MetaFilter posts tagged with decline

The American Empire Is Bankrupt

Substrata — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:36:43 -0800

The American Empire Is Bankrupt (via The Agonist)

Black and White Indie Filth

Artw — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:37:05 -0800

“It is going to be rough for us Top 20 publishers. It will be epic for anyone smaller. Lots of folks will vanish due to this, even some bigger guys.” - Hard times ahead for indie comics: Diamond Distribution, which has an effective monopoly on American comics distribution, will be raising it’s wholesale benchmark, meaning many of the comiocs currently available in comics stores will soon be dropped. In a further blow to the adult comics market Diamond will be dropping that section from the print version of Previews, in favour of a PDF only available to retailers. Comics are about to get a whole lot blander.

Has the US peaked and is in decline?

yoyo_nyc — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:24:02 -0800

Some books you might want to read about the US and recent political developments in the world. In 1987 Paul Kennedy published The rise and fall of great powers. He predicted the decline and collapse of the USSR and analyzed patterns that came with the rise and fall of great powers in the last 500 years. A superpower basically gets builds on economic strength, over-stretches its power, exhausts itself by over-stretching and finally falls, at least by the theory of Kennedy. Kennedy points out that nearly every power has reacted to decline with increased military spending, which leads to a feed-back effect. Money and resources that are needed for economic growth are consumed by an ever increasing military budget. In 2006 nearly 50% of the worlds military spending was done by the US. Recently we have seen problems in Georgia and other former USSR states (Orange revolution in Ukraine). Brzezinski laid out his most significant contribution to post–Cold War geostrategy in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard. He defined regions of Eurasia and in which ways the United States ought to design its policy toward each region in order to maintain its global primacy. Brzezinski recommends in this book that the US should support and encourage separatist movements in and around Russia and China. Currently the US has military bases not only in Eastern Europe but also in Uzbekistan and Kirghistan. The US also wants Ukraine and Georgia to join the NATO. Seven years ago, in 2001, the French scientist Emmanuel Todd wrote "After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order", a book that was widely received as left wing US-bashing. Recently this book has been re-reviewed more positively and Todds description of the US housing bubble, industrial decline, trade deficit and "military theatricalism" might be more than just US-bashing. Todd predicted in 1976, at the age of 26, the decline of the USSR in "The Final Fall: An Essay on the Decomposition of the Soviet Sphere" what could be seen as a kind of track record. Emanuel Todd claims that the US has peaked and that the future economic center will be Eurasia. With Europe and Asia connected by Russia, the central piece of geostrategic interests Here, Todd and Brzezinski agree that Russia holds the key to many geostrategic scenarios. For Todd it is Russia that will economically connect Eurasia, for Brzezinski this is a threat and hence separatist movements should be supported. Amazingly Todd sees fewer problems with Muslim extremists due to increasing literacy rates especially among the females but not everybody agrees with him.

Why the US is collapsing

blasdelf — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 18:35:56 -0800

The leader of the Swedish Pirate Party explaining how the US went bankrupt in 1971, and has been covering it up through an accelerating whack-a-mole borrowing frenzy that is bursting right now.

It has been paying rapidly growing VISA bills using MasterCard and vice versa for 37 years. The creditors are catching up, and the US is about to go extinct as a superpower. Become irrelevant. It is not yet on its death bed, it is still walking, breathing and capable of entertaining a conversation in public. But there are ominous bloodstains on its hands used to cover the painful coughing.

The article manages to talk about Bretton Woods without getting overly Paul-tarded, perhaps thanks to the European perspective (which also means he doesn't focus on the mortgage crisis). A recent letter to the EU Commission (in english) regarding 'Creative Content Online' by the same guy. (via)

Sorry, No Punk Rock In This Link

nasreddin — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 20:17:29 -0800

Spending years clarifying my observations of the community and putting them down on paper slowly revealed a society beset by a fatal condition; an affliction that has been destroying us at an ever increasing rate for two centuries and must eventually return us to barbarism. A final result that should be no surprise, as it has overtaken every other civilization; a fate that appears as inevitable and as irreversible as old age with its increasing feebleness and dementia. I was no longer interested in why our bureaucracy was full of incompetents? but why our society was full of incompetents? My original aim to improve my community with technology was replaced with answering the question, why does a community age like any other creature?

Philip Atkinson knows: civilization is in decline. And he's determined to tell you about it. Find out the truth about Nelson Mandela, AIDS, obesity, parenting, standard weights and measures, and, of course, the Ten Commandments. We're screwed, guys. Sit down, read a book, and watch it burn.

World Leadership

j-urb — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 19:55:31 -0800

THE EVOLUTION OF GLOBAL POLITICS. University of Washington Professor George Modelski is credited with developing the concept of world leadership. There have been five world leaders: Portugal, the Netherlands, Great Britain I, Great Britain II, and currently the USA. Some scholars in political science and history are pointing towards U.S. decline and a takeover by a United States of Europe...

No Empire?

samelborp — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 08:32:10 -0800

From the guy that predicted back in 1976 the demise of the Soviet Union: “There will be no an American Empire”. Emmanuel Todd (scroll down for another Todd interview) is the author of “After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American System". His arguments? economic weakness (debt, massive trade imbalance, internal deficit), and emphasis on military power are signs that US power is in decline.

ParisParamus — Mon, 09 Sep 2002 11:04:52 -0800

Hamas is losing. Good news from the Mideast To all those who insist terror wars can't be won, some evidence you are pessimists.

Ulwen — Sun, 10 Feb 2002 04:25:02 -0800

Is this the last days of the Empire, or just the beginning? America the most powerful country since Roman Empire. I for sure hope that the good old US of A don´t meet the same destiny as the Roman Empire...But!? Has there been any country (empire) that survived being the biggest and best(?). Usually i read a lot about Swedens time of glory some couple of hundred years ago, now hoping that my grandchildren won´t read the same about the States. Should we be worried about what the history tells us?