2

As a descendant of Romans, I agree wholeheartedly with the thesis.

9/24/2008 6:56:44 PM

this is getting good

9/24/2008 7:01:19 PM

if okay. you never answer me question. okay friend. the reason i move from Seoul maybecause important person died. in my life. okay now.

9/24/2008 7:33:22 PM

Another reason we aren't going to go all Roman Empire is because now, unlike 2000 years ago, we live in a highly interdependent economy. Or rather, if we do go down, we're taking everybody else with us. But as long as there are other countries with the capacity to keep our bloated carcass propped up, they'll do so, if only because they've invested so much in us.

9/24/2008 9:00:20 PM

America's current situation involves a cause and effect relationship where American banks pumped huge amounts of assets into an unregulated housing market in an effort to make huge profits. Unfortunately, the banks were allowed to pump these assets in irresponsible ways by loaning people money that were clearly unfit to pay back the loans in the first place. This decision by the central government is the best and most recent example of America conducting itself like Rome once did.

When an American bank does this, the money that was loaned to the borrower is in essence forfeit or wasted, because that money was handed out without a realistic guarantee of a profitable return. For example, if the banks used that money to invest in a more stable market that money would of returned a profit instead of actually losing huge amounts of money. The obvious result is that the unfit borrowers are kicked out of their homes, and the banks end up owning tons of real estate with little to no chance of selling it for a profit. This can be easily compared to the over-expansion of Rome throughout the world, which left a heavy burden upon the central government and contributed heavily to its slow demise globally.

Now these American banks own all of these homes scattered all throughout the country that they didn't have to invest in in the first place, and because the economy is going south, their chances of selling these homes for a profit quickly are next to nothing. Since the banks cannot sell these homes and their assets are tied to a dead market, we are now experiencing a huge financial vacuum where banks are at risk of imploding. Again, Rome also over-expanded, had poor financial policies home and abroad, and continued a backwards philosophy in regards to their management of national resources.

Since there are no buyers, no one honestly knows the actual value of these homes because the housing market is tumbling. A bailout would allow the banks to hold onto these homes until they have a chance to sell them for a profit. Once they do sell them, the banks can then reallocate their assets and stabilize their own finances, which in theory will stabilize the economy once again. Rome also had a chance to break the pattern of instability by abandoning their distant outposts and managing their wealth, but their philosophy of military might slowly erroded their global strength because of their misinterpretation of human nature and the importance of over-powering your enemies with arms.

Think of it like selling a piece of art painted by an elephant. To some people, this painting is a true masterpiece valued in the millions of dollars, and to others it's worth a few hundred dollars because it's just a painting by an elephant. In Rome, lavish over-indulgence was the norm, and at a certain point the value of their currency and culture was lost even to themselves.

With a bailout: The banks are given a grace period to liberate themselves from their real estate investments by finding buyers in an unpredictable market and selling for an acceptable profit. This gives banks a chance at recovering by keeping them afloat in the seas of uncertainty with a 700 Billion dollar floatation device. The 700 Billion dollar amount is a mere guess by the treasury and only time will tell the actual bailout cost of this crisis. [Rome did not seek this opportunity]

Without a bailout: The banks are expected to liberate themselves from their real estate investments by finding buyers in an unpredictable market. If the economy continues to go south, the chances of recovery are very low and they will sink in the seas of uncertainty. [Rome did not seek this opportunity]

Basically, do we throw these American banks a taxpayer lifesaver to swim to land, or do we risk waiting it out to see if these banks can sink or swim? If the banks fail to swim and sink to the bottom of the sea of uncertainty, the probability of America finding land together is even bleaker and more unlikely. [Rome did not seek this opportunity]

The question should not be whether or not we bail them out with a taxpayer lifesaver; the question should be more geared towards the way we get to land together with the most survivors as possible. The more survivors we have, the better the chances of recovering the entire economy on solid ground. This is why conditions are so important, because if we do not account for the waves, the current, the wind, and each banks ability to swim; we may be adding an anchor to the problem, instead of a sail. [Rome did not seek this opportunity]

9/25/2008 1:59:56 PM

Sorry for the double post, but I couldn't edit my last post. This just in from Berlin, Germany.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1d6a4f3a-8aee-11dd-b634-0000779fd18c.html

Quote :

"US ‘will lose financial superpower status’ By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin Published: September 25 2008 11:55 | Last updated: September 25 2008 20:28 The US will lose its role as a global financial “superpower” in the wake of the financial crisis, Peer Steinbrück, German finance minister, forecast on Thursday in the most outspoken comments by a senior European government figure since Wall Street plunged into chaos two weeks ago. Mr Steinbrück, a Social Democrat and long-time champion of tougher financial market rules, said the US government was to blame for the severity of the crisis because it had resisted European calls for stricter regulation until it was too late. EDITOR’S CHOICE Lex: The last last balance sheet in town - the IMF’s - Sep-25 Europe rejects US-style toxic asset bail-out - Sep-22 German groups exposed to Russian bear - Sep-18 Germany may curb cash-settled swaps - Sep-18 Berlin calls for annual risk report - Sep-18 Glimmer of hope seen amid German gloom - Sep-11 “The US will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system” with the emergence of stronger, better-capitalised centres in Asia and Europe, he told the German parliament. “The world will never be the same again.” His comments echo deep anger in Germany at the perceived recklessness of Anglo-Saxon financial engineering and a feeling that the US model of economic liberalism has failed while the more regulated, long-term oriented and industry-based German economy has proved more resilient. “Ten years from now,” he later told journalists, “we will see 2008 as a fundamental rupture. I am not saying the dollar will lose its reserve currency status, but it will become relative.” The minister said it had been “irresponsible” of the US government to oppose stricter regulation even after the subprime crisis had broken out. This laisser faire ideology, he said, “was as simplistic as it was dangerous ... This largely under-regulated system is collapsing today.” Mr Steinbrück did have warm words for the US’s crisis management in the past fortnight, including the planned $700bn rescue package for the financial sector. Washington, he said, had acted not just in the US’s interest but also in the interest of other nations. Speaking after Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president and current holder of the European Union presidency, called for an emergency G8 meeting on the financial crisis, Mr Steinbrück said tougher capital market rules were now urgently needed. His proposals include a ban on “speculative short selling”; a crackdown on variable pay for bankers; a ban on banks securitising more than 80 per cent of any asset they hold; international standards making bank managers personally responsible for their trades and increased supervisory co-operation. He said France and Germany would set up a working group of treasury, central bank and supervisory authority officials."

