Article

2005-08-21 Britain

Telegraph: Are there cracks appearing in the American empire ... by A. N. Wilson

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Posted by Angomorong Glineque2899 2005-08-21 01:06|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Whatever. I have been seeing this old line trotted out since the 70s. The soviets would beat us in the 70s, Japan would take over the economic world in the 80s, EU power house dominating in the 90s, China nowdays....
Fact is, America is nearly 30% richer than the 70s, more people own homes and buisnesses, inflation is still at an all time low, we haven't seen a real recesison since the early 80s, our GDP is booming and needed by the rest of the world and the EU to keep them from sliding into a depression.
Keep wishing A.N. Wilson, we ain't going anywhere unless we let our liberals take over. Then we are f00ked.

Posted by mmurray821 2005-08-21 08:43|| 2005-08-21 08:43|| Front Page Top

#2 Wet dream indeed, cause if America falls it takes the very floor that nearly everyone else stands on with them. This is just as much self-loathing as kicking the yank. The fun time after the fall of Rome was not known as the Dark Ages for nothing.

I'm not worried. How many million aliens pack up every year to head to this doomed land?

Unlike the Romans or the Europeans, the Americans are not really interested in real estate. They would rather do business with other countries than have to run them. Its the culture that spreads and with it the ideas that are more important. If and when America joins history, I suspect that like the Goths and other tribes who stood upon the remains of Rome, they will make every effort to assume the trapping and legitimacy of that great civilization.

Posted by Jerenter Elmang8955 2005-08-21 08:58|| 2005-08-21 08:58|| Front Page Top

#3 First of all, *what* "empire"? If it's not geographical, do they mean economic? Agricultural? Scientific? Political? Isolationist? Demographic? Or some combination thereof?

Second, "cracks" imply that America is declining. What if other blocs are *improving*, thus closing the *gap* with America. The world is not a zero-sum game, many can "win" at the same time.

Third, leftists are always quick to say that the concept of "mercantilism" is dead (historically, the nation with the most 'specie', gold and silver, is the strongest.) They are wrong in this regard. Mercantilism has *grown* to include far more than specie. Dozens of other real products, both limited in quantity and renewable resources, their degree of refinement, and the industries that exploit them, show which countries dominate in the world.

And, both "real" and "imaginary" money, and their ratio to one another in an economy also show its strengths and weaknesses. (Imaginary money is created in any commerce. The more commerce, the more imaginary money is created. Say you earn a "real" $1 bill. You instantly owe taxes on that dollar to the amount of 50 cents. But since you can still spend the entire dollar *right now*, 50 cents of imaginary money has been created. When you spend it, whoever gets it also has to pay 50 cents taxes, so now you have $1 real and $1 imaginary money. A single real dollar can temporarily "create" and "add" hundreds or thousands of imaginary dollars to an economy.

As long as imaginary money does not inflate, and keeps its "full faith and credit", compared to real money, it radically strengthens an economy.

Lastly, as one in the eye to the Telegraph, in historical economics, ONE and ONLY ONE factor determines which major powers in the world are on the upswing or decline. Mining.

Mining is an economic pebble in the pond, sending ripples of prosperity throughout an economy. From ancient times to modern, as a nation mines, so too are its fortunes. It is the only known 100% correlation in all of macroeconomic history of major nations.

But modern mining concerns are not limited to the actual place of mining. A Japanese company can own a mine in Canada, for example. American companies own mines all over the planet. And while the local economy profits somewhat, the big money flows back to America.

So, put it all together and yes, America is the dominant nation in the world. Though Japan is #2 as an economic power, the EU is #2 as a trading bloc, Russia is #2 as a military power, the US, Canada and Argentina clearly dominate agribusiness, China is the largest market, and Africa has the most immediate potential for mining.

I would hardly look at Africa as a rising empire, however.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-08-21 11:00|| 2005-08-21 11:00|| Front Page Top

#4 A lot of leftists are from priviliged families, schooled in private schools and universities which all teach classical education. And likely ( dunno, not rich ) they hammered home the idea of America as an empire just like Rome.

