The End of the Empire

[nadinbrzezinski]

http://www.alternet.org/story/149080

This is a good article, and an extremely important read. Yet, I will say this since nobody else will, this article is too rose colored glasses anyway. 2025 to the end of Empire is very optimistic. I expect the Empire to collapse very soon and for it to be mostly sudden for most Americans who are NOT paying attention. Here are the markers that we already saw pass us by, or are living through right now.

1.- Industrial production: To most not into this history shtick this is now a little obvious. It is about all these products coming from China. Yes we still export some stuff... war planes... passenger planes, and some very specialized things. BUT... the country continues to be hollowed out with free trade and other treaties. All Empires in Decline go through this.

2.- A military that is over extended. Whether this is the UK invading the Suez in 1956, the Tenth Legion of Rome on the Eastern Frontier, or the Levant, or the Screaming Eagles on patrol in Kandahar, they all share one thing... over extension and lack of true military goals. Soon, seconds in fact in historic terms, we will need to retrench the military but it will not be pretty, and it will be resisted to the last second.

3.- The rise of an oligarchy: See all this discussion on taxes, it is a symptom of this.

4.- Lack of self reliance in power... yes it happened to Rome and with the uber reliance on oil and not developing alternate energy is one more symptom.

5.- Brain Drain.... in other words the best and the brightest leaving the country for better shores... again all Empires go though this, and usually the ones to leave are the ones who are indeed the best and the brightest. Some of this is also done by American companies that are NOW doing research points east.

But 2025... that is way too optimistic in my mind...

Oh and one last thing.... we are in the middle of a Constitutional crisis. All this not being able to do a thing in DC is a crisis, nor does it help that the political class, on both sides, is unaware of the train wreck, and more interested in their own careers and access to power, On the bright side, not that many here will appreciate this, once the collapse happens... I don't expect either party to survive in their current form.... and on the down side, the rightward shift by th at same political class will continue as they blame each other for the fall... when they finally realize it has happened.

[originalpckelly]

1. Let it end, it is evil.

Let it die. If anything, we should kill it. We're the ones that feed it. Its power is not being used to protect us, but the elites of this country. Fuck it. Let it burn. And let us form an aid organization to protect the common people, to protect us from the harm that is about to come.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. You will not end it, I will not end it

it is ending, and you may celebrate now, but trust me, you won't when it finally happens.

Americans are NOT aware of the benefits of this either... but every empire that has gone has anywhere from 25-50 ears of depressed economy, for starters.

It is coming, but I am not looking forwards to it.

[RKP5637]

13. IMO the handwriting is on the wall, and it will not be pleasant, many deaths,

much pain and suffering, these will look like the good old days. It did not have to be this way, but with power and wealth always comes destruction. It seems to be an innate human trait, survival of the fittest, death, destruction and greed. History repeats over and over.

There is IMO a common core of this throughout all civilizations. Maybe it can be avoided, I hope so, but looking at most of the politicians we have and those aspiring, I have my doubts.

Good article, thanks for having posted.

[originalpckelly]

17. Oh, I have a feeling things will work out.

Don't be so glum. The ways to conquer our innermost demons are hope, truth and love. With those on our side, we cannot lose.

[RKP5637]

19. I hope so, I really really do. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Sadly truth is that Imperial collapse

is never painless... and that yes, people will die.

[kgnu_fan]

2. And the elite class will just move to somewhere with their cash when US become too chaotic

[originalpckelly]

4. What we really need is a worldwide revolution in all countries.

That way they can't run anywhere.

[RaleighNCDUer]

20. If they can - events often overtake them.

In the 19th century, it was the French aristocrats opening clubs in New Orleans. In the 20th century, Russian aristocracy opening clubs in Paris. A couple decades later, millionaire Nazis hiding out in cheap hotels in Argentina. People who had the world at their fingertips one day, were mere refugees the next. Few of those who got away with their lives also got away with their fortunes.

There is always a leveling, and it seldom works out well for the aristocracy.

[bemildred]

3. Yeah, I thought he was somewhat optimistic.

But you never know until it happens.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. We may see it when the "discussion" on the lending upper limit comes

That crisis might make it official... the USD is no-longer a good choice for a reserve currency. That will send the country into a really bad crisis of all kinds. I mean bringing apples from Chile that are paid in Dollars might not be practical anymore. I don't think we can really feed ourselves anymore without access to fuel and yes, a reserve currency.

[bemildred]

9. Well that, and Wikileaks, and other things.

But the fall of the USSR was predicted in 1976, so that was 13 years. And we have had declining demographics for some time now.