9/25/2008 9:19:28 PM

Frankly I don't deem myself capable of sifting through both posts, but I will handle the last one:

Essentially you have a guy who fundamentally disagrees with our policies saying that our policies were wrong. Regardless of what's happened recently, I'm not sure it's cause to go jump on the opposite boat just yet, especially when his point of view comes from such a different economy.

I like how the article puts blame on "Anglo-Saxon" financial engineering. Somebody in his camp out to look at the history of Germanic peoples in England.

In general, it seems like a lot of their complaints stem from the fact that the shit hit the fan in America first. Some of these financial practices aren't unique to the US of A.

9/26/2008 3:37:09 AM

i cant stand how people compare the US to rome...its gay and stupid...its for dumb ass "intellectuals" with no sense of anything

9/26/2008 3:41:04 AM

God I wish it was possible to push subliterate ape-people into chit-chat once and for all.

9/26/2008 3:45:47 AM

^I think dnl is completely piss-ass drunk tonight, he's kind of taking a shit in TSB instead of just posting irrelevant single-sentence posts... Usually he gives his opinions and leaves but tonight he's just calling everything gay and/or stupid... it's uncharacteristic.

[Edited on September 26, 2008 at 3:49 AM. Reason : .]

9/26/2008 3:48:36 AM

Maybe, but then again, I'm piss-ass drunk tonight, and at least I manage to compose sentences without coming across as a mongoloid sack of shit.

9/26/2008 3:49:38 AM

seriously though...the old ass roman empire and the united states are very similar...lol

9/26/2008 4:10:52 AM

Quote :

"Frankly I don't deem myself capable of sifting through both posts, but I will handle the last one: Essentially you have a guy who fundamentally disagrees with our policies saying that our policies were wrong. Regardless of what's happened recently, I'm not sure it's cause to go jump on the opposite boat just yet, especially when his point of view comes from such a different economy. I like how the article puts blame on "Anglo-Saxon" financial engineering. Somebody in his camp out to look at the history of Germanic peoples in England. In general, it seems like a lot of their complaints stem from the fact that the shit hit the fan in America first. Some of these financial practices aren't unique to the US of A."

Fair enough, but I do find these comments very compelling regardless. It's surprising to hear this from Berlin, Germany. Now that China is harping on the subject as well, and Britain is mocking our efforts too, this is becoming more interesting with each passing day. At this point, maybe the focus of the topic should be on the United States losing it's empire status instead suggesting a slow demise like Rome. Either way, we share several early warning signs that other great empires experienced before they faded from superpower status. American runs the risk of no longer representing the burning hope for accomplishing your wildest dreams. All roads led to Rome, but when Rome withered away the symbolism behind the greatness of Rome, made the roads, just roads.

[Edited on September 26, 2008 at 10:04 AM. Reason : -]

9/26/2008 10:01:59 AM

there's also that time Mark Antony "fell in love" with Cleopatra so that Rome could keep grain supplies from the Nile to the Aventine constant.

seriously, if we don't stop subsidising oil, its only going to cause us more pain in the long run. we may call it a "long term strategic presence in the middle east", but its really just a subsidy when it comes down to it.

9/29/2008 12:40:33 AM

This thread is a bit silly...

America isn't an empire in any way when compared to Rome. Apples meet Oranges.

Rome was in decline for hundreds of years. We have a relatively small, so far, economic downturn, that has been thrown way out of proportion for political gain on both sides. Obama comparing this to the Great Depression? Fo real? Scare mongering anyone?

Hell, look at the Great Depression. Yeah it was terrible, but people survived and, guess what, America survived and surpassed what it had been before it. It didn't fall, it didn't collapse. America isn't Rome.

9/29/2008 12:58:59 AM

i actually see our situation more directly paralleled to late model USSR

either way, i'll see you guyz in belize when we get to president palin

9/29/2008 2:47:12 AM

Address the underlying commonality between the two empires first, and then contrast how they are fundamentally different with examples of how they cannot be paralleled within reason. It's easy to say America isn't Rome, but it's far more difficult to defend that claim with supportive examples that contradict the similar early warning signs. No one is claiming what the rate of America's decline could end up being, instead the point is to discuss the problems that we share. In fact, I've already said that the decline can be averted, so I'm not sure of your implied direction. If Rome isn't America, then defend that by refuting the underlying themes.

I like how on CNN right now they are talking about how some of these American mega banks were "too big to fail."

Sound familiar?

[Edited on September 29, 2008 at 7:40 PM. Reason : -]

9/29/2008 7:19:58 PM

Quote :

"We're living in difficult times. But things will change. Things are changing. There still are men to whom freedom is more than a word on posters."

Unfortunately these men are not represented in the Republican or Democratic party.

9/29/2008 8:36:43 PM

I don't know if America will ever have a "fall", like Rome did (and keep in mind, the Roman Empire may have fallen in 1452 depending on how you define the Roman Empire), but I do think that the US will wind up having its power eclipsed (much like the UK did) by emerging powers like China and India.

With the resources wasted in the War on Terror (financially, diplomatically, militarily), added with the declining state of American education, I don't know how we are going to be able to compete with growing power from the EU and Asia.

9/30/2008 5:54:29 PM

5.1.2006:

Quote :

" I'm feel like Im seeing more and more similarities between our culture and hte Roman empire just prior to its decline. The world is changing, wether we want to admit it to ourselves or not. It seems that we have no choice but to adapt our culture to these global changes if we as a civilization wish to endure beyon the next century. However, in that adaptation, do we not lose what we would consider our culture today? "

http://www.brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=405586

9/30/2008 10:42:33 PM

In my opinion what happened to Rome cannot occur any longer. Back then, the weapons most effective could easily be weilded by a people without a formal state (iron weapons and horses). As such, it was simply a numbers game: no matter how powerful the Roman state was, if its army was outnumbered then it could lose to any organized rabble, even one that disbanded shortly after winning.

That is no longer the case. Now, with civilization comes technology which by itself produces power. As such, a technologically endowed state can only be conquered by other technologically endowed states (while a poor herdsmen can be expected to afford a sword and horse, an abrams tank is out of the question).

Today states are self fulfilling. Even a vampire state which only exists to rape and pillage its own people can drag on forever (see some African states). As such, governments simply do not fail the way they used to. On a planet with 195 separate countries, only one has been without a state for an extended period of time, and even there foreign states are trying to impose a state as we speak. Compare that to Roman times when the world was the absolute reverse (mostly borderless).

