— to which protein wisdom confidently responds, “Oh, I rather think such a name change highly unlikely at this point, what with all the money we’ve spent printing forms and such.
“Although I will concede that, from so ridiculous a premise, Mr Rahn does manage to make some nice points…”
How about Obamastan?
“The United States of Omerta.”
“Could the U.S. become Argentina?”
Well we would have to watch a lot of Dancing With The Stars to catch up with Argentina on Tango. But we are doing really well catching up to them on fucking up an economy.
Redistribution of wealth baby! You know you want it.
I imagine 30 years is optimistic. Does Argentina have millions of illegal aliens flooding their job market?
Don’t cry for me, California. The truth is I never left you.
“I can’t lose my name — it’s on all my stationery!”
“Okay, okay, you win. I’ll be Barry and you’ll be The Tick.”
I still like Progressive Union of Socialist States. The acronym sez it all.
What worries me these days is the prospect of a total systems collapse, since unlike Argentina, the United States doesn’t have a big brother to protect itself from the consequences of its actions. If the US turns into a mediocrity, I don’t see any sort of long term projections that anyone would describe as good for the world as a whole.
Of course, that might be a feature, not a bug.
“…while dozens of other countries will enjoy a higher standard of living.”
We might wonder whether some or any of these “dozens” will have taken up in greater measure in the intervening time the stance toward individual liberty that once the United States itself held uniquely among the nations. Though it can’t be foreseen, insofar as such a change will be a matter of the choices of individuals now hidden from view, the opportunity costs to the general economy of the globe could be substantial should that driving stance of liberty be diminished on the whole.
#9 – Exactly. To the extent that they adopt the economic liberty we have forsaken, they may surpass the USA. However, if they do not, then we may just see global decline all around.
President Barack Hoover Omerta certainly thinks so.
I’m with Rand on this. The US was the last best hope, and once it fell, it was a total collapse. E.g., 97% of all patents are issues to the US. Thirty-three times the rest of the world combined. If we kill innovation, there is no one, short term, who can step up. That’s what an economic collapse here means for the rest of the world. No more teat to suckle from, and all of the rest are going under, too.
I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call what comes global decline plain and simple, in part because trade will continue to create new wealth, but the rate of wealth creation would decline I think.
The US military is what guarantees global free trade. When we go down, and our military with it, the whole world will be like the seas off Somalia.
It will be a global decline when we become Argentina.
I’ve heard that China has been in process of fashioning a blue-water navy. Large trading interests will do what they must to protect their vessels, I think. Japan won’t sit still at predation for long, nor Brazil, nor the Europeans.
Well, I like your optimism…
I’ve heard that China has been in process of fashioning a blue-water navy. Large trading interests will do what they must to protect their vessels, I think. Japan won’t sit still at predation for long, nor Brazil, nor the Europeans.
And the world goes back to the Great Power struggles of 1914! Only with atomic weapons! Gee, aren’t the Obamunists great at bringing peace to the world?
Here’s that Fraser Institute Study Rahn cites: Economic Freedom of the World Report 2009
Besides sdferr, you do know Europe is worse off than us, and the west sinking won’t do much for China’s wealth either.
I doubt South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Finland are going to fill the gap, regardless their rising prosperity.
I think a thousand years from now revisionist-apologist historians will bring up our forgotten innovations in artificial sweeteners, depilation and genocide whenever some stooge of Big History calls the “perceived period of cultural and economic decline” from the 1910s to the 2840s the Dark Ages. And they’ll have mustaches.
Features, or bugs?
I don’t know what comes. I’m attempting to speculate of course, but honest to Christ, I have no vested interest in the speculative outcome. So, for what it’s worth, I’m thinking (poorly) to the best of my limited knowledge what people will do. I just don’t think that on the whole, the accumulated wealth of nations will diminish in absolute terms, solely because the United States chooses tyranny over liberty. That’s all.
“And they’ll have mustaches”
Either that, or spears and loincloths.
We are going to have to get some better soccer players if we want to become Argentina….Ours are good but not quite ready to challenge Brazil on the international stage.
We need to open our minds.
I propose two progressive counter-arguments, Mr. Goldstein:
1. But, the GOP.
2. We won.
Try the failure of left-statism out on a liberal friend and see if you get back much more than that.
sdferr – I just hope that whoever steps in to fill the vacuum is benevolent.
We will also need more thongs, which will be both a feature and a bug.
Ha, no nation I’ve heard of is benevolent net-net, nor is such a thing conceivable really, as any such entity would be ripe for the picking.
Q: “Could the U.S. become Argentina?”
A: No. The name “Argentina” is already taken.
psycho, for some reason, your future historian bring to mind Salvador Dali.
Which is probably somewhat apropos.
This is all a thinly-veiled plan to solve America’s Obesity Epidemic.
Sorry if this,/a> has been linked to before.
