The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Monday, August 31, 2026 17:58
VIEWED: 3542
PAGE 3 of 5
Quote:We've lived debt free for quite a while now. No mortgage, no car payments, no student loans, no nothing. But occasionally, if we have to borrow, we tighten our belts and pay it off within 3 months tops.
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Not sure how it works at y'all's houses, but in my place, when there's debt to pay down, I have to curb my spending habits AND put money specifically toward paying off that debt.
It is as if the entire country is living off credit cards and no one cares very much. We are even waging a war and killing people on credit. The country has gone insane. That's how I feel.
Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
I don't know how accurate this is, but Wikipedia has some figures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_United_States
It says $663.8 billion per year.
Here is how that budget compares to other countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure
s
Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.
More depressing is the bedfellows who spend over 4% of their GDP on the military (North Korea just doesn't say, but I'd guess it was well up there)
135 Burundi 43,900,000 4.0%
25 Singapore 7,966,000,000 4.1%
68 Yemen 1,196,000,000 4.2%
1 USA 63,255,000,000 4.3%
54 Sudan 1,971,000,000c 4.4%c
43 Iraq 3,814,000,000 5.4%
19 UAE 13,052,000,000a 5.9%a
66 Jordan 1,392,000,000 5.9%
86 Chad 412,000,000 6.6%
17 Israel 14,309,000,000 7.0%
41 Oman 4,003,000,000 7.7%
8 Saudi Arabia 39,257,000,000 8.2%
78 Georgia 665,000,000 8.5%
94 Eritrea 327,000,000d 20.9%d
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Quote:
Well, the latest proposed tax cuts for the rich are said to have a price tag of $900 billion over the next two years, which is less than we spend on defense.
Hmm. But even non-imperial countries spend some money on defense. If the US was to slash its military budget in half, making its % of GDP comparable to ordinary countries, its saving would only be about $330 billion (according to CTS)? Which is less than the tax cuts of $450 billion per year, according to your figure :-/
I find it an interesting comparison anyway. Thanks for the figures guys.
It's not personal. It's just war.
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These kinds of opinion pieces annoy me. There's just so much psychology involved--you know: the "why are they seeing America as a falling Empire?" is so much more relevant than their tired old argumentation.
Not to open the climate change debate anew (please, please, I beg of you, don't do it!) but I see a lot of psychology muddying the water there as well. A lot of proponents are dealing with deep guilt and remorse and globalizing that into "it's all our fault!!!" I don't mean to say that there is nothing legitimate about such a position, only that such a position tends to come bundled with a HUGE surplus of emotional baggage. The anti-GW folk a lot of the time seem to be fighting against that overwhelming sense of guilt--up with humans! Up with America!--rather than the putative "facts" of the matter.
So here, we get all this guilt and remorse informing arguments about AMERICA'S DOWNFALL!!! People want it, fear it, and secretly want it, feel they "deserve" it, want "TPTB" to SUFFERRRRRRRRR, etc. It renders the whole argument untrustworthy to me.
Couple things: Our global military ascendancy is completely maladaptive/useless/self-destructive. If America falls it will be in large part BECAUSE we attempt to maintain global military dominance.
Secondly: China. We got this sick little love/hate thing going with China. I can't help seeing all these projections that China is gonna rule the world as a sneaky endorsement of exactly the kind of hellish political system that we officially despise, but secretly envy. "Hitler made the trains run on time!" type o' deal. The reality is, of course: China is fucked. They will destroy themselves, either through civil war or the worst kind of 19th century style boom/bust dynamic that we're all too familiar with. They just have a billion or more people to throw at their problems, but their problems are enormous and just gonna get worse.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
I don't know how accurate this is, but Wikipedia has some figures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_United_States
It says $663.8 billion per year.
Obviously it's not enough, we need more, because we've been spending that for 9 years and we still can't beat the Taliban. Maybe we're not really trying?
Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com
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Quote:Maybe it's because we've been spending it on buying children for Afghan cops to rape and not on fighting the Taliban?
Originally posted by pizmobeach:
Obviously it's not enough, we need more, because we've been spending that for 9 years and we still can't beat the Taliban. Maybe we're not really trying?
Sorry, never gonna stop being bitter about that.
Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.
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Quote:Yeah, I don't see China taking over either.
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
The reality is, of course: China is fucked.
But America is going down. The only chance we have--and maybe I'm imagining things here--but the only chance we have is to stop our 2 wars immediately. As in bring our guys home NOW.
We SHOULD feel guilty about all the awful things our govt has done to the world.
Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.
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Y'know, I don't see China as "taking over" - I see them as taking a pivotal role, and possibly as taking a lead on the world stage. I doubt the USA will cease to exist - we'll just be about where France and England are now: a good country to live in, but not the world's Number One Superpower.
I don't necessarily view that as a bad thing, either. Remember, just about every right-winger around these parts will still insist that the U.S. is the greatest place to live, the most perfect place on Earth, even when confronted with the facts that most industrialized nations are doing a whole lot better in almost any metric you'd care to measure. So it seems that a place can lag far behind other nations and still be a pretty nice place. We're living proof, right? 
This Space For Rent!
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Grrr... Double.
New browser, new browser issues.
RockMelt has promise, but is not perfect, I must say.
Still, it's an early beta, and I'm mostly loving it at the moment...
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Quote:Sorry. I meant, "take over" as in become the world's dominant superpower. Take the place of the USA.
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Y'know, I don't see China as "taking over"
I'll probably get stoned for saying this, but I think things are going to get a lot, lot worse in the States. As in civil war all over again. Disappearances. Refugees to other countries. I have no basis for this prognosis. Just a feeling. Chalk me up as being crazy like PN, if you wish.
Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.
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