As such, before a future can arrive which involves the end of the organized state in North America, we should expect to see at least the whole African continent go first and then find a way for poor farmers and herdsmen to defeat an armored division in open combat.

9/30/2008 11:00:41 PM

Quote :

"As such, it was simply a numbers game: no matter how powerful the Roman state was"

You know nothing of ancient warfare. Tell the greek phalanx fighting against the Persians that ancient warfare is "just" a numbers game.

9/30/2008 11:05:56 PM

Quote :

"That is no longer the case. Now, with civilization comes technology which by itself produces power. As such, a technologically endowed state can only be conquered by other technologically endowed states (while a poor herdsmen can be expected to afford a sword and horse, an abrams tank is out of the question). "

Perhaps, but only in the short term. These technological marvels of our weaponry require a vast and complex supply line.

In terms of upkeep, A sword & horse > Abrams tank > modern warship > ICBM

9/30/2008 11:15:41 PM

HUR, we are not talking about ancient warfare, we are talking about warfare as it was waged between the Romans and their enemies around the fall of Rome. And at that time, I believe it was a numbers game. Afterall, Rome did not just fade away, it was crushed down by nomadic tribes it was unable to best on the battlefield.

Jax883, the difference in upkeep between a sword & horse and a machine-gun & pickup-truck is not substantial in human terms. The difference being that a sword & horse can be fed the same food humans eat, where-as a technical requires access to carefully managed production facilities defended far from the front lines. A feat which can only be carried out by an organized state of some-sort.

Now, a gorilla campaign can be wages using the weapons of the state against it. But what would victory look like? The better you do at vanquishing the state, the less ammunition there is for everyone, including the barbarians.

This is why today's barbarians no longer raise cities to the ground; they occupy them and merely take over control of the existing state. Afterall, they need amunition and fuel, therefore they need the state.

[Edited on October 1, 2008 at 1:22 AM. Reason : .,.]

10/1/2008 1:20:38 AM

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/09/30/nobel.literature.ap/index.html

Quote :

" STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Bad news for American writers hoping for a Nobel Prize next week: the top member of the award jury believes the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing. British author Doris Lessing holds the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature in London, England. Counters the head of the U.S. National Book Foundation: "Put him in touch with me, and I'll send him a reading list." As the Swedish Academy enters final deliberations for this year's award, permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said it's no coincidence that most winners are European. "Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world ... not the United States," he told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday. He said the 16-member award jury has not selected this year's winner, and dropped no hints about who was on the short list. Americans Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates usually figure in speculation, but Engdahl wouldn't comment on any names. Speaking generally about American literature, however, he said U.S. writers are "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture," dragging down the quality of their work. "The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," Engdahl said. "That ignorance is restraining." His comments were met with fierce reactions from literary officials across the Atlantic. "You would think that the permanent secretary of an academy that pretends to wisdom but has historically overlooked Proust, Joyce, and Nabokov, to name just a few non-Nobelists, would spare us the categorical lectures," said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker. "And if he looked harder at the American scene that he dwells on, he would see the vitality in the generation of Roth, Updike, and DeLillo, as well as in many younger writers, some of them sons and daughters of immigrants writing in their adopted English. None of these poor souls, old or young, seem ravaged by the horrors of Coca-Cola." Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the foundation which administers the National Book Awards, said he wanted to send Engdahl a reading list of U.S. literature. "Such a comment makes me think that Mr. Engdahl has read little of American literature outside the mainstream and has a very narrow view of what constitutes literature in this age," he said. "In the first place, one way the United States has embraced the concept of world culture is through immigration. Each generation, beginning in the late 19th century, has recreated the idea of American literature." He added that this is something the English and French are discovering as immigrant groups begin to take their place in those traditions. The most recent American to win the award was Toni Morrison in 1993. Other American winners include Saul Bellow, John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway. As permanent secretary, Engdahl is a voting member of and spokesman for the secretive panel that selects the winners of what many consider the most prestigious award in literature. The academy often picks obscure writers and hardly ever selects best-selling authors. It regularly faces accusations of snobbery, political bias and even poor taste. Since Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe won the award in 1994, the selections have had a distinct European flavor. Nine of the subsequent laureates were Europeans, including last year's winner, Doris Lessing of Britain (though Lessing often writes about her life in southern Africa). Of the other four, one was from Turkey and the others from South Africa, China and Trinidad. All had strong ties to Europe. Engdahl said Europe draws literary exiles because it "respects the independence of literature" and can serve as a safe haven. "Very many authors who have their roots in other countries work in Europe, because it is only here where you can be left alone and write, without being beaten to death," he said. "It is dangerous to be an author in big parts of Asia and Africa." The Nobel Prize announcements start next week with the medicine award on Monday, followed by physics, chemistry, peace and economics. Next Thursday is a possible date for the literature prize, but the Swedish Academy by tradition only gives the date two days before. Engdahl suggested the announcement date could be a few weeks away, saying "it could take some time" before the academy settles on a name. Each Nobel Prize includes a $1.3 million purse, a gold medal and a diploma. The awards are handed out December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896. "

Our cultural influence and our mathematical and scientific advancement is diminishing, because our nation is not focusing on these crucial aspects of development. Any great empire, or world power, must fuel it's cultural diversity and the advancement of the sciences in order to maintain it's stability and influence. Relying on past technological advancements and military might alone will inevitably result in a slow but likely instability.

10/1/2008 7:51:56 AM

You can view Mr. Engdahl's comments in a few ways. One is that he implies that America was never the center of the literary world, and so, given that we were never on top to begin with, I don't view his comments as a statement that American cultural influence is diminishing.

10/1/2008 11:28:25 AM

i woudl encourage all to read the entire article, not just the bolded parts (^^)

[Edited on October 1, 2008 at 11:29 AM. Reason : 

10/1/2008 11:29:36 AM

Oh I did, but I didn't feel like bringing up the other issues that aren't relevant to the conversation at hand.

I would point out that while there are large portions of the United States that may be insular and ignorant, I would question whether that really applies to the academia and especially the literary community here in the United States.

I also think that Engdahl's comments are more reflective of a eurocentric view that is equally narrow minded. His comment about writers working in Europe because they'd be beaten to death in Asia or Africa is a bit of a stretch. What about democratic nations in Asia like India, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan? Pacific nations like Australia or New Zealand? What about South America, in nations like Brazil, Argentina, or Chile? That assumption would also equally apply to the United States as well, another rather popular destination for struggling academics from overseas who need a safe haven.

