I have read and agree to comments policy as posted here www.informationclearinghouse.info/c1.htm
Kevin Phillips is right on the money here. The US and USSR both engaged in excessive military spending on uneconomic proxy wars and arms programs. The USSR fell first while the US was able to sputter along on fumes abetted by smoke and mirrors. In fact the Gulf War was nothing more than a mercenary action on the part of the US while the current occupations are financed from abroad as well. This is hardly the profile of an empire. US power is a thing of the past. Funding the US military machine requires that foreign interests are served, if not the funding can be withdrawn. US global behavior can only rightly be seen as mercenary. Global elites are calling the shots while US policies run roughshod over the interests of American workers and industry.
"In the early 1900s, one apprehensive minister argued that Britain could not thrive as a "hoarder of invested securities" because "banking is not the creator of our prosperity but the creation of it." By the late 1940s, the debt loads of two world wars proved the point, and British global economic leadership became history."
Never could and never will understand how there can be this misunderstanding? Money (electronic, paper or silver/gold) is a tool to facilitate the efficient exchange of goods & services, maybe a method of measuring economic activity, never a toy to play card tricks with -now-you-see-it-now-you-don't, with new paper-decks of cards produced whenever a bankster wants to build new card houses ...
Yep, "banking is not the creator of our prosperity but the creation of it."
Ekk
The Prime Minister of Britain, Golden Brown, is a complete idiot. As bagman for Tony B. Liar, he sold British gold at $260 per ounce. Embarrassing to have such a berk as your representative!
The US? Let's hope a collapse will curb its bombing behaviour.
USUK!
"2003 - The US and UK use nearly 13,000 cluster munitions, containing and estimated 1.8 million to two million submunitions, during three weeks of military operations in Iraq."
Millions of terrorist bombs. USUK, you suck.
The author is unsure about something?
The US is prolapsed on every front.
If it lasts any longer than the end of summer I'll be amazed.
The US cannot even give away commercial real estate. The Russians bought that US steel company. Chinese buying up business. How long before US airline industry is sold?
The US is over. Just the shouting remains.
Get out of the way, USA, you stink .
Agree with 3 previous posts.The chickens surely are coming home.Will the imperialists let the empire fall without a doubling of the dice?Or is this part of the plan?I suppose one group of elitists may see it their way,and another group theirs. Still will not be surprised if the U.S. initiates military action against Iran.Still looking for a false flag attack to kick it off.Would think it will have to happen by september tick, tick, tick..........BOOM!
i mean i agree with previous posts
The money is near worthless. 2.2 million in prison and rising to a rate only Joe Stalin could boast about.
Jobs are nonexistent,medical care a joke,prison awaits anyone who stands out and the cost of living far exceeds personal earnings. The biggest export of this country is debt the second is scrap metal......sound like a superpower to you? Oh by the way the US defense budget is greater then all other countries combined!!! Sound like a superpower?
AS I SEE,PEACE ,THE REAL PEACE IS VERY CLOSE...
super loser more like it.
... a world leader, huh?
Good bye.
Good riddance.
I know one thing, and that is essentials such as food, energy and health do NOT need to be in the futures and speculative trading arena. This is a major part of what is killing our economy if it is still alive.
This is tantamount to the people who don't won't to earn money have other people provide them with money at a loss but with a hope of making a killing; great analogy, when Jamestown was settled,I believe, the leader said if you don't work you don't eat. Now it is: you can make the other people give you money by investing in futures or on a speculative basis which in the long run jumps up prices and lets people who cannot afford or be on the insider knowledge of investing to be the ones who through the back door pay the people who are in the flim flam of it to get rich.
Savings are important but in recent years savings has turned from a safe secured process to one that is the same as going to Las Vegas, where you have a better chance of losing your money than keeping it. Investing is not secured or backed up but just a suckers game for the inside traders to steal more money from the masses on a seemingly legal basis. It is wrong and supports insider trading and needs to be heavily controlled.
America is finished as her citizens simply have not been informed.
Destroyed by AIPAC and other lobbyists.
The banking and financial institutions are out of control.
Depression is just around the corner.
When the collapse comes,we will be the ones that feel it.No jobs,no food,food riots,and marshal law.
Everytime you read a story about how bad the economy is, then you should begin to realize why all the anti-terror laws have been introduced.
