not yet been tabulated so there is no annual rate to compare, but comparing Jan-Nov month by month from the previous year 5 months the jobless rate has been lower this year, 6 months it was lower last year, and they both average out at 6.7%.

Volkov: In WW2 we had the factories, the inrastructure, the manpower, absolutely everything needed except money. The second Uncle Sam signed that check the factories could hire workers and get started producing whatever was needed. And it still took a year. Today our workforce is a bit more strained so the manpower part of it will probably cause more problems than it did in WW2, but the main thing is that we flat out don't have the materials to do it without help from foreign countries. Sure we have the natural resources here that we can mine no problem, but we can't do anything with it once it's mined. Basically what we would have to do to get it going is to use what little refineries we have left to produce enough materials to increase our refinery capacity, (remember that when those refineries move overseas they take absolutely everything essential with them so all that we have left here is shells) then use our increased refinery capacity to make lines for our new factories, then train an all new workforce on the all new lines, then we can finally start producing our war materials.

Oh, except we don't have the power generation, nor the power transmission required to supply all this. You gotta remember, most of our lines were in use during WW2 and have not been upgraded since then. There's a heck of a lot more people here now, and each individual house uses wayyyy more juice than it used to. If we did city wide blackouts we could theoretically supply the power needed for those plants, but I'm sure you can imagine the problems associated with that. On the bright side it would be years before those plants would be operational in the first place so there would be plenty of time to upgrade our power. Well, once we got some materials.

Right now we are the oil whores of the world. However our oil consumption is increasing by about 4% per year, whereas China's is increasing by around 30% per year. Translation: Our significance as a trading partner becomes less and less significant to the Arabs with each passing year. You also have to remember that India isn't that far behind China in that regard.

Beatles: It's really difficult to say either way, but I kinda think it will involve a worldwide depression.

EDIT: I just had a thought, and I haven't really thought it out much, but if the US were to buy Chinese debt, roughly equivalent to what they had of ours couldn't we use that to defend ourselves from a malicious sell off of American debt? Essentially trade our debt for theirs.

[The Beatles]

Except China's balance is rather low. But buy up their currency -- little point, it's like mutually assured destruction. Better buy the dollar back -- i.e. repay debt.

India, apart from resources needed during the war, was costing the British by that point. Modernizing a country isn't cheap. The Empire basically disintegrated because there wasn't money to maintain it -- due to the world wars. America's empire thrives because the money's there to keep everyone happy.

[Freenhult]

Nuke, they can average out to whatever percent you want them too, but the fact is I see more businesses now turning people away from jobs than taking them in. Heck, even Wal-Mart isn't hiring now. Meijers isn't either and thats bad news right there.

[Kraken]

this is, by far, the most idiotic discussion i have ever wasted time reading.
no one knows what the future holds.
Nuke, your a puke.

btw: happy new years!

[The Beatles]

Happy New Year!

[Nuclear Raunch]

Except China's balance is rather low. But buy up their currency -- little point, it's like mutually assured destruction. Better buy the dollar back -- i.e. repay debt.

India, apart from resources needed during the war, was costing the British by that point. Modernizing a country isn't cheap. The Empire basically disintegrated because there wasn't money to maintain it -- due to the world wars. America's empire thrives because the money's there to keep everyone happy.

Well repaying the debt is obviously the preferred choice but that can't/shouldn't be paid off all at once. And buying out China's stock in it is pointless since they can take the money we repay them with and turn around and buy American debt from Italy (who is unfortunately currently selling off for fear of an impending American depression) or anyone else who decides to sell.

And I wasn't thinking of using that to sink their economy so much as using that as a currency for purchasing American debt from them if they decided to dump. As far as MAD goes, I think they're gonna be in a depression the second we hit one anyway, it's just that they can theoretically recover much quicker than us.

[Gen. Volkov]

Honestly, I think you are overstating the issue just a bit. There is big, huge, gigantic difference between a war economy and civilian economy. And, you are severely understating just how much was involved in gearing up for WW2. For one thing, in order to get the kind of industrial performance we achieved then, we had to convert a very significant fraction of the civilian plants into war materials plants. That often involved a complete retooling of the factory. That's not as bad as filling a factory from scratch, but still a very big undertaking. (Ford plants making airplanes for example) Now it's true that we are lacking in refining facilties, but that is not the same as lacking in materials. We can recycle quite a bit back into the raw materials needed. Whole junkyards full of premium quality steel and aluminum and copper. And while that's a finite resource, it can be used to supplement what is being refined while the new refineries are being built. The problem as I see it, is not refining, or production, or mining the raw materials. That can all be fixed given a sufficient amount of money. The problem as I see it, is money itself. Our debt is already very high, and a war time economy would push it much much higher, so the question is, where are we going to get all the money from? It's conceivable that we might be spending twice the annual budget of the US government. It would require a massive tax hike, and even then, I'm not sure if we could get all the money we'd really need.