I'd also throw in that the comment is probably equally an attempt by Europeans to reassert themselves, to say that they are still relevant in a world where their influence is also in rapid decline.

[Edited on October 1, 2008 at 11:43 AM. Reason : Added last comment]

10/1/2008 11:39:29 AM

lame.

10/1/2008 11:59:18 AM

Quote :

"Our cultural influence and our mathematical and scientific advancement is diminishing, because our nation is not focusing on these crucial aspects of development"

The stupidity of this statement blows my mind. Why don't you check the Nobel winners from the past decade or two in Medicine, which is overwhelming USA scientists/doctors (the rest of the world combined doesn't even come close). And we have more than our fair share in Chemistry and Physics as well, though the USA isn't as completely dominant as it is in Medicine, in terms of Nobel Laureates.

If a chairman of one of the Nobel committees on science said this, the scientific world would just laugh at him.

As someone else said, that article just shows eurocentrism by some silly Swede.

[Edited on October 1, 2008 at 1:04 PM. Reason : .]

10/1/2008 1:03:48 PM

^

You are reading that out of context. I'm referring to our future development, not our present day accompishments...hence the entire thread.

http://www.nationalmathandscience.org/index.php/blog/friedman-ids-the-problem-weve-found-the-answer.html

Quote :

"Tom Friedman recognizes the problem...We know the answer. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman put one of America’s greatest challenges in perspective in his Sunday column. He described the current state of global competition in math, science, technology and innovation in terms that we can all understand. These key paragraphs really captured the difference between the slow response in the U.S. and how our competitors are rising to the challenge: “A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II. “How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans. “And us? Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in ‘downsized labs, layoffs of post docs, slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions.’ Today, she added, ‘China, India, Singapore ... have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals. Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere.’ “Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.” (“Who Will Tell The People?” by Thomas Friedman, Sunday Opinion, New York Times, May 4, 2008) That’s an effective description of the problem – now the word needs to go out to the American people that we have answers at NMSI that work. The AP Training and Incentives and UTeach programs have 10 years of data showing that they make a positive difference. That’s why the convocation in Washington was so important and why we need more political leaders to add their voices and their votes to funding for math and science programs. "

Reached Max character limit...

[Edited on October 1, 2008 at 1:35 PM. Reason : -]

10/1/2008 1:31:57 PM

http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/3213636.html

Quote :

"The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. By Thomas L. Friedman. Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat could have been the most influential prod to education reform since A Nation at Risk. The elements are all there: a growing foreign challenge (then, Japan; now, China and India); a new world of opportunity and competition (then, for American companies; now, thanks to the Internet, for individual Americans); and an inadequate response on our part (then, “a rising tide of mediocrity”; now, a grave shortage of math and science graduates). Again and again, Friedman hints at the need for bold education reform as he makes his case for greater competition in the marketplace, fewer labor restrictions, and lower barriers to trade. But after spending 300 pages hinting at a bold education-reform plan, he never pulls the trigger. Like the foreign aid efforts he criticizes, when it comes to education, he’s all promise, no delivery. The book is not, of course, explicitly about education, but about globalization. According to Friedman, the convergence of advanced technologies, new ways of doing business, the removal of economic and political obstructions, and the rapid introduction of millions of young Chinese, Indian, and East European professionals into the world economy has dramatically leveled, or “flattened,” the global playing field. Overwhelmingly, Friedman finds this to be a positive development, opening up opportunities for billions more people to tap their full potential, boost their prosperity, and live their dreams, while creating an explosion of inventions and innovations that will benefit us all. Americans with the knowledge, skills, and adaptability to compete in this newly flattened world can look forward to a utopian future, full of interesting work and a rising standard of living. Can We Get Ahead by Standing Still? But what about Americans without a command of higher-level skills, or those whose work can be easily digitized? Just as many good-paying manufacturing jobs went offshore in the 1970s and 1980s, so too will many professional jobs head overseas in the years to come, if they aren’t eliminated altogether by technology. From calculating taxes and evaluating insurance claims to reading CAT scans and providing PowerPoint help to busy executives, work is heading to India, China, Poland, and other countries where labor is cheaper and, perhaps most unsettling, quality is often higher. Americans, Friedman argues, cannot assume that we will maintain our comfortable lifestyle while standing still. He describes Bill Gates’s thoughts on the “ovarian lottery”: 30 years ago, if you had a choice between being born a genius in Bombay or average in Poughkeepsie, you would have chosen Poughkeepsie, because your chances of enjoying a decent life were greater there. Now, in the new plugged-in, interconnected, flat world of 2005, Gates says, “I would rather be a genius born in China than an average guy born in Poughkeepsie.” Microsoft and other companies will search the globe for talent, and wherever they find it—China, or India, or anywhere else—high-paying, challenging jobs will follow. The Indian company Infosys, for example, one of the primary benefici­aries of off-shoring, received one million applications last year for 9,000 technology jobs. Meanwhile, a Microsoft executive explains, “Remember, in China when you are one in a million, there are 1,300 other people just like you.” As Friedman says, “Have a nice day.” How can we ensure that our children are ready to compete and succeed in this new flat world? Obviously, education is key, and Friedman says as much. He tells his own daughters, “Girls, when I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ‘Tom, finish your dinner—people in China and India are starving.’ My advice to you is: Girls, finish your homework—people in China and India are starving for your jobs.” He lays out the stark numbers to document our education gap: the U.S. now ranks 17th in the number of students receiving science degrees, down from 3rd three decades ago; the percentage of scientific papers written by Americans has fallen 10 percent since 1992; the U.S. share of patents has dropped 8 percent since 1980. Then he brings in the big guns, relaying the results of the latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS): 44 percent of 8th graders in Singapore scored at the most advanced level in math, as did 38 percent in Taiwan; only 7 percent in the United States did. Forgetting the Punch Line At this point, my inner school reformer was screaming, “Yes, yes, sock it to ’em, Tom!” After all, this is a book written by a Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist for the world’s most influential newspaper, guaranteed a wide and careful reading by millions, including the rich and powerful, and he is about to make a compelling case for urgent and radical school reform. Surely, I thought, he is going to argue that real competition, in the form of charters or maybe even vouchers, would have the same positive, transformative effects on our education system that the liberalization of India’s economy has had on its development. Without a doubt, I thought, he will compare our schools’ stultifying unions to those of Europe, whose labor markets he derides as “inflexible, rigidly regulated … full of government restrictions on hiring and firing.” Definitely, he will call for a more rigorous focus on the basics; after all, he quotes Bill Gates as saying, “I have never met the guy who doesn’t know how to multiply who created software.… You need to understand things in order to invent beyond them.” Unquestionably, Friedman will ridicule the whiners who complain that No Child Left Behind is leading to too much homework and too little summer vacation for poor little Susie, while other nations leap ahead. Without a doubt, I was convinced, he will look at this new flat world, where Americans must compete with people not from their own community or state but from all over the planet, and declare our patchwork education system—with its 50 sets of academic standards and tests—no longer up to the challenges at hand and say that the time has come for rigorous national standards and tests, political obstacles be damned. Alas, my inner school reformer was sorely disappointed. I got to the end of chapter eight, “This Is Not a Test,” and could discern only three reform ideas from Friedman: embark on an “all-hands-on-deck, no-holds-barred, no-budget-too-large crash program for science and engineering education”; make community college affordable for everyone; and scold parents into doing a better job. Well, his finger wagging at parents is persuasive: “The sense of entitlement, the sense that because we once dominated global commerce and geopolitics … we always will, the sense that delayed gratification is a punishment worse than a spanking, the sense that our kids have to be swaddled in cotton wool so that nothing bad or disappointing or stressful ever happens to them at school is, quite simply, a growing cancer on American society. And if we don’t start to reverse it, our kids are going to be in for a huge and socially disruptive shock.” But Friedman describes a national crisis, then places responsibility in the home, shielding the education system itself from blame. His solutions are sorely inadequate and massively underwhelming. He even quotes Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM: “Transformation of an enterprise begins with a sense of crisis or urgency. No institution will go through fundamental change unless it believes it is in deep trouble and needs to do something different to survive.” To which Friedman adds, “It is impossible to ignore the parallel with America as a whole in the early twenty-first century.” But Friedman does ignore the parallel with the education system, and his otherwise masterful book suffers greatly for its failure to address the crisis in schooling. It will be up to others to pick up where he left off, to explain to the nation that our education system, as it is currently configured, is incapable of helping enough of our children develop the high-level knowledge and skills that they need to succeed in today’s flat world. Friedman missed a perfect opportunity to connect the dots that he so perfectly draws: remove barriers to competition, inject accountability for results, and eliminate work rules that impede innovation and achievement. If it’s good enough for business and for the economic well-being of our country, as Friedman suggests, why not for our education system? Isn’t this exactly what our children and grandchildren need in order to have a shot at the good life so many of us have come to take for granted? Indeed, the world is getting flatter. Unfortunately, Thomas Friedman would let our education system fall off the edge. "