900 thousand people are on the No-Fly list and a huge majority of them are community activists.
The futurists within the Western governments saw this coming 15 or 20 years ago.
President Clinton was the very first to introduce portions of the Patriot Act.
China is going to double it's oil imports within the next 10 years! That is why America invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.
Everybody is talking about Global Warming and I think it is just a snow-job in order to have us all feeling guilty and to accept less of a lifesyle. Those in power want us to feel "Good" about accepting less.
The next president will be the first president to hold office when the American credit rating was lowered.
Have you noticed that when a Republican president is elected, the media all claim that the new president has a "Mandate" for change. Remember the "Contract With America" and Newt Gingrich? The Republican's don't fool around .... they play for keeps.
However; when a Democrat is elected president, the media talks about bi-partisanship and gives us the ol' Rodney King Trip of "Can't we all just get along?" .... The media does not say the Democratic president has a mandate for change .... but only a mandate to co-operate with the Republicans.
China is the new economic power within the world.
It is Take-Away-Time in America. All the promises made to the Working Class are gonna be broken. Social Security and Pension Plans are gonna be cut-back. And, the media will tell us that the new president is acting "Presidential" and "Strong" and we should admire him for such broken promises.
Many of the promises or programs will be cut retroactively but there will be no mention of "Retroactively" collecting the taxes which Bush gave to the rich folks or the pension plans of our leaders in government.
The government knows full well that there are gonna be riots on the streets.
The patrols at the American/Canadian border are being increased because when the Canadian's can't afford to heat their homes during the winter months, they will head South to a warmer climate.
Calm
It was all a part of the planed destruction of the U.S..
Welcome to the new third world country of the Ununited States.
It's time to secede from this un-natural union...............
"The patrols at the American/Canadian border are being increased because when the Canadian's can't afford to heat their homes during the winter months, they will head South to a warmer climate.
Calm
Calm | Homepage | 05.20.08 - 6:31 pm | #"
Damnit you weren't supposed to mention that, now the invasion schedual will have to be changed again.
No one above mentions the decisive factor that separates the ongoing collapse of the US economy and power from the others in history's dustbin. The US retains the great majority of the world's nuclear weapons. In the next few years nuclear blackmail will be the only card remaining for the US to play. Does anyone think they will not use it?
Any idiot who considers using a nuclear weapon should be SHOT regardless of who he is.
Radiation will kill millions.
The US has been a "Titan" only insofar as it protected civil rights, welcomed immigrants, enforced fair labor laws, provided opportunity for everyone, and helped those who could not help themselves.
Having an huge arsenal of weapons indicates cowardice, paranoia, fear, and failure to relish the blessings of our natural environment and the joy of caring for others.
phillips refers to the "Bush administration's bungled 2003 invasion of Iraq". actually, the "imperial hubris" of illegal and immoral invasion is indicative of the ridiculous unsustainable foundation of us supremist culture. to state that the invasion was bungled rather than a rapacious action of a trannical state is bunk.
Brasil...Brasil Brasiliero..
Wake up people !!!
Do you hear the BIG NEWS today.
In Brasil, the lower and middle class can apply for loans. Business loans and housing loans.
What does it mean?
First of all, the promissing Brasilian immigrants to the U.S. who have already been going back home, 1,000s per week, have increased because of the huge oil finds and other prosperity, but more importantly, they don't have to work at Dunkin Donuts to save enough money to build a home on their land back in Brasil.
There goes a good chunk of the U.S. labor market, as well as paying renters and home buyers.
But what is happening it that the government of Brasil is banging another nail in the coffin of the U.S.
They are capitalizing on their own wealth, and expanding their own economy on credit.
It is unlikely that the Brasilians will allow this mechanism of credit to be taken to the excesses as the U.S. did with derivatives and options. Extremism is more a U.S.characteristic.
...... For the best news about the lowest forms of life ( the state of Israel and its supporters) .. check:
www.judicial-inc.biz
AND THE FASTER THE WHOLE U.S. FALLS, THE BETTER FOR ITS CITIZENS AND THE WORLD.