It’s all the hidden Nazi’s, isn’t it? Well, let me tell Mr. Rahn something, until we get our stem cell research up to the level of Brazil, we’ll never catch up to Argentina. Even if, and I mean this, Steve Guttenberg does turn up dead.
html fail—DAMN!
totally OT, but mincing Markos was on Olbermann last night to some ball sucking
I think people make a profound error when they conflate the collapse of American government with the collapse of America.
Squid,
I’m stealing that comment.
Outstanding.
Squid
A short nasty collapse of the government wouldn’t spell the end of America.
It’s the long slow bleed as the government hangs on to its last bit of power and weakens America and its citizens to the point they don’t care when the government finally collapses.
Mmmmm kick ass trout fishing and full bodied red wines (and hot latino women). Where do we sign up?
The government won’t collapse. The economy will collapse, and then the government will “fix” it some more. You know, with more government.
Oh wait, there won’t be any money to support steaks, trout fishing, full bodied red wines and women? Damn.
Well there might be trout fishing, for eating. You will need to use sharp stick and rocks because there will be no money for tackle.
Comment by scooter (still not libby) on 4/21 @ 9:58 am #
This is all a thinly-veiled plan to solve America’s Obesity Epidemic.
That is a great comment.
lambskin gets banished for asshattery in one thread, and just jumps headfirst into another. Shocka.
Would that make Michelle “Gun Show” Obama the new Evita?
Doomed. Doomed like Sega and Enron and Phyllis George (sp?).
“We might wonder whether some or any of these “dozens” will have taken up in greater measure in the intervening time the stance toward individual liberty that once the United States itself held uniquely among the nations.”
I don’t think so sdferr,
With the exception of a few eastern European states, none are really trending in the direction you’re considering. And the eastern European states will face grave military threates from a resurgent Russia, over time; especially if we are no where in the equation.
Some people might posit that China is headed that way, but I can assure you that they are only 1 good economic downturn away from full blown riots and social violence. China has allowed enough freedom to yield the centrally controlled economic progress they have made over the last 15 years. And in turn, the raised standard of living has kept the people complacent, and encouraged the population transfer from the agrarian countryside to large cotoes and manufacturing centers. The downside of that moigration will come should there be any serious bumps in the economic road for them. People smarter than I have speculated for a long time that the Chinese government is playing a collosal game of chicken walking that fine line between overheating their economy, and so engendering inflation, and allowing a downturn to result in increased unemployment-which would disrupt the social fabric.
The Chinese people who have had a taste of western prosperity and will never go back to the abject,third world, impoverished way they used to live.
And we can all thank American corporations for investing so heavily in building up the Chinese manufacturing infrastructure. The same “Globalization” that seemed like such good business for us (thanks Billy Jeff) probably helped them more in the final analysis.
Once again, Ronnie Reagan’s vision was right with his Machiadora initiatives and such. We should have been building up central and south America instead. We mightn’t have the immigration problem we have today, and wouldn’t have been feeding what might become our next great strategic rival. But that’s a discussion for another time…
Oh, and that blue water navy you mention sdferr? Don’t sweat it too much, because it’s countered by an Indian navy growing just as rapidly!
I mean, don’t worry, unless Obama completely FUBARs our relationship with the Indians…
It’s the long slow bleed as the government hangs on to its last bit of power and weakens America and its citizens to the point they don’t care when the government finally collapses.
That’s contradictory, in a way. The long slow bleed is happening precisely because the citizens do care if the government collapses, due to the fact that they are dependent upon said government.
My primary* concern about the coming crash is that the government will sell off our aircraft carriers in an attempt to prop up the collapsing regime. With luck, we’ll be able to buy ’em back before they’re used against us.
* Actually, my primary concern is making sure my family is safely outside the Cities. I trust my neighbors up to a point, but I don’t think they’re gonna be a lot of help when the food trucks can’t get through.
“Don’t sweat it too much…”
Oh, I wasn’t sweating it at all really Bob, since neither I nor an intent US Government can do much of anything about it, and in some respects may even welcome the Chinese (or Indians for that matter) doing somewhat more to police and protect their own interests.
As to the question whether some nation may take up the position of the United States, I look to the giant birds of the South Pacific taking up the ecological niche of deer, where there are no deer to be found.
“Doomed like Sega…”
Uh, “Bayonetta”?
The “stuff” doesn’t disappear any more than the houses in Detroit have gone away, yet. A bridge over a river is still a bridge, but if it runs to s ghost town then it has lost value.
People will still have their skills, education, however the impetus to innovate which is driven by reward will shift to the mindset of the “prevent defense”. High taxes and lots of regulation shift the innovation to finding tax shelters and lobbying for the favor of the Rulers.
geoffb, I take as a given (with some knowledge of the attendant risks in doing so) that the United States has a greatly diminished economic liberty over the last century, with the far greater liberty present at the beginning of the term to be measured and the lesser toward the end, with wide-ish fluctuations trending toward lesser liberty across the whole of the term. Yet taking the closed system of the United States as a rough microcosm of the globe (another fraught assumption, I know) we see the GNP growing year after year, despite the decreasing economic liberty. So something isn’t correlated on that simple view and if there is a correlation, it’s found in the bar charts here (pdf), I think.