After lots of words, what Freidman is claiming is that we have reached a tipping point in which America cannot continue down our current path and stay competitive in the global society. He mentions a major shock that could erupt into real innovation in our society, and I'm saying that tipping point or eruption is happening right now.

[Edited on October 1, 2008 at 1:37 PM. Reason : -]

10/1/2008 1:33:00 PM

This is the same argument that was made in the 80's. We are falling behind, we are screwed, the end is nigh.

Instead of the USA falling behind, some of what Friedman is seeing is rather the rest of the world catching up to us (and Europe), which isn't a bad thing. This was inevitably since we educate the rest of the world. (where do people go to earn advanced degrees? It isn't China).

A little anecdotaly, I have been completely unimpressed with the quality of some of the Chinese/Indians graduate students I have met. You say well, China is producing 10 millions science degrees a year (just a random number) and the USA is producing, say, only 2 million. But I would argue the disparity in quality of degrees is great. From what I have seen, Chinese universities focus very little on abstract and creative thinking that is critical in science. Only time will tell, but I'm not to worried about it.

10/1/2008 1:46:12 PM

Quote :

"what Freidman is claiming is that we have reached a tipping point in which America cannot continue down our current path and stay competitive in the global society"

Freidman's premise is falty. U.S. workers are not in competition with foreign workers, just as American workers are not in competition with other American workers. The North Carolinians whose textile jobs moved to Mexico, an extreme example of failure to complete, did not starve to death; they got jobs doing something else.

If America's education system continues to suck, it will make Americans poorer than they otherwise would be. But it would be irrelevant how we compare to foreigners. No matter how smart or dumb foreign students are, their ability does not impact in any way upon an American's ability to be productive.

In fact, it should be the opposite. The better educated foreigners are, the better off Americans will be, especially the stupid ones. Afterall, the greater the world's supply of education the greater the return to non-education related inputs (land, labor, capital, etc) which Americans tend to have a lot of.

10/2/2008 12:44:22 AM

The lagging behind of American education only really applies up until high school, our universities are still the best in the world.


So that has little to do with any nobel prizes, nobody's winning a nobel prize coming out of high school AFAIK.

Besides, that was a nobel prize in literature, I don't think Rome fell because the barbarians were writing more entertaining books.

[Edited on October 2, 2008 at 1:13 AM. Reason : ]

10/2/2008 1:13:04 AM

Quote :

"The lagging behind of American education only really applies up until high school, our universities are still the best in the world."

QFT.

10/2/2008 3:04:34 AM

message_topic.aspx?topic=542182&page=9

10/2/2008 8:26:48 AM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/arts/2008/03/09/bomur109.xml

Quote :