It is worth remembering that the USSR was taken down politically by Russian nationalism. We are not there yet, but we are on the way. We have always had a Know-Nothing thread in US politics, but it comes and goes. When it comes, it means trouble.

Then there is the growing incompetence of the government to govern, issues of legitimacy, and the public's disaffection from it. Edit: all the threats and hysteria and "security" theater are not the actions of a government confident of the support of its citizens. Those of us who are old enough remember the same motifs from the VietNam debacle.

But it is also amazing how long things can limp along, especially when nobody really wants to precipitate change, and most of the political classes are change-averse, as we are seeing.

But I will be surprised, looking back at the last ten years, if we limp along for another ten.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. While he argues that the moment for the US to fall was the

invasion of Iraq... I have a longer long view... NAFTA... it was indeed a poisoned pill following the policies of the Reagan Revolution

[bemildred]

12. Well, when we got Reagan after Vietnam and Watergate, I sort of figured the fat days were over.

But yeah, NAFTA, what a sell out of the American public that was, and obvious. Drinking the KoolAid.

[Ozymanithrax]

18. I grew up when fruit out of season was rare and very expensive...

They used to give away foreign grown oranges at Christmas as gifts. We ate canned fruit out of season.

It would require a change in national policies to make agriculture for feeding the people instead of our largest export.

Another of those challanges for successor states under new Constitutions.

[gateley]

7. K&R - Fuck. nt

[Ozymanithrax]

8. Things that go with the empire...

(1) Social Security: A great program that requires a functioning federal government to operate.
(2) Medicare: Another great program that requires a functioning federal government to operate.
(3) The jobs of people who work for the government; TSA, Post Office, 700,000 DOD civilian employees, and 1.2 million other employees. If you or your spouse work for the government, chances are one or both of you will lose your job.
(4) State Government employees: State governments will also decimated.
(5) National Highway system: You think we have infrastructure problems now.
(6) Public Education.
(7) Any savings you have...

Sure some of this will come back over a decade. But it will be part of a new normal.

People living under the empire, unless they are part of that top 5%, will not morn the loss of empire, they will be too busy trying to feed themselves and their families while a new normal takes hold.

All empires end. We can no more stop it than we can stop down in gravity well. But the U.S. of A. will not continue after the fall as if nothing happened.

[cowcommander]

11. The US won't exist at all if this "empire" falls

If SHTF as badly as this article says, there will be secession and civil war. It's going to be bloody and make the balkanization of Yugoslavia look like a walk in the park. :(

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Welcome to the Club

I expect dissolution

[Ozymanithrax]

16. I agree. One of the reasons I put such things as Social Security...

and Medicare.

I retired from the military. Without the existing federal government, that retirement won't come. My wife is a civilian working at a naval hospital. The hospital may survive, but a lot of the employees will not be kept. No funding for it. I have children that have good paying jobs with benefits as TSA employees. My mother and two sisters are on Social Security.

The U.S. is too polarized and divided to survive a collapse of the empire. I suspect five or six new countries. Some of them are likely to be very unfriendly places to live. The best we have to hope for is another great depression.

[Subdivisions]

14. 2025 is too optimistic with regard to #4 alone...

Oil production has been flat to declining for 6 years. The International Energy Agency said http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/">just this month that oil production reached its all-time peak in 2006 and is now in decline. Any alternative energy infrastructure that can scale up to replace oil will need to built using oil until it can take over. Currently there is no known technology that can do it. The chart below reflects the most recent data available for oil production and demonstrates the already severe situation with regard to oil production.

As oil production begins to fall of the bumpy plateau, predicted optimistically at 2013, price shocks will ensue and production decline will become terminal. Once delcine becomes terminal, it will crash 40%-50% from today's level by 2025. That alone will kill the American empire since the United States already imports 2/3 of all it's oil and only produces 5 million barrels per day of the ~20 million we used today. By 2025, the U.S. will be producing at most 2.5 million barrels per day. That is 1/10 of what we'll need.

And, as exporter production continues to decline while populations in exporting contries continues to grow, we'll get less and less from those countries. This is known as the Export Land Model. Finally, as oil becomes harder and harder to find, EROEI will continue to decline. At the beginning of the oil age EROIE was 100:1. Today it is ~8:1. Harder oil will continue to chip away at that until it reaches 1:1. When it reaches 1:1, oil production will not longer be profitable and the Oil Age will end - about 2050.

Today the price of oil is ~$90 per barrel.