DOWN DOWN DOWN WITH AMERIKKKA, and DOWN DOWN DOWN WITH BUSH!!!
throw off the killer
sneaker
david goliath
I agree but you better watch yourselves because our elites will be moving out of here and will be coming to your parts for a while and bringing the private contractors with them. And they will still pull the strings of this country until they deem it ok to move back over after the revolution is over.
That is the sad thing about our hegemony and the elites, they actually will never go away and until people learn how to respect money if it is to be used as a method of exchange the samo shit will keep rolling down hill and they will still hoard all they can get because of the power they believe it gives them.
And it is not hard to believe that the israelis are up to their noses in shit for the love of money and now I do see why they have been persecuted and driven out of so many countries because of their weaseling the economy systems into their favor. I definitely believe they are not some god's chosen people but a bunch of thieving and conniving people out to get what they can get their hands on because they have learned how to manipulate others for their benefit and have shown with a significant segment that behave like this to put a bad name for most all jews. It is just like having the boss come in and punishing every one for what some are doing.
If there is a such thing as the god they believe in, then surly he will strike them down one day for their worship of money.
calm,
There is a such thing as global warming but it just part of climate change and that is definitely happening. And the thing about that is that when climate change happens, the individual events happened rather quickly. Right now we are just in the El Nino Southern Occillation weather patterns and these can get very nasty. Just find some books to read about it if you read. One in particular is "Late Victorian Holocausts" by Mike Davis. He even gives a couple of chapter devoted to discovering of what ENSO is and how it works which is not a precise thing being the weather.
Ahh America, if only you didn't have to pay interest on the creation of your own money!
Perhaps when this goes down, people will finally wake up and vote for change.
Obama isn't change. Unless a presidential candidate is willing to address this single issue (along with fractional reserve banking), this cycle will go on....and on..... and on...
What comes around...goes around. The arrogance of georgie porgie is killing American...hey, I wonder what will happen to the COALITION OF THE WILLING? Whatever happens with little bush's "either you are with us or you are with the terrorist." I guess everyone is jumping in the bandwagon of the terrorist!
I used to go on IRC to a channel called #politics and get lambasted there every time I said anything. It was full of pro-Bush, pro-war, armchair-economists and false-hope wishful thinkers. They thought they knew everything. Everything negative I mentioned was a positive for the US in their eyes. Weak dollar?...great for imports, we can screw our competitors! Subprime meltdown?...great for all of us, the markets will stabilise and the housing industry will hum along nicely. Catastrophic deficit?.....great for America, keeps us strong. $4 gasoline? ......great for (American) oil companies! As if that helped these twats.
Anyway I haven't been on that channel in a while but if any of you do use IRC, I encourage you to go there and see if you can rub a few noses in the faeces.
Peace.
Hi! Samosamo
I'm not a scientist, so I can't argue global warming. In my mind it is just like cigarettes causing cancer .... for 50 years there were scientists on both sides of the issue.
But .... our actions against global warming is just a scam.
Kyoto was just a scam. For 75 years the world leaders could not come to an agreement concerning nuclear weapon arsenals, but are expected to believe that they might agree to a global warming formula.
China is building 250 coal-fired power plants this year and they are 50 times larger than any plant in North America.
There are a million and a half Chinese getting their first drivers licence each and every day!
Chinese are buying a million new cars a year!
the United Nations predicted that by 2016, less than 10 years from now, people in the developing countries will be eating 30 per cent more beef, 50 per cent more pig meat and 25 per cent more poultry.
We are wrong to compare a carbon emissions by country .... it should be compared by population. We can't ask China or India to enjoy life less than we do or have during the past 100 years.
Every Chinese citizen is entitled to exactly what we have here in North America and if Chinese leaders do not improve the standard of living in China, there will be riots.
It took America 75 or 100 years to move from an agricultural society to an industrial society. China is gonna accomplish this advancement in 20 years.
In order to be fair about carbon footprints, we in North America need to cut back by about 90% and in turn allow China and India to upgrade.
In a sense, each human being in the world should be given a specific or allowable carbon footprint. If not, then it is just a sham.
Our leaders always compare countries when it comes to carbon emissions, but that is not fair. China has a billion or more people, so their emissions would be greater.
The truth is, America is looking to blame anybody and everybody but themselves for this economic collapse and they need us all to feel guilty and to feel good about it at the same time. That is why they are painting the problem as a "Green" or as an "Environmental" problem.