"Is America the new Rome? Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 09/03/2008 Noel Malcolm reviews The New Rome: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy The American edition of this book, which came out a few months ago, bore the title Are We Rome? Apparently that was the sort of question for which ancient Romans would have used the word 'nonne', expecting the answer 'yes'; for the British edition is baldly entitled The New Rome. Washington's Capitol building is at the centre of the world Sidney and Beatrice Webb did something similar when they dropped the question mark from their Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? - but at least they waited a couple of years before they did so. Cullen Murphy, an author of stylish think-pieces in Atlantic Monthly and Vanity Fair, has become obsessed with the resemblances between the present-day US and ancient Rome. The big similarity, of course, is in geopolitics: at its height, the Roman Empire was a military superpower which dominated much of what is tendentiously called 'the known world' (known by whom? - answer: by people in the Roman Empire). Rome's imprint on that large part of the world was not just military. The material culture of Roman life - art and architecture, clothes and food, even including the Romans' disgusting fermented fish sauce - had an overwhelming allure for almost everyone who became part of the empire, or was in regular contact with it. And for those brought into the empire, Roman law and Roman moral values were powerful influences, often superseding the value-systems they had lived by before. For fish sauce, read McDonald's; for Roman values, liberal democracy (or neo-con dogma, according to taste). Most of these broad-brush comparisons are obvious and familiar; they are the bread and butter of highbrow op-ed pieces about the 'imperial' status of America today. But Cullen Murphy goes further, using his Roman analogy to make points both about the blinkered mentality of the imperial elite, and about the short-sighted way in which it is now undermining the foundations of its own power. Where the elite is concerned, he has fun comparing the huge travelling circus of officials that accompanies the American President with the similar entourage of a Roman emperor. Both surround a leader so coddled and cocooned that he has little real contact with the outside world. And just as Rome was said to contain the omphalos or navel of the world, so the Washington elite are inclined to suppose that everything revolves around them. Murphy's most original comparison, however, is between the policies of modern American governments and the fatal errors made by Roman emperors in the Empire's final period. Previously, in the good old days, barbarian tribes that moved into the Empire were accommodated on the basis that they turned themselves into ordinary Roman subjects or citizens. The fatal mistake was to let them settle as blocs, maintaining their separate identities in great chunks of Gaul, Spain or Africa. These were the alien bodies that became the embryos of non-Roman breakaway states. At first, you might guess that this comparison would be used to warn the US about the dangers of letting southern California become a Spanish-speaking enclave. Cullen Murphy does have some things to say about mass immigration into America, and the Rio Grande border is the main counterpart he offers to the Roman limes or frontier - a frontier which, he emphasises, was always a porous membrane, not an impenetrable barrier. But instead he turns the comparison in a very different direction. Fixated on the dangers of privatisation, he says that the real equivalents to the Visigoths and Ostrogoths of the late Roman Empire are the giant corporations such as Halliburton, which are taking over key government services. Like the Roman emperors, it seems, the American government now depends on alien armies which it cannot control. This argument seems more rhetorical than historical. Halliburton is unlikely to sack and pillage Washington, however great the reconstruction contracts that might follow such a development. Nor will it turn Texas into the Kingdom of Halliburtonia. Of course it has aims of its own; but its primary aim is to make money for its directors, shareholders and employees. And most of those are American citizens, who will pay taxes on that money, and remain subject to American laws. Many of Murphy's arguments work only in a rhetorical way, as they depend on getting the reader to ignore an elementary distinction. Sometimes the equivalent of the Roman Empire in these pages is the world-wide 'imperium', cultural and geopolitical, of American power today; and sometimes it is just America as a state, with its frontiers drawn against the barbarian hordes of Mexico (and, er, Canada). If there is an American 'empire' today, it is the empire that has been acquired by a particular state - the United States of America, of which Washington happens to be the capital. But the Roman Empire was not acquired by an Italian state, which happened to have its capital in Rome. This distinction matters in all sorts of obvious ways. For instance, America is a state with its own constitution; democratic politics within that state can alter the policies of the state abroad. The kind of empire-beyond-the-borders which American power now enjoys is quite different from the empire-within-the-borders of ancient Rome. Et cetera, et cetera. While the grand thesis of this book fails to convince, however, there are many incidental pleasures to be had along the way. Murphy is a beguiling writer with a good eye for detail, who has read widely among both ancient writers and modern historians of Rome. But, for a fastidious author, he makes some surprising mistakes - for example, using 'expostulate' when he means 'expectorate', or putting Bishop Berkeley in the mid-19th century, and attributing to him a quotation that comes in fact from a book published in 1885 by the Revd Dr Josiah Strong. Charitably, let us assume that the misprint 'Civus Romanus sum' was the typesetter's responsibility, not his. But the fact that such a howler could pass unchallenged all the way through the proof-reading process suggests that the barbarians are indeed within the gates."

10/9/2008 4:52:05 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/09/AR2008100903425_pf.html

Quote :

"The End Of American Capitalism? The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism. Since the 1930s, U.S. banks were the flagships of American economic might, and emulation by other nations of the fiercely free-market financial system in the United States was expected and encouraged. But the market turmoil that is draining the nation's wealth and has upended Wall Street now threatens to put the banks at the heart of the U.S. financial system at least partly in the hands of the government. The Bush administration is considering a partial nationalization of some banks, buying up a portion of their shares to shore them up and restore confidence as part of the $700 billion government bailout. The notion of government ownership in the financial sector, even as a minority stakeholder, goes against what market purists say they see as the foundation of the American system. Yet the administration may feel it has no choice. Credit, the lifeblood of capitalism, ceased to flow. An economy based on the free market cannot function that way. The government's about-face goes beyond the banking industry. It is reasserting itself in the lives of citizens in ways that were unthinkable in the era of market-knows-best thinking. With the recent takeovers of major lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the bailout of AIG, the U.S. government is now effectively responsible for providing home mortgages and life insurance to tens of millions of Americans. Many economists are asking whether it remains a free market if the government is so deeply enmeshed in the financial system. Given that the United States has held itself up as a global economic model, the change could shift the balance of how governments around the globe conduct free enterprise. Over the past three decades, the United States led the crusade to persuade much of the world, especially developing countries, to lift the heavy hand of government from finance and industry. But the hands-off brand of capitalism in the United States is now being blamed for the easy credit that sickened the housing market and allowed a freewheeling Wall Street to create a pool of toxic investments that has infected the global financial system. Heavy intervention by the government, critics say, is further robbing Washington of the moral authority to spread the gospel of laissez-faire capitalism. The government could launch a targeted program in which it takes a minority stake in troubled banks, or a broader program aimed at the larger banking system. In either case, however, the move could be seen as evidence that Washington remains a slave to Wall Street. The plan, for instance, may not compel participating firms to give their chief executives the salary haircuts that some in Congress intended. But if the plan didn't work, the government might have to take bigger stakes. "People around the world once admired us for our economy, and we told them if you wanted to be like us, here's what you have to do -- hand over power to the market," said Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University. "The point now is that no one has respect for that kind of model anymore given this crisis. And of course it raises questions about our credibility. Everyone feels they are suffering now because of us." In Seoul, many see American excess as a warning. At the same time, anger is mounting over the global spillover effect of the U.S. crisis. The Korean currency, the won, has fallen sharply in recent days as corporations there struggle to find dollars in the heat of a global credit crunch. "Derivatives and hedge funds are like casino gambling," said South Korean Finance Minister Kang Man-soo. "A lot of Koreans are asking, how can the United States be so weak?" Other than a few fringe heads of state and quixotic headlines, no one is talking about the death of capitalism. The embrace of free-market theories, particularly in Asia, has helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty in recent decades. But resentment is growing over America's brand of capitalism, which in contrast to, say, Germany's, spurns regulations and venerates risk. In South Korea, rising criticism that the government is sticking too close to the U.S. model has roused opposition to privatizing the massive, state-owned Korea Development Bank. South Korea is among those countries that have benefited the most from adopting free-market principles, emerging from the ashes of the Korean War to become one of the world's biggest economies. It has distinguished itself from North Korea, an impoverished country hobbled by an outdated communist system and authoritarian leadership. But the repercussions of crisis that began in the United States are global. In Britain, where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher joined with President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to herald capitalism's promise, the government this week moved to partly nationalize the ailing banking system. Across the English Channel, European leaders who are no strangers to regulation are piling on Washington for gradually pulling the government watchdogs off the world's largest financial sector. Led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, they are calling for broad new international codes to impose scrutiny on global finance. To some degree, those calls are even being echoed by the International Monetary Fund, an institution charged with the promotion of free markets overseas and that preached that less government was good government during the economic crises in Asia and Latin America in the 1990s. Now, it is talking about the need for regulation and oversight. "Obviously the crisis comes from an important regulatory and supervisory failure in advanced countries . . . and a failure in market discipline mechanisms," Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's managing director, said yesterday before the fund's annual meeting in Washington. In a slideshow presentation, Strauss-Kahn illustrated the global impact of the financial crisis. Countries in Africa, including many of those with some of the lowest levels of market and financial integration and openness, are now set to weather the crisis with the least amount of turbulence. Shortly afterward, World Bank President Robert Zoellick was questioned by reporters about the "confusion" in the developing world over whether to continue embracing the free-market model. He replied, "I think people have been confused not only in developing countries, but in developed countries, by these shocking events." In much of the developing world, financial systems still remain far more governed by the state, despite pressure from the United States for those countries to shift power to the private sector and create freer financial markets. They may stay that way for some time. China had been resisting calls from Washington and Wall Street to introduce a broad range of exotic investments, including many of the once-red-hot derivatives now being blamed for magnifying the crisis in the West. In recent weeks, Beijing has made that position more clear, saying it would not permit an expansion of complex financial instruments. With the U.S. government's current push toward intervention and the soul-searching over the role of deregulation in the crisis, the stage appears to be at least temporarily set for a more restrained model of free enterprise, particularly in financial markets. "If you look around the world, China is doing pretty good right now, and the U.S. isn't," said C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "You may see a push back from globalization in the financial markets." Staff writers Blaine Harden in Seoul and Ariana Cha in Washington contributed to this report. "

