(April 5, 2016 at 5:58 am)Brian37 Wrote: No we are not fading, and if we are it is because of the uber rich and the global race for cheap labor. But that can change if more workers stand up to these fucks, but not just here, but globally. You certainly cannot stop global business, but you don't minimize conflicts by starving people. Evolution will always produce stress in an ecosystem when it is out of balance.
It all comes down to energy. We're entering the long emergency. America is the most energy consuming country on the planet and will find the transition the hardest of all. Peak oil hit in America well before global peak oil. The technology that America exploited in its hey day is now ubiquitous around the world. You cannot compete in manufacturing with the likes of Chindia because of their cheap wages and low cost of living. The rest of the world is now being exploited by ... the rest of the world. An empire by necessity has to exploit other countries. Competing economically will require environmental costs such as with fracking or China using coal.
The only thing that can stop the American empire from fading is to find a new source of energy and resources to exploit.
America would have made the transition better if it had invested properly in its people and education. Instead it tries to buy up talent from the rest of the world. But hampering this is a lack of a decent medical system, rampant bigotry instilled in the legal system, gun crime and racism.
