How Great Powers Fail

An Empire At Risk -- Newsweek

We won the cold war and weathered 9/11. But now economic weakness is endangering our global power.

Call it the fractal geometry of fiscal crisis. If you fly across the Atlantic on a clear day, you can look down and see the same phenomenon but on four entirely different scales. At one extreme there is tiny Iceland. Then there is little Ireland, followed by medium-size Britain. They're all a good deal smaller than the mighty United States. But in each case the economic crisis has taken the same form: a massive banking crisis, followed by an equally massive fiscal crisis as the government stepped in to bail out the private financial system.

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My Comment: The United States of today reminds me of what Argentina was like in the early 1900s. The country was prosperous until they elected the Perons. Uncontrollable spending, high deficits, massive government growth .... all of this completely reversed the status and wealth that Argentina had in the world at the turn of the century. Decades later .... Argentina is still suffering from the decisions that these politicians implemented .... and probably will for the rest of my lifetime.

Will the United States follow these footsteps? From where I am standing, it seems that the U.S. electorate has made a decision to commit fiscal suicide by electing a political class that is determined to duplicate what so many fail states in the 20th century decided to do.

All great powers failed when they lost their fiscal sense of responsibility and accountability. For the U.S., this line was passed over a long time ago.