The remark of the Chinese official is indicative that if the U.S. fails,
it will be the failure of the U.S. model of constitutional republican
government itself. Fascist tyranny is likely to then sweep the nations
of the world, and our experiment in self-government will likely never
emerge again.
The only way to avoid this catastrophe is to suddenly and immediately
terminate most government spending. Social Security, Medicare, all such
programs have to be terminated. Not phased out. Ended abruptly. A lot of
people will suffer, but the alternative is vastly worse.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Historian warns of sudden collapse of American empire
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:20:49 -0600
From: Ambro A <ambrovist...@gmail.com>
To: rogue1ra...@q.com
Historian warns of sudden collapse of American empire
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/141349
by Brent Gardner-Smith, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Harvard professor and prolific author Niall Ferguson opened the 2010
Aspen Ideas Festival Monday with a stark warning about the increasing
prospect of the American empire suddenly collapsing due to the
countrys rising debt level.
I think this is a problem that is going to go live really soon,
Ferguson said. In that sense, I mean within the next two years. Because
the whole thing, fiscally and other ways, is very near the edge of
chaos. And weve seen already in Greece what happens when the bond
market loses faith in your fiscal policy.
Ferguson said empires such as the former Soviet Union and the Roman
empire can collapse quite quickly and the tipping point is often when
the cost of servicing an empires debt is larger than the cost of its
defense budget.
That has not been the case I think at any point in U.S. history,
Ferguson said. It will be the case in the next five years.
Ferguson was conscious of opening the Ideas Festival on such a stark note.
Walter Isaacson, the leader of this great institution said, Dont be
too dark!, Ferguson said.
The affable British scholar tried to keep it light. He used a stage
whisper to tell the Aspen Institute audience, I know youre not
comfortable with the word empire, especially just after the Fourth of
July, but you are the Redcoats now.
He said the U.S. is now deeply in the red as a country because of a
combination of the Great Recession, the resulting federal stimulus and
financial bailout programs, two wars, the Bush tax cuts, and a growth in
social entitlement programs.
And economic debt can lead to a sudden loss of military power and global
respect, Ferguson said.
By combating our crisis of private debt with an extraordinary expansion
of public debt, we inevitably are going to reduce the resources
available for national security in the years ahead, Ferguson said.
Because as a debt grows, so the interest payments you have to make on
it grow, even if interest rates stay low. And on current projections,
the federal debt is going to be absorbing around 20 percent a fifth of
all the taxes you pay within just a few years.
/Dustin Franz/Aspen Daily News/
Harvard professor and author Niall Ferguson speaks about the financial
crisis during an opening session of the Aspen Ideas Festival on Monday
afternoon.
The item of discretionary federal expenditure most likely to be
squeezed is of course defense. And there are lots of historic precedents
for that, said Ferguson, who is the author of Empire: The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power.
Ferguson said the financial crisis that started in 2007 has has
accelerated a fundamental shift in the balance of power, with the U.S.
shedding power and China absorbing it.
Ive just come back from China a two-week trip there and the thing
I heard most often was, You cant lecture us about the superiority of
your system anymore. We dont need to learn anything from you about
financial institutions and forget about democracy. We see where it has
got you.
David Gergen of CNN, who moderated the discussion, which also included
billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman, asked Ferguson whether it made a
difference if the U.S. declined as a world power.
Having grown up in a declining empire, I do not recommend it, Ferguson
said. Its not a lot of fun, actually, decline. To be more serious, a
world in which the United States is no longer predominate is not likely
to be a better world, actually.
In what he called his light moment, Ferguson said, I think there is a
way out for the United States. I dont think its over. But it all hinges
on whether you can re-energize the real mainsprings of American power.
And those two things are technological innovation and entrepreneurship.
Those are the things that made the United States the greatest economy
in the world and the critical question is, Are we going to get it
right? Can we revive those things in such a way that in the end we grow
our way out of this hole the way the United States grew its way out of
the 1970s and of course out of the 1930s?
The Aspen Ideas Festival continues through July 11 at the Aspen
Institute. Such notables as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Microsoft
billionaire Bill Gates, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, and former
Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan are scheduled to appear.
A number of events are open to the public, but tickets were going fast
on Monday through the website Aspen Show Tickets. Aspen Public Radio
also plans on broadcasting a number of festival events live, including
on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. and at 1 and 5 p.m.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
libertarian-dig...@yahoogroups.com
libertarian-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
libertarian-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
