An Insider on the Outside Looking In

[justinsb]

I'm a dual citizen - born in the US, living in Canada, not coming back.

The Dems HAVE TO drop the bi-partisan thing. You won't see this on CNN but the US is not number 1 anymore - China is. India will soon be second.

The US needs to decide how it wants to exist as a major power, but not THE power. Compared to China the US is, or soon will be, the equivalent of France or ... well...Canada.

The challenges coming down the road for the US (and for most of the world) are many:

The downward spiral of the recession will end but most of the jobs lost aren't coming back. New jobs may be created but the ones that people were laid off from are largely gone.

Global warming may be curtailed a bit, but it cannot realistically be fixed at this point. Major population centers around the globe - including in the US are going underwater. Due to heat and water shortage large parts of the US (and other countries) are going to be nearly uninhabitable. If we turned off all the power and stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow - most of this will still happen.

Water shortages are going to get severe and there is NO mass diversion coming from the great lakes - it's not going to happen. The aquifers that feed the US bread basket are drying up and within 40-50 years places like Iowa, Nebraska, & Kansas will produce no crops or livestock (forget Florida and Southern California - they will fall into the uninhabitable category).

Unless drastic action is taken in the next few years (it won't be - China and India won't allow it) the worlds oceans will be devoid of edible fish in a few decades - possibly sooner (the rate of decline in fish stocks keeps surpassing expectations.)

This is the world we're getting ready for. (completely bs free and making no attempt to spare anyone or sugar coat it.) The US has to find it's way in this world as the largest debtor nation on the planet and deeply in debt to China which is a problem because china doesn't give a damn about anything listed above - if they lose 500 million people it just makes life easier for them. If the US loses 500 million .. it's 170 million more than you've got.

The people whining and crying about socialized medicine are, as far as I'm concerned, mentally disabled (literally).

Their comparisons of health care reform to Communism and naziism indicate that they have no idea what either of those things are. Contrary to what they may think evolution is real and they are arguing in favor of losing the game. Worst of all:

Since the Regan era (Nixon really) people have argued for more and more services but lower and lower taxes (hence all that debt). They have claimed that "people can spend their money better than government can" - they even have alot of Democrats singing this song but it's a lie.

The people do not know best. Given lower and lower taxes people have bought things they couldn't really afford and things they don't really need but after almost 3 decades of smaller government and 'taxes are bad' what does the US have to show for it?

If you compare the US to the "semi-socialst" countries of Western Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan the US has

- The largest debt load in the world
- The highest crime rate
- The greatest diversity between rich and poor
- The highest rate of poverty
- The lowest life expectancy
- The worst health care (unless you are very wealthy)
- The worst infrastructure (roads, bridges, schools etc)
- The highest rate of incarceration (people in jail) in the history of the world
- The worst literacy rates
- The highest rates of cancer and diabetes and the 2nd highest rates of heart disease (behind the UK)
- The highest levels of air, water, and soil pollution
- The weakest educational system
and
- The most Wal-Mart locations

That's a lot of handicaps to start the game with given the challenges I listed above. There is no time to negotiate with the mentally challenged (GOP) - no matter how much sympathy you may feel for them.

Obama, from what I've seen up here, is fighting with one hand tied behind his back. His solutions do not seem to go far enough to address the issues at hand and time is running out.

Just my .02 from up North - we'll take in as many as we can when it all falls apart.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Just one thing, and it was a surprise

Mexico surpassed the US in obesity and Diabetes rates last year.... so we are no longer number one.

:-)

After that, the murican people are in for the greatest shock of US history... the Empire is over, it is just dead man walking.

[justinsb]

2. True but ...

I didn't include Mexico in my comparisons - Western Europe, the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia (not looking at the 'third world') - The US infrastructure and education system is better than Somalia's too.

Oh - and I forgot to mention the problem of peak oil.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. I look at this globally

not just OECD economies,


Hell India and China are not OECD economies.

Reality is the US is no longer an Empire. I personally do not believe it will survive the fall, but that is just me.

As to peak oil, it will make resource wars even more fun... but water will be far more critical than oil when all is said and done

[justinsb]

6. Yep

Part of my motivation for coming to Canada was abundant water and the geographical near impossibility of a military invasion (we have terrain that will make Iraq or Vietnam look like a sunny day at the park if you don't know what you're doing.)

A global perspective is fine - but I was comparing the forms of government: the socialist - capitalist mix of the rest of the OECD countries with the ultra-capitalist/libertarian don't tax me but give me my benefits approach of the US for the last three decades. You can't really make fair or accurate comparisons there with most of the third world.

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. China, on its way to #1 economically.

Not militarily; the US will go on for a while longer yet. And China has its own problems...looming population decline and social unrest as a result of the one-child policy (which has led to infanticide of girl children, etc)...tens of millions of young men who will never marry or, possibly, even get laid, because there are no women their age, or not enough. The last time this sort of generational demographic imbalance happened in China they had something called the Taiping Rebellion...which was the bloodiest conflict in human history up to that point.

[justinsb]

5. China

Has a standing military of 3 million plus and nukes and they are spending like mad to catch up technologically. Given everything I've laid out - if I were running a country - being the #1 military in the world wouldn't be my priority. It wouldn't even be in my top 10. China has no interest in invading the US. The battle now is not against China or Russia or Bin Laden, it's against nature and the only way to 'win' that fight is to try to find good terms of surrender.

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. And the US has more nukes and a dozen fleet carriers.

Peak oil means resource wars. Of which Iraq/Afghanistan are probably the first. Global warming and population displacement will mean more migration to remaining temperate zones. Which will mean more conflict, probably. The future is generally rather bleak in any case, but I don't really think you can say that military capability isn't going to be an important factor when the combined effects of peak oil, food and water shortages, and mass economic migration due to same start to be felt.

[justinsb]

8. What I can say is...

the more resources the US devotes to the military, starting about 10 years ago, the worse the situation the US will find itself in 50 years from now. You want a big military, fine, but your grandchildren will suffer for it. In the world that is coming most of the US (outside of New England, the Upper Midwest and the North West - or the parts of them that don't flood) will be the refugees. The shortages of fuel, food and water + high temperatures and decertification (permanent drought) will make most of the US uninhabitable. In 50 years I don't think anyone at all will live in Iraq and in Afghanistan it will only be the mountains near Pakistan (so Osama is safe).

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. Where did I say *I* want a large military?

I didn't--and I've just moved to the UK; my fiancée is a British citizen, and I don't foresee returning to the States anytime soon. I'll have dual citizenship myself eventually.

[justinsb]

10. I suppose

You didn't say you wanted a large military, but you were arguing in favor of it...which is odd if you don't want it.

Congrats on the move. I honestly feel that more people should leave the US while there are still lifeboats left.

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. I wasn't arguing in favour of it either.

I was simply making a statement of fact.