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Monday, July 27, 2020
A Significant Decline Is Coming For The U.S. — Passer by
The US has managed a series of strategic blunders since the decision to go into Vietnam. This one, involving China, Russia and Iran, is likely to be the most damaging.
This will not be reversed should Biden win. The Democrats' foreign policy bench is as weak as the that of the GOP, and Biden will appointed personnel from that roster. On the othert hand, what could be worse that Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. Susan Rice and Samantha Power, maybe?
Moon of Alabama
A Significant Decline Is Coming For The U.S.
Passer by
See also
Reminiscence of the Future
One Trick Ponies. Or On Cold War With China.
Andrei Martyanov
See aalso
Sputnik International
US Arrogance is a Gas
Finian Cunningham
also
Huawei 9-Point Key Tech Strategy Aims to Deploy AI, 5G to Boost Post-COVID Economic Recovery - Exec
They all sound bearish....
ReplyDeleteMatt, if you follow Andrei Martyanov (Reminiscence of the Future), he explains why in terms very similar to your criticism. Incompetence. They simply are not trained to perform in the jobs they occupy. The selection process is badly broken. It's heavily politicized, but it also values academic credentials that don't fit people for work that requires knowledge of science and engineering. In addition, their ideological blinders and cognitive-affective biases prevent them from recognizing and dealing with reality. Finally, American culture is collapsing owing to the tendence of lberalism toward excess.
ReplyDeleteEconomically this expresses itself a consumerism. The ruling class has to keep "the little people" (Alan Simpson) distraction. Combine an incompetent ruling class with a distracted and disoriented population and you have a recipe for civilizational decline, which is what is now happening not only in the US but also the West in general.
It's a "spiritual" crisis. The Western intellectual tradition was about living a good life in a good society. Now "the good life" is viewed in terms of living it up, freedom has become detached from responsibility, and "there is no such thing as society." So go figure where this is headed. The world can see it but Americans apparently haven't noticed that their empire is slipping away.
Martyanov observes that the capital goods are barely being reproduced in the West and capital is being exported. The standard of living is declining as shown by major indicators like life expectancy. Meanwhile the emerging world is adding capital goods and the living standards are improving. It's just crazy to think that the US can maintain "full spectrum dominance," which is the goal of a ruling elite that is incompetent to do so and bonkers, to boot.
We’ll get thru this one too Tom... dont get down... the whole “doomsday” scenario is right out of Christendumb with their whole “end times!” bullshit... we’re in the administration of the grace of God... ‘grace’ meaning “unmerited favor”... They will be wrong and then have to become Atheists I guess... I don’t see any other way out for them...
ReplyDeleteCovid policy response was way overdone fomented by Trump Deranged partisan Democrat governors and mayors...
The Covid policy response that destroyed a large % of the economy currently is like a white collar antifa riot...
The young trump deranged are rioting and looting where they can and the white collar trump deranged are imposing the Covid shutdowns ...
Not as messy but does the same thing...It’s the same psychopathy just different class participants...
Gotta get thru election if trump wins then he has nothing left to lose and hopefully he will start cracking skulls wide open and force a reopening ... Get back to work...
Then Continue revising the post WW2 arrangements which featured too much blowback from US warfare involvement and US soft power policies.. it’s been long enough since WW2 .... ROW has to take the training wheels off finally... we gotta let them...
Gotta see how the election goes... I’m optimistic for a trump second term...
Bearish for Trump... sheepish for Biden.
ReplyDeleteThere is no doubt in my mind that the virus response has been terribly mismanaged. Too many have died and too many have suffered, not least the impact on the economy and our standing in the world. No doubt we have lost some soft power here and it may take a long time to repair, some perhaps not at all. MOA mentions also the debt. That is the last thing I would worry about since we own the printing press.
ReplyDeleteI apologize to the Trump people here but the guy should be locked up. And too much liberalism? You have got to be kidding. Income inequality-- including the knock on effects on health care and education -- will eat us all alive unless we address it, and has anyone noticed the infrastructure disaster out there, it is everywhere and it will cost nearly $500 Trillion to repair or, heaven forbid improve upon. Who in hell is going to fix that without government spending?
Soft power or other power it is both power...
ReplyDeleteWe don’t need either power anymore...
Let the ROW develop ... in the meantime continue to spend heavily on Defense preparation and training ... just hope we never have to use it...