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I think the US MIC throwing a couple trillion for nothing in Iraq is a good example of a hegemony in decline
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Aug 14, 2017 04:46
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Fojar38 posted:The F-35 was absurdly expensive and also unnecessarily expensive. But the idea that it was a trillion dollars for no returns and the plane can't fly in the rain or whatever the current meme is is not true. Eh, I didn't claim it couldn't fly, but I should have articulated my problem with it a bit more specifically (i.e expensive and kind of doesn't do what anyone actually wants)
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Aug 14, 2017 04:46
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The Canadian welfare system has been in a shambles for decades and is slowly being dismantled, varying from province to province. Here in BC, welfare has been frozen at $610/month since 1999. It's now been increased to $710/month, however the previous government slashed millions in accessory programs in the years before leaving office. The (now ousted governments) response to criticism of this situation was, verbatim: How long do you think you could survive in a developed nation like Canada on $610/month, goons? But that malaise is spreading far and wide. We can look at the ongoing efforts to dismantle the NHS in the UK, the crippling of subsidized post-secondary across nations where it's been affordable for generations, etc. I don't see a GMI in our future, I see the neoconservative powers in the west doing everything they can to gut our existing social welfare systems until they are gone entirely. Rime fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Aug 14, 2017 |
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Aug 14, 2017 04:47
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shrike82 posted:I think the US MIC throwing a couple trillion for nothing in Iraq is a good example of a hegemony in decline Or a hegemony with so much power relative to everyone else that it can afford to do so for lack of any focused goal.
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Aug 14, 2017 04:49
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The argument that "man i'm so rich i can throw money at poo poo" doesn't really work when the establishment has been able to wage a relentless war on welfare and other public goods
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Aug 14, 2017 04:50
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How much of that wealth is tied up fake over-valued/heavily speculated financial assets though? Housing prices are already over inflated and cannot continue their upwards trajectory forget, the tech boom can't last forever either, and there are signs that VCs are starting to get cold feet. Goverment debt is up, but that's not the really scary thing - its household debt (used as a substitute for wage increases) that has ballooned, which is current at about 80% of gdp.
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Aug 14, 2017 06:38
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rudatron posted:How much of that wealth is tied up fake over-valued/heavily speculated financial assets though? Such a small proportion as to be negligible. The aggregate figure for US national wealth is 84.7 trillion dollars. Japan is second with 24 trillion. If all 5 major tech companies disappeared overnight and took every last dollar of market capitalization with them that is ~3 trillion dollars. Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Aug 14, 2017 |
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Aug 14, 2017 07:04
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Market cap of equities isn't a good measure of exposure to financial risk. You have to look at stuff like derivatives and shadow banking/insurance which by notional value dwarf US net wealth.
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Aug 14, 2017 07:46
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Just goes to show that 'the economy' isn't something that actually involves everyone, or even a majority of people anymore. It's numbers on a sheet for rich people to care about, as far as those living in disintegrating communities and increasing poverty are concerned.
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Aug 14, 2017 08:59
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The fundamental problem is that more and more human beings are no longer capable of providing labor more efficiently than increasingly cheap and capable machines. GMI, large tax increases, and/or collectivization of capital equipment are the only solutions.
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Aug 14, 2017 09:10
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Even if Western Civilization is in decline, it's unlikely to happen overnight. If we're to use the OP's choice of Julius Caesar, the Roman Empire didn't truly collapse until the fall of Constantinople some 1500 years later. Even at the height of the Roman Empire's decline, it still took a few hundred years before things finally started disappearing. You could argue that a form of the Roman Empire existed right up to the 1800's in the guise of the Holy Roman Empire (albeit a very loose one). Either way comparisons between an Empire and a particular set of civilization don't really work. Western Civilization will have its ups and downs depending on the nations its citizens live in. The British Empire's decline is perhaps a more modern example of how these things pan out and Britain is (more or less) still around. I don't think Western Civilization is going to disappear unless a serious technological, biological, nuclear or environmental disaster occurs, which results in a wipe out of populations. Climate change is likely going to be a big contributor, although it'll be a slow death rather than a rapid destruction. Is the United States in decline? Probably, but again it's a very slow process and the likelihood is we're not going to see any radical change. Even with the oompa-loompa idiot in charge, the US is still by and large running and profitable. quote:Across the west in general, but tbe United States is the center of the West right now, and you're kidding yourself if you don't see that. The EU has its own problems, specific to it, but there's a lot of cross over. I was going to argue against this, but actually I think this is probably accurate and also a possible example of where western civilization may well fracture. If the EU or Europe continues its construction of being a group of nations working together, you could see a further split in civilization between western United States, central European and eastern Asian. If anything a good place to observe at the moment would be the United Kingdom. It will likely collapse into something else within the next hundred years or so.