10/10/2008 12:32:13 PM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7741049.stm

Quote :

" US global dominance 'set to wane' The US will face more competition at the top of a multi-polar global system US economic, military and political dominance is likely to decline over the next two decades, according to a new US intelligence report on global trends. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) predicts China, India and Russia will increasingly challenge US influence. It also says the dollar may no longer be the world's major currency, and food and water shortages will fuel conflict. However, the report concedes that these outcomes are not inevitable and will depend on the actions of world leaders. It will make sombre reading for President-elect Barack Obama, the BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says, as it paints a bleak picture of the future of US influence and power. The US will remain the single most important actor but will be less dominant Global Trends 2025 Analysis: US intelligence report US Global Trends report: Key points "The next 20 years of transition to a new system are fraught with risks," says Global Trends 2025, the latest of the reports that the NIC prepares every four years in time for the next presidential term. Washington will retain its considerable military advantages, but scientific and technological advances; the use of "irregular warfare tactics"; the proliferation of long-range precision weapons; and the growing use of cyber warfare "increasingly will constrict US freedom of action", it adds. Nevertheless, the report concludes: "The US will remain the single most important actor but will be less dominant." Nuclear weapons use The NIC's 2004 study painted a rosier picture of America's global position, with US dominance expected to continue. But the latest Global Trends report says that rising economies such as China, India, Russia and Brazil will offer the US more competition at the top of a multi-polar international system. NIC REPORT Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (33MB) Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader Download the reader here The EU is meanwhile predicted to become a "hobbled giant", unable to turn its economic power into diplomatic or military muscle. A world with more power centres will be less stable than one with one or two superpowers, it says, offering more potential for conflict. Global warming, along with rising populations and economic growth will put additional strains on natural resources, it warns, fuelling conflict around the globe as countries compete for them. "Strategic rivalries are most likely to revolve around trade, investments and technological innovation and acquisition, but we cannot rule out a 19th Century-like scenario of arms races, territorial expansion and military rivalries," the report says. "Types of conflict we have not seen for a while - such as over resources - could re-emerge." US military vehicles in Iraq - 9/9/2008 There will be greater potential for conflict in the future, the NIC says Such conflicts and resource shortages could lead to the collapse of governments in Africa and South Asia, and the rise of organised crime in Eastern and Central Europe, it adds. And the use of nuclear weapons will grow increasingly likely, the report says, as "rogue states" and militant groups gain greater access to them. But al-Qaeda could decay "sooner than people think", it adds, citing the group's growing unpopularity in the Muslim world. "The prospect that al-Qaeda will be among the small number of groups able to transcend the generational timeline is not high, given its harsh ideology, unachievable strategic objectives and inability to become a mass movement," it says. The NIC does, however, give some scope for leaders to take action to prevent the emergence of new conflicts. "It is not beyond the mind of human beings, or political systems, [or] in some cases [the] working of market mechanisms to address and alleviate if not solve these problems," said Thomas Fingar, chairman of the NIC. And, our correspondent adds, it is worth noting that US intelligence has been wrong before. "

11/21/2008 9:53:11 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGHODRNJqRo

11/21/2008 9:54:04 AM

message_topic.aspx?topic=549953

11/25/2008 1:03:43 PM

^^^ I read most of that report. I enjoyed the tech predictions. Robot servants and human cognitive enhancement got rated as plausible.

11/25/2008 9:34:57 PM

The problem with America today is evident in this thread.