Not to say global warming may not be a problem .... but that America is using it to sell a lowering of our lifestyles.
Hi! DarkBeaver
Canadian Troops To Patrol US Cities As Food Riots Feared
By Sorcha Faal
February 24, 2008
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/in...m/
index1074.htm
The Deployment of US Troops inside Canada
By Michel Chossudovsky
March 13, 2008
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ind...ext=va&
aid=8323
I don't agree with America invading Iraq ....
But, Bush is gonna go down in history as the best president America ever had.
He was the best salesperson America ever had.
He managed to sell the world a theft of 100 trillion or more in oil!
When Bush said "Mission Accomplished" .... he meant exactly that. Once America controlled the capital city of Iraq, Baghdad the seat of government .... possession is 9 tenths of the law!
The reason Bush is chasing Al Sadr and his Militia down right now in Sadr City is because Al Sadr is against the "Status Of Forces Agreement SOFA" which Bush wants to sign with Maliki. This agreement will never pass the Iraqi Parliament with Al Sadr in oppostition to it. And, the U.N. resolution comes up for review at the end of this year. America must rid Baghdad of any opposition.
America (even the presidential candidates) only speak of troop withdrawl and not about private contractors.
In fact, the Pentagon is now contracting out the training of the Iraqi military.
America is never gonna leave Iraq! Never!
They never invaded and spent 3 trillion dollars because it was kind to animal week!
America and other Western powers did not invest 5 or 6 trillion dollars into a war and then leave it all to Iran.
If necessary, America will pulverize Iran in order to secure Iraqi oil being shipped by tanker to American refineries. America is not gonna allow the oil to be refined inside Iran.
The president of Iraq will sign on to any agreement because he needs the protection of America or he is dead meat! His family and every one of his relatives will be beheaded by sundown if America would leave Iraq.
It is not safe for any Iraqi who assisted with the U.S. occupation to live anywhere in the world. They will sign on to anything that America puts on their desks because they know they are all "Dead Men Walking."
Calm
There are 300 thousand private American-based contractors inside Iraq.
It is easy for America to reduce the military numbers by 50 thousand, but the big picture remains the same!
There will be no military reduction until the Status Of Forces Ageement is signed by the end of the year and recognized by the U.N..
Calm
There is a very well done little film about the global power system at
www.ziopedia.org
Also an audio article by Christopher
Bollyn about who actually controls America and the World. Christpher's artices are always exellent.
www.bollyn.com
But, most important of all read the article on
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk
If the article about the British Parliament discussing some new law which would take the Wold closer to a world of no fathers for children, or make men redundant - do something.
My blood runs cold today.
This is a good news for us, nonamericans.
We must not fight a war against you, you will be eaten by your banks.
Not to worry folks, the countries that loan us the money have already given the word that they will not continue to support our economy at the sacrifice of theirs, shouldn't take long now. Remember dear leader was in Saudi once again holding hands with the prince and probably getting on his knees as well to beg for more oil. They laughed at him and abused him behind closed doors, and to no avail. The US is going to shut down, an aircraft carrier with no fuel is not a threat. This whole dog and pony show about economic rebirth is not going to happen, just prepare for the worst, and if it happens you will survive, if not then you have a lot of stuff for Ebay. Enjoy the new lifestyle, you earned it!!
ATHEO
The USSR died quite some time ago and funeral obseqies have already been written.
As you correctly point out, the USA is dying, to be replaced by the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) which will soon admit Iran to its ranks.
Russia's spending on armaments is dictated by the latest American aggression in Poland and the Czech Republic, in which the US is posing potentially a dangerous threat to Russia.
Russia has no other option. America has one - indict Bush on charges of treason.
Kevin Phillips is right to sound the alarm over the policies that have led to the dominance of the financial sector in the US economy. Negative effects of this are already rippling through the US and global economy and will likely cause greater discomfort and serious pain to many.
The comments posted here by several others, however, express crude sentiments and go far beyond Phillips' article. They go so far as to say that the US sucks, stinks, is over, is a super loser, the US dollar is near worthless, and good riddance to the US.
