The Old Titans All Collapsed. Is the U.S. Next? By Kevin Phillips

[Echo In Light]

The Old Titans All Collapsed. Is the U.S. Next?
By Kevin Phillips
Sunday, May 18, 2008; B03

20/05/08 "Washington Post" - 18/05/08 Back in August, during the panic over mortgages, Alan Greenspan offered reassurance to an anxious public. The current turmoil, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman said, strongly resembled brief financial scares such as the Russian debt crisis of 1998 or the U.S. stock market crash of 1987. Not to worry.

But in the background, one could hear the groans and feel the tremors as larger political and economic tectonic plates collided. Nine months later, Greenspan's soothing analogies no longer wash. The U.S. economy faces unprecedented debt levels, soaring commodity prices and sliding home prices, to say nothing of a weak dollar. Despite the recent stabilization of the economy, some economists fear that the world will soon face the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s.

That analogy is hardly a perfect fit; there's almost no chance of another sequence like the Great Depression, where the stock market dove 80 percent, joblessness reached 25 percent, and the Great Plains became a dustbowl that forced hundreds of thousands of "Okies" to flee to California. But Americans should worry that the current unrest betokens the sort of global upheaval that upended previous leading world economic powers, most notably Britain.

More than 80 percent of Americans now say that we are on the wrong track, but many if not most still believe that the history of other nations is irrelevant -- that the United States is unique, chosen by God. So did all the previous world economic powers: Rome, Spain, the Netherlands (in the maritime glory days of the 17th century, when New York was New Amsterdam) and 19th-century Britain. Their early strength was also their later weakness, not unlike the United States since the 1980s.

Continued:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19962.htm

[blondeatlast]

1. "..most chilling parallel with the is the United States' unhealthy reliance on the financial sector

to fuel its growth."

Kevin Phillips is a wise, wise man. Washington DC--are you reading this?

With the help of the overgrown U.S. financial sector, the United States of 2008 is the world's leading debtor, has by far the largest current-account deficit and is the leading importer, at great expense, of both manufactured goods and oil. The potential damage if the world soon undergoes the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s is incalculable. The loss of global economic leadership that overtook Britain and Holland seems to be looming on our own horizon.

Someone please get this brilliant mind on the platform committee--I don't think he wants anything to do with the Republicans anymore.

[B3Nut]

2. A nation that reaches this point can either reform or collapse.

History says it collapses.

[salguine]

3. We have only ourselves to blame. As Lincoln said:

All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide

[Uncle Joe]

4. I believe this sentence more than any other reflects the dynamic that will be our nation's downfall.

"More than 80 percent of Americans now say that we are on the wrong track, but many if not most still believe that the history of other nations is irrelevant -- that the United States is unique, chosen by God."

This arrogant, prideful, ugly, holier than thou crap can only lead to ultimate destruction.

History has shown that all empires eventually come down to Earth and I believe the question is do we want a soft landing or a hard one? Currently it seems me we're taking a nose dive.

[xchrom]

5. recommend

[Elspeth]

6. rec

rec

[Echo In Light]

7. Bump

[nichomachus]

8. The most salient point

is the one about the "canaries in the coal mine" being wrong over the short term. They predicted doom, but the doom didn't come right away. This actually led to the ultimate downfall, because later warnings were ignored.

We see the same in the US. Try to tell people that we're in trouble and you'll hear claptrap about "cycles" and about how "we've heard this before from chicken littles." etc. They think that because we dodged a bullet before, we'll dodge one again. I always tell people that we dodged earlier bullets because we had access to cheap energy and because we were still in the mode of stealing resources from Third World countries -- also because we didn't have competitors the size and strength of China.

I used to work with people facing life-threatening illnesses. Some of the most difficult cases were people who had survived some potentially fatal situation earlier in their lives -- perhaps a car crash or being shot at and wounded in a war or an airplane crash. They felt that they "beat that one and can beat this one too," even when they couldn't. It took them much longer to face their current situation. Some never really did.

[FatDave]

9. Personally, I'm OK with a more modest America

So we might end up like Britain, Spain or Holland? What's wrong with those places? America needs to be a bit more down to Earth, I think. Sure, it will be a painful transition, but good policy can ease it.

[Ghost Dog]

10. Yup. But odd, though, how 'in the West' the Ottoman and other great

(even greater) cultures, powers and empires of the 'East' (yes, including the Greek) tend to get forgotten, huh?

cf. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Ghost%20Dog/123

[bbgrunt]

11. k and r

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Damn it is Kevin Phillips readying the posts of many of us?

Oh wait the Cassandras round these parts have been told we are nuts by the pollyanas

[New Dawn]

13. K&R

[tom_paine]

14. K & R