11/26/2008 3:09:58 AM

^agreed

11/26/2008 3:12:42 AM

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5435148.ece

Quote :

"DRUDGE: PAPER: Obama will be the first US President to manage an empire in decline... Rusty Superpower in Need of Careful Driver Obama built his campaign on a positive vision, but in reality he will be the first US President to manage an empire in decline. How often does a leader know, before he asks us for our votes, what office will ask of him? He mouths the promises of the moment but history may have a different task in mind. The role may be glorious, it may be tedious, but - count on this - it will be different. Barack Obama declares and believes that he will change America, and that this “makes possible incredible change in the world”. The accent throughout has been on the positive. Making things possible has marked the whole tenor of his campaign. Hope, optimism, ambition, confidence, reform amounting almost to renaissance - such has been his appeal. “Yes, we can” was a cocky, but not an empty slogan. A deep and swelling sense of the possible, focused on America's future but rooted in America's past, has dominated the struggle for the presidency. It would hardly be an exaggeration to call Mr Obama's promise transfigurative. But maybe destiny has other plans. America's fate in the half-century ahead is not to be transfigured, but to be relegated. Steering your team through a relegation can be as important a test of leadership as handling a promotion, but it is a different test. Though he may not yet know it, the role for which the US President-elect has been chosen is the management of national decline. He will be the first US president in history to accept, and (if he has the gift) to teach, not the possibilities but the constraints of power. Background * Don't expect Obama to get tough with Israel * 2009 - it's going to get even worse * Great Expectations * So will Obama be able to hack it? The fate of his predecessor George W.Bush was to test almost to destruction the theory of the limitlessness of American wealth and power - and of the potency of the American democratic ideal too. With one last heave he pitched his country into a violent and ruinous contest with what at times seemed the whole world, and the whole world's opinion. He failed, luminously. But maybe somebody had to. Maybe we shouldn't be too hard on President Bush for donning a mantle hardly of his own making but a well-worn national idea created in the triumph and hegemony of victory in the Second World War. Maybe somebody had to wear those fraying purple robes one last time and see how much longer the world would carry on saluting; to pull the levers of the massive US economy one last time and see if there was any limit to the cash that the engine could generate; to throw the formidable US war machine into two simultaneous foreign wars and test - and find - a limit. Eight years later it's haemorrhage, not regeneration, that the Obama presidency will have to nurse as it looks ahead. Europeans tend to consider presidential prospects in terms of US foreign policy - and there's much bleeding still to do in Afghanistan - but the incoming president's dominating concerns will surely be domestic and economic, and the two are spliced. As a keen amateur car mechanic I have, since the age of 16, been puzzled by something about America. Here was a nation crazy about automobiles and held out to me as the last word in modernity, innovation, capitalist dynamism and go-ahead technology in all that it did. But its cars weren't any good. I say “weren't” - we're talking 1965 here - because some commentary about the current woes of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler has suggested that it is in recent years that the US automotive industry has slipped behind; and it's certainly only quite recently that they've started losing a lot of money. But the product, though always flashy, has been technologically inferior since the end of Second World War. While European carmakers were pioneering front-wheel drive, independent suspension, small diesel engines and efficient automatic gearboxes, the Americans kept churning out big, thirsty, fast-rusting, primitively engineered behemoths. Partly this was because fuel was cheap, but the oversprung American limo, loose-handling and imprecise, was always a pig to drive, too. At root the problem was lack of competition. And when I visited America, first as a boy then as a postgraduate student (in the 1970s), what struck me was not the modernity of modern America, but its inefficiency and old-fashionedness. The bureaucracy was Stone Age, the postal service unreliable, medical and dental treatment twice the cost of private treatment in England, and government officials treated you like serfs. People lived richly and worked hard - that was undeniable - but in a parallel universe clumsily and wastefully managed, and beset with internal friction. You couldn't even get a bank account that worked properly outside your state; and, for all the ostentatious vigour of retail competition, there was a curious lack of diversity in product choice. Though infinitely more successful and politically free, it was in some indefinable way more like the Soviet Union than either country would have wished to acknowledge. What (I now think) I was encountering as early as 40 years ago was an ageing empire, losing its edge, almost imperceptibly losing its immense economic momentum, but still indecently wealthy and impervious to the emerging challenge of competition. Rather suddenly, all this has caught up with it. Mr Obama's vision of change - love, brotherhood, welfare, green politics and a new spirit of idealism - could now prove as irrelevant to the challenges a new president finds himself confronting as is David Cameron's early compassionate conservatism to his stern message today. Both men's first drafts of politics got them to the launch pad; neither will fuel their rockets after lift off. Instead, Mr Obama will face hard choices about how much of what America does (and what Americans do) can be afforded any longer; the next four years may be the worst possible time for hugely expensive healthcare reforms, a generous helping hand to the world's poor or a new military surge in Afghanistan. In 2009 the US national debt will surge by $2trillion: some 70 per cent of gross domestic product. In these circumstances the questions must be: What can we cut? Where can we pull out? What can we stop doing that we're doing now? Mr Obama's fight - if fight he must - will be with the forces of economic protectionism, with anti-immigrant sentiment and with organised labour feather-bedding, pension protection and job protection. But first, and underlying all these scraps, Mr Obama will have to find a way of being honest with Americans about their country's fall from predominance. Reading, as I often do, the furiously chauvinistic online reaction from US citizens to any suggestion that their country can be beaten at anything, I quail for him. We British know something about the loss of empire. Successive 20th-century prime ministers struggled both to manage relative national decline and to make it explicable to the electorate. It is upon this road that 21st-century American presidents must now set foot. Mr Obama will be the first. “Yes we can!” was an easy sentiment to recommend. “No we can't,” will be a far, far harder thing to say. "

[Edited on January 4, 2009 at 10:59 AM. Reason : -]

1/4/2009 10:56:13 AM

I don't really know how one can compare the US to Rome.

Our culture is far more advanced.

Our communication is instant.

Our Economy isn't based on the Iron Age

We don't have power centralized in one figure that can lead to constant civil unrest for well over a century. I mean, Rome began to crumble with a succession of terrible emperors.

We face no threat of invasion from an outside military.

And Rampant inflation? Really?

If anything, these articles indicate that general journalistic ability is the one aspect of society that has eroded terribly in the age of the 24 hour news cycle.

1/4/2009 2:14:23 PM

People keep writing these articles b/c they hope that if people read about it and see if mentioned enough that they'll believe it. What a bunch of kooks.

1/4/2009 11:40:12 PM

what is it with these failed Euro powers?

First Russia projects their failure to enforce their own Soviet Union on us, as if we're on the cusp of balkanization. Now the Brits are projecting their own failure to maintain a dominant global hegemony upon us, too.

We Americans will refuse to be cowed into accepting their legacy of geopolitical impotence. Hell, we invented Viagra, motherfuckers.

USA #1, bitches



[Edited on January 5, 2009 at 12:08 AM. Reason : ]

1/5/2009 12:06:22 AM

Well simple math dictates that the US won't be the most dominant economy in the 21st century and with waning economic dominance, there will be waning military dominance.

But fall apart like the Roman Empire? I don't believe so.

1/5/2009 1:12:14 AM