The British Empire, once bigger than the USA, also went down without the financial resources to maintain its bureaucracy and military control over its colonies.
The USA thought that by just maintaining military bases without having to rule their colonies, and yet having control over them, they will be one up on the British system. What brought them down was the misuse of the US$ hegemony, which gave them the privilege of printing as much money as they want.
But the USA failed to control its spending spree, with one administration trying to outdo the other in countering communism, terrorism and rising powers like Germany, Japan, Soviet Union now Russia and China.
It was such a beautiful arrangement just printing more and more money and enjoying the goods that others provided. Life was never so good, and the USA became known as the land of bread and honey, with streets paved in gold. But all good things must come to an end, and the USA is now mired in massive debts, not knowing whether foreign countries will still buy its debts. The so-called streets of gold are now homeless havens, lined with tents and filth, a really shameful stain on the USA Government. The signs are not good, with even allies like Japan now dumping treasuries en masse.
Fighting back against the turn of the wheel is useless. Many things in the USA are beyond redemption. The piling of the debts cannot be sustained, the homeless problem will get worse with more jobless joining the line with all the job cuts, the drug problem will fester and will be blamed on others, particularly China, the jobs are not coming back even if manufacturing returns with automation and robotics taking over. Re-industrialization is just a pipe dream without the control of raw materials, processing logistics and skilled manpower to carry them out.
Which country will most other countries bet on? Be my guest.
Anonymous
1 comment:
While the British Empire went down over the course of years and even decades, the USA is going to slide into oblivion in great turmoil. When the privilege of money printing ends, the USA will become even worse than a third world country. The sudden loss of the money printing privilege is hard to imagine for a country that relies on its money printing privilege to become a superpower.
The USA can keep denying that its downfall is just an impossibility given its current 'exceptionalism' mindset, which is slowly falling apart.
While the Brits slow downfall did not result in great lightning speed hardship for the British people, the fall of the USA is going to be catastrophic for a country long used to the belief that its downfall can never happen.
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