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Aug 14, 2017 09:27
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sincx posted:The fundamental problem is that more and more human beings are no longer capable of providing labor more efficiently than increasingly cheap and capable machines.
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Aug 14, 2017 09:34
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Or do you think Shenzhen is still just a fishing village.
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Aug 14, 2017 09:34
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look at the USSR's "sudden" collapse and the subsequent drawn-out fallout that contemporary Russia is going through people fixate on a snap apocalypse but USSR->Russia seems a more likely scenario
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Aug 14, 2017 09:54
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I don't want to be simply doom and gloom, because the US does have a lot of advantages, and that includes institutional advantages. China is in vogue rn, and rightly so, but the chinese goverment is not exactly what you would call agile, and the lack of expression prevents national self-reflection and critical analysis of crises and shortcomings. Inconvenient truths never see the light of day, they get buried because it impacts someone in power. So the slowly mounting problems only get worse and worse. In the long run, suppression is inefficient. But where also entering an era where The West is becoming less....Western, to use a crude term. All the EU parties that claim to protect Europe from migrants represent, ideologically, the death of every positive legacy you could associate with The West - human rights, enlightenment, etc etc. Their victory would be the death of Europe as Europe, as it were. Where also witnessing a shift of the economic 'center' of the globe, from the atlantic, to that area between the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, and that shift is not going to reverse. So, geographically, the US is now on the literal wrong side of the globe. Now consider just how much of the US economy is directly tied into the global financial system, and what a global economy shock in that system would mean. Yes, everyone will suffer, but some well suffer worse than others. And it's the countries that manufacture the basic necessities, own valuable commodities, and are in the best shape, that are going to weather that crisis best. That is not the US.
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Aug 14, 2017 09:55
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rudatron posted:China is in vogue rn, and rightly so, You highlighted this to an extent in your post but China has severe and acute problems that have already shown signs of coming to a head. The days of "China Rising" are over, and in terms of economic size China capped out at around 60% of the size of the US economy. And in terms of power fundamentals and international influence China is still a regional power at best. In short, it's no competitor to the USA for global status. quote:Where also witnessing a shift of the economic 'center' of the globe, from the atlantic, to that area between the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, and that shift is not going to reverse. So, geographically, the US is now on the literal wrong side of the globe. This on the other hand is totally nonsensical and reads like a 2010 era puff piece from The Economist. There's no such thing as a "geographical centre of economic activity" and if there was it'd be somewhere over the arctic. Not the Indian Ocean, which is surrounded by impoverished sub-Saharan African countries, unstable Middle Eastern dictatorships, and perpetual economic basket case India. If you're going to ignore the fact that the Earth is a sphere then considering the value of trans-oceanic trade is roughly equal for both the Atlantic ($1.1 trillion worth of US-EU trade) and the Pacific (about 950 billion worth of trade between the US and Taiwan/Japan/South Korea/China) and the fact that the world's largest economic regions in order are the North America, Europe, and East Asia, you can either put the "centre" over North America or Afghanistan. One of those makes sense and the other doesn't, especially considering Asia and the EU both trade more with the USA than with each other. But like I just said, it doesn't matter. I have no idea where this whole idea of "economic center of gravity" even came from. Probably some Russian or Englishman. quote:And it's the countries that manufacture the basic necessities, own valuable commodities, and are in the best shape, that are going to weather that crisis best. That is not the US. What exactly is this supposed to mean? Do you think that the US economy is made up entirely of financiers and speculators whose only role in global trade is buying things? Do you think that the ability to manufacture "basic necessities" is something that Americans are incapable of? Do you think that the United States, a country that spans a loving continent, doesn't have any valuable commodities? Come on, dude. The idea that "America doesn't make things anymore" is one of the myths that got Trump in office. What America makes just happens to be far more complex than basic consumer goods. And even in basic consumer goods, the Iphone being the most commonly used examples, the high value portions of the device (software, semiconductors, integrated circuits) get made in advanced manufacturing economies such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the USA. Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 11:26 on Aug 14, 2017 |
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Aug 14, 2017 10:55
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