Is the Big Ship America Sinking?

[Jcrowley]

Is the Big Ship America Sinking?

Contradictions and Openings

By Sam Gindin

There's something happening
What it is ain't exactly clear
Buffalo Springfield, 1966

02/10/07 "ICH" -- -- Are we in the midst of a momentous turn in world politics? Donald Rumsfeld has been shuffled out of the Pentagon. Daniel Ortega, Washington's nemesis from the Sandinista Revolution of the late 1970s, is back as President of Nicaragua. Hugo Chavez has been triumphantly re-elected, and Bolivia and Ecuador also have new left-populist presidents. U.S.-led neoliberalism is scrambling in Latin America; the U.S. state seems to be in the throes of a full retreat in Iraq; and, in its look ahead to the year 2007, The Economist is warning of the dangers of an 'authority deficit' at the level of nation states, international institutions, and the role of 'the superpower'. The U.S. economy is slowing down; Europe's economy is speeding up; and China, having quadrupled its output over the past 15 years, is becoming more confident and assertive internationally. The fall of the U.S. dollar has been imminent for some time, but now the talk is of its decline turning into a chaotic r! out. And suddenly everyone is an environmentalist, with the Bush Administration being the main force against the Kyoto climate change protocols.

What next? With the Bush neo-conservatives on the defensive, will a new common sense emerge? Will the broad left regain its confidence and move to overturning three decades of increased inequality, erosion of social rights and corrosion of substantive democracy? Will this also extend to challenging corporate power? Will Bush's humiliation in Iraq spill into Canadian debates over the war in Afghanistan and drag Harper down along with his imperial friend? Will the new reality in Iraq force the U.S. and Israel towards some substantive compromise with Palestinians? Will the turmoil within the American empire provide space for the populist experiments taking place in Latin America -- experiments that might inspire a more radical activism in our own countries?

An Unraveling Empire?

It is tempting to identify, in all of the above observations and questions, signs of the unraveling of the American empire. But to argue that the American economy may be on its last legs substitutes wishful thinking for sober analysis. The American economy retains a remarkable capacity to adjust to change (with great costs, of course to American workers). American military power has limits but it remains the greatest military power the world has ever seen, and its coercive potential and reach should not be underestimated. Shifts are occurring among the hierarchy of capitalist states and regions -- the dramatic rise of Asia and the development of the European Union being the most obvious and important -- but American leadership in the making of global capitalism continues.

There are other reasons for caution. Empires aren't toppled by falling exchange rates. The U.S. dollar fell by 44% relative to the G-10 countries between February 1985 and October 1987. Although there was a recession in the early 1990s, this was followed by the great American 1990s economic boom. Empires do not collapse from particular defeats either. Vietnam defeated the U.S. in the 1970s, but a main priority of Vietnam today is to deepen its participation in American-led globalization. The American economy is clearly not focused on addressing popular needs, but that is not what matters to capital's successful survival. For American capital, the more important development is that U.S. after-tax profits as a share of GDP are at their highest since 1929.

<snip>

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17027.htm

[MichiganVote]

1. Yes, downslide in all areas of our society

[goclark]

2. America is losing it's leadership role because

we don't have a real leader and the World knows it.

[alfredo]

3. It is being scuttled by the neo cons. They want us to fear

a sinking ship so we will throw the poor and middle class overboard.

[Jcrowley]

5. The road back to 1929

In 1970 the richest 13,000 of all U.S. taxpaying households had incomes approximately 100 times that of the average working person; today the richest 13,000 enjoy an income 560 times that of the average working class taxpayer—about equivalent to the share they enjoyed in 1929.

Since the 1970s, there has been an enormous shift in the distribution of national income generated each year—from the working class Americans who earn an hourly wage to those who make their living from profits, dividends, interest payments, stock trades, inheritance, and other forms of capital.

The richest 10 percent of all taxpaying households in the U.S. saw their share of total annual income rise from 33 percent in 1970 to 48 percent by 2000—a gain of 15 percent. Conversely, the remaining 90 percent of the approximately 134 million taxpayers saw their share of national income each year decline by the same 15 percent—from 67 percent to 52 percent.