Anonymouse is right. This has been standard fare for all good leftists since the 70s. They choke it down when no evidence exists to support it and they spit it uout as everyone's daily bread.

Stoopid folks, such as moi back then, repeat it as if it were Gospel, unknowing what it really means, and what it really means is it is just another pile of bile our "betters" like to spit at us.

Posted by badanov 2005-08-21 11:34|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org] 2005-08-21 11:34|| Front Page Top

#5 You may be right Mr. Wilson. In which case you'll have a very simple choice - Conversion or Dhimmitude. So, which will it be?

Posted by DMFD 2005-08-21 15:13|| 2005-08-21 15:13|| Front Page Top

#6 I think this guy views Uncle Sam's alliances with a broad variety of powers and occasional military interventions as an empire. The dissolution of empire would then mean the end of these alliances and a halt to American military interventions.

The problem with Wilson's hypothesis is that his recent research has had to do with the collapse of the British empire, and his instinct is to apply his particular knowledge of the British empire to situations that have nothing in common with it. In other words, because he has a hammer in hand, he sees nails everywhere.

Even his analysis of the British empire's collapse is riddled with flaws - he ascribes it mostly to the machinations of the State Department, even though the true cause was military pressure from the colonies. In the old days, before the advent of ethnic- or religion-based nationalism, it was possible to keep the natives down with small forces coupled with firepower superiority. Over time, that firepower superiority because less pronounced, as native troops learned the ways of their colonial masters and defected to the ranks of native agitators.

Yet another factor was in play - as Britain became more "civilized", empire became impossible because the harsh measures traditionally employed to maintain it, periodic massacres like the one at Amritsar - became all but impossible because of a squeamish public. If Britain was unable to hang on Ireland, which shared with Britain skin color, language, religion, climate, culture, time zone and so on, how was it going to hang on to India, which was foreign in every sense? How was it possible that Indians would see themselves as British subjects over the long run?

Without the brutal application of military force and the loss of perhaps hundreds of thousands of British troops, there was no way Britain could have hung on to India. And the British public was not prepared to either inflict massacres on Indian civilians or take large numbers of British casualties. Once the Indians lost their awe of British power - through the Japanese defeats of British forces coupled with their acquisition of Western military skills from their British colonial masters - the writing was on the wall. If Britain would not relinquish India voluntarily, it was a matter of time before a bloody revolt broke out. The British merely got out early and gracefully - the French paid dearly for their intransigence in Algeria and Vietnam.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-08-21 15:22|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-08-21 15:22|| Front Page Top

#7 An interesting hypothesis of the fall of the British Empire in India puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of--women.

That is, for most of their occupation of India, British women were excluded from the entire country, except for the few high and mighties. This resulted in many Brits taking Indian mistresses. In turn, this created close interconnection between them and their community, along with a great source of intelligence as to what was going on and how much it really mattered.

Finally, British women, suspecting hanky-panky, insisted on being allowed to live there, and once there, to exclude any Indian women from the vicintity of the men. This cut off lines of communication and made the Brits an island surrounded by a sea of Indians. From there it was a one-way ticket out of the country.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-08-21 16:38|| 2005-08-21 16:38|| Front Page Top

#8 China could just cash in its US notes

Posted by bk 2005-08-21 20:16|| 2005-08-21 20:16|| Front Page Top

#9 China would slit their own throats in the process since then the US would not be able to buy their goods cheaply and the Yen, which despite what the Chinese say, is still leaning heavily on the dollar.
It would be a lose-lose situation for everyone.

Posted by mmurray821 2005-08-21 20:43|| 2005-08-21 20:43|| Front Page Top

#10 Brit women vs.Indian women > I'm reminded of the scene from LION IN WINTER, when Katherine Hepburn's character Queen Eleanor of Acquitaine tells her prince-sons - "...Now my children, you know the important role of SEX on history", or words to that effect!?

Posted by JosephMendiola 2005-08-21 23:20|| 2005-08-21 23:20|| Front Page Top

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