Really? The US dollar is the world's reserve currency, the US dominates the global economy, is the sole military superpower by nearly any measure, is and has been the source of technological innovation, has and continues to provide opportunities for millions of immigrants who attain a higher standard of living and enjoy a life free from the social and economic constraints of their native country, and is a wellspring of creative and entrepreneurial achievement. Despite the shortcomings of the US, which we should all openly acknowledge, it is still difficult to find another nation that compares favorably with the US across all dimensions.
Kevin Phillips is an extremely insightful historian and his books are invaluable. Some people may not know that he began his career as a brilliant Republican strategist who helped envision the takeover of the South by the Republican Party.
Phillips became estranged from the party has it became more and more the party of financial, oil, and banking elites wedded to extremist evangelical cults.
Here’s a brief bio:
Kevin Phillips, a former Republican strategist, has been a political and economic commentator for more than three decades. A former White House strategist, he has been a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio and has written for Harper's and TIME. His 13 books include the New York Times bestsellers American Theocracy and American Dynasty. He lives in Connecticut.
American Theocracy is a marvelous book.
Samosamo also mentions a great book by Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts.
What Davis shows is how disruption in weather patterns coupled to predatory capitalism and imperialism killed tens of millions of people in Asia at the end of the 19th century. Many people have heard of Stalin’s Ukrainian famines or even Chinese famines under Mao but know nothing of the extraordinary mass deaths and the role of politics—especially British imperialism and “neo-liberal capitalism”—in the destruction of humanity in Ireland, China and India. The British forced its victims to export food while its local populations collapsed in mass starvation.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/
revi...,424896,00.html
If climate disruptions, environmental degradation, and predatory capitalism lead to economic and agricultural collapse in this century then the world could see--not the tens of millions of deaths at the end of the 19th century-- but hundreds of millions of deaths.
Fortunately, none of this will trouble the sleep or eating patterns of our great leader, the Crawford Caligula, as he lounges around down on his ranch in well-deserved retirement.
The sooner the US crashes the world would be free and friendly.Amen.
The author has issued a fair warning as to America's future. I have no doubt, that if America's continues on the same pass financially like the last 28 years, this nation will suffer a serious financial collapse.
The question is how to protect your financial asset in the event a financial collapse does occur?
>0101010101
You are a perfect example of why the US crash will be so painful.
The dollar is the "world's reserve currency"?
No, the dollar is a monopoly requiring thuggery and force to keep it in perpetuity.
The Russian multi-national bourse opened in May 2006 has slain the dollar monopoly for good. With partners Iran and Venezuela delivering better service contracts etc. This is why the US is prolapsed on all fronts. It took only 6 short months for the dollar to be replaced by the euro. But, alas, as the dollar goes so does the euro.
The "US dominates the global economy"
The term "US economy" is an oxymoron. A gigantic pile of paper IOU's exchanging hands. The US produces nothing for the world and imports everything it needs, requiring the rest of the world to slave for it, feed it, keep it warm and wipe it's behind. It has been able to to do this for so long explicitly because of the dollar monopoly.
The US is "the sole military superpower by nearly any measure"
Have you heard of Russia? And if the US power is so "super", how is it that you are being defeated by civilian fighters? Young men with AK-47's?
Next you say the US "is and has been the source for technological innovation"
That is too ridiculous to even warrant a response.
The US has bombed and/or attacked some 68 different nations since WWII, all for the sake of protecting and enforcing the dollar monopoly and it's vested interests. No other country in the world even comes close in terms of duplicity and treachery to the US.
Having lived through the depression b. 1930 and enjoyed the prosperity of the 1950's BA 1952, I feel Kevin Phillips is perfectly right in all his comments. I have written a book history of German-Spanish Relations that links up the economy, the military, politics and ideology. (1989) with confirms his thesis on empire. I was a critic of the Vietnameswe venture as of May 1964 and never voted for the Bush administration.
I agree with Phillips on nearly everything in his article except for him saying there is no chance of the US doing another 1929. I disagree because of Peak Oil and the implications that means for the world. Combine that with climate change and the situation really gets serious. We have no money and the little we have is nearly worthless. Because of that an the twin gotchas of oil and climate change, I feel a collapse is definitely within he realm of possibility.
remoran,
"Because of that an the twin gotchas of oil and climate change, I feel a collapse is definitely within he realm of possibility."
Youv'e been had.
Commenting by HaloScan