Fifteen percent may seem like a small number, but when it is 15 percent of a $6.2 trillion annual U.S. economy it amounts to approximately $900 billion a year. Had the 15 percent shift not occurred, each of the approximately 100 million working class Americans who make their living almost exclusively from hourly wages would be getting $9,000 more in their paychecks this year.

Even more noteworthy is that the 15 percent/$900 billion is not divided proportionately among the richest 10 percent taxpayers. The richest 90-95 percent (the bottom half of the richest 10 percent) realized no increase in their share of national income from 1973 to 2000, according to the U.S. Census Burea

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Nov2004/rasmuspr1104.html

[alfredo]

15. Most Americans sense something wrong, but they

haven't really figured out what is being done to them. It is our job to educate them.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT0AvTR6D5A

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Here's the key fact in the article...

U.S. after-tax profits as a share of GDP are at their highest since 1929.

Righto. Then what happened?

[Parisle]

6. Correct, JR

--- The inflated profit picture,... along with the huge and widening gulf in income disparity,... were the chief precursors of the '29 crash. Today, both guages are eerily reminiscent of the situation in 1929. The trillions in debt only make the current situation that much worse.

--- The Soviet Union did not collapse as a result of military defeat, eh? It collapsed economically.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. Right. The Soviets collapsed due to the inefficiencies and

absurdities of their system. Their version of centralization of authority ensured that the people making the decisions were isolated from the local realities, resulting in a state that was in effect a blind beast that stumbled from one disaster to the next, guided only by a false map of the world derived from a flawed and inflexible ideology.

For Reagan to pretend that he brought about the demise of that system by forcing them into an arms race they couldn't afford is one of the great absurdities of the false ideology of our own Neocons, who are about to plunge us into an abyss of our own making.

[enid602]

7. ???????

It's funny; the author is saying that America's losing ground on all fronts, but don't worry, we've made mistakes before and have suffered consequences, but we'll still come out on top. This time, however, we have an unpayable and unfathomable debt, the dollar will most likely lose its status as the international unit of exchange and reserve currency, and our manufacturing base has almost completely moved overseas. The world is not just ambivalent about our policies anymore; rather they're overwhelmingly against them. Of course, we can hope for a second tech boom, but it's not likely to happen here, with techies increasingly moving back to their home countries, following opportunity. Yeah, there's nothing to see here, move along.

[Connonym]

8. Who cares about anything as long as we have the biggest guns?

"American military power has limits but it remains the greatest military power the world has ever seen, and its coercive potential and reach should not be underestimated."

Yeah, the Romans thought that too.

So, has it come down to the fact that now the only power we hold is brute strength? But do we even have that? If we turn the rest of the world against us can we take them ALL on? Short of nukes I don't think we can. If I was the sort of person who prayed, I'd be praying that the US can get back on the right track before it's too late.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. The part that scares me most in what you just said

was that bit about "short of nukes." Sadly, and stretching the syntax a bit, one thing we are not is "short of nukes." Short of brains, yes. Short of ethics, yes. But not short of nukes.

[Jim Warren]

11. glub......glub

[EstimatedProphet]

12. Yes, it is, and the Bushies are the fault

In the 60's through Reagan, foreign policy was quite often belligerent, but was used for a reason - the 'best interests' of the US (which actually was the best interests of the corporate world). But the Bushies had only one thing on their mind. They wanted control of the Middle East to get all the oil reserves. The actual best interests of anyone were never even considered; it was all about enriching a few people and establishing a military presence at all costs.

When the people in power are at least trying to put some sort of best interests into their equations, they will consider the consequences of their actions. But if all they want is money and control, why should they be concerned about the consequences at all? So long as they get what they want, nothing else matters.

[BayCityProgressive]

13. Not only

do we want the middle east in our control for our own oil needs, but we will have influence on prices that will be used to control the whole world. We are now building a huge base in Africa to undercut socialist China. China has strong and friendly ties with Africa and many in the non-aligned movement, even in Latin America. Make no mistake, although the system of China is flawed and much capitalism is there..it is still a socialized state and the US WILL NOT tolerate another communist superpower.

[Jonathan50]

14. Sinking ship