Are you heading for Fiji sdferr ? Or some other remote location?
Don’t forget the sunscreen, you know, the hole in the ozone and all :)
Sunscreen? Ha, I already live on the 26th parallel so no worries there. No, I’m just suggesting that there’s gold in them thar hills, and if one nation abandons the position, it’s a relatively simple matter for another to take it up and profit thereby, as did the birds who faced no mammalian competition.
I agree. But you’ll need a large sailboat (no reliance of fuel availability), some essential provisions-you know, medecine, booze, ammo, etc, and a reliable crew of folks to assist.
I for one know quite a bit about navigation :)
I have swords, sdferr. But no parrot.
If you take #57 out of context, and let it stand on its own, one can make up all sorts of stories to go with it.
Try it, it’s fun!
I am not really going to worry about the Chinese Navy in my lifetime…shipping container invasions aside.
Bob, “resurgent Russia”? They seem to have Italy style demographics, right? Keep up their birth rates and there won’t be many Russians in Russia in a couple of generations. Now if you has said facing the threat of a “despotic and aggressive Russia” I’d be on board!
November can start the trip back from the edge of the abyss.
We need to come up with a PW burgee, Bob, so that we’ll recognize each other when we sail into an anchorage.
This might work.
Hollywood?
Ah, shit. Stupid socks.
Other side of the State.
Oh, you live over in Naples?
The Fort Slart.
I’m up in Orlando. My sister lives about 60 miles north of you.
The Fort is a good 38 minutes north of the 26th.
So, not on, exactly.
Geo-coordinate fail :p
Fort Slart? Where the hell is that?
Si, si, I cheated at the rounding.
“Fort Slart? Where the hell is that?”
What, Orlando’s not close enough for ya? ;-)
You got me Colonel John,
Poor phrasing on my part, I meant more along the lines of what you said :)
I guess I’m too old school, but I just don’t trust them not to try and get back in the business of reclaiming their former territories. I wish we could though, at least as a counter-balance against China. But that’s wishful thinking.
I just hope Obama doesn’t manage to screw up our relations with the Indians, and deprive us of that strategic lever.
And I agree completely about November being the start of the walk-back from the edge.
“…hope Obama doesn’t manage to screw up our relations with the Indians…”
From the very start, with Mrs. Clinton’s first trip abroad, it has appeared to me that Obama’s objective was to bury our relations with the Indians: on the principle that “a thing done by Bush, it must be a thing done wrong”.
Most astounding feature of that part of the state, approximately, is Rotonda. It’s perfectly circular in layout, about 3 miles in diameter, 26 degrees 52′ 32.88″N, 82 degrees 16′ 20.4″ W.
Weird, is what it is. Every street is paralleled by what looks like canal, until you notice that this vast canal system doesn’t actually go anywhere. Drainage ditches, I think. But it’s ALL WATERFRONT PROPERTY!
Or a vast albeit narrow and long borrow-pit made for the purpose of raising the local ground.
Yeah I tend to agree sdferr; it’s part of the whole “restoring our place in the world” connivance. The sad fact is that 3 previous President worked hard on establishing that relationship; and on wooing the Indians more toward western style democracy and economics vs the Soviet sytle of communism they had seemingly embraced. And for the most part that effort was successful.
We can still credit the Indians to see through the crap Obama throws out though Bob, and to hope that they at least can imagine a better relation in future, since after all, such a thing would redound to their benefit as well as ours. Of course, they have to assume we know how to get ourselves well rid of him, which I think they can do.
Hey, look on the bright side: We could always attack the Falklands.
Dunno why we would. I bet it’s cold down there.
Bob, while you were in DC, do you recall a local tv show on Sunday mornings put out by the Chamber of Commerce (roughly in the early seventies I think it was), for which Rahn was chief economist at the time and on which show he appeared quite frequently? He was the first economist I’d heard up to that time (but I was only a teenager, so not terribly widely read or knowledgeable about such things) who praised business enterprise as a great boon to mankind and the nation. Many years later (around 1996 or so), I met him briefly at an Arby’s in Great Falls as he had lunch with his own teenager in the booth next to mine and thanked him for the introduction those many years back.
I don’t recall that particular one sdferr, but your anecdote does remind me of many “small world” encounters that I had as a youth in DC.
#77 – Good. I’ve been waiting to fight someplace cold for 25 years…REFORGER…NORDIC HAMMER, etc. So what do I get? Summer on the Shomali Plain, or Basrah-by-sandstormlight! Bah. I’ll take on everyone of those Gentoo Penguins on South Georgia Island!! C’mon you flipper waving, fish chomping @#$%… bring it!!!!
Penguinist!
Four words.
Antti Niemi. Cristobal Huet.
Heh.
Tweeeet!
Two minute minor, tripping, #82.