'Merica

[gaelic cowboy]

Joking, yes? The American Revolution was early days in the British Empire. You built up India into a trading colossus after we showed you the door. Fairly sure the British Empire peaked in the late 1800s.

In terms of area an population I have read that the peak was 1924 but it was a mirage of the time of say the late 1800s.

Oh an I nearly forgot I hope ye all have sore heads after properly celebrating Independence yesterday

[a completely inoffensive name]

This coming from a general who told his men that taking no prisoners would make them immortal. The man had a way with words...

As for the United States, it is going to suck living through the decline of our power, wealth, and prestige. This is, perhaps, the worst time to live in a failing empire - those born before enjoyed the rise of America and all the associated benefits that came with it and those born after the fall will not miss what they never had. We, though, will witness it crumbling before our eyes. We will know what it was like to be the most wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth as we slide down the international totem pole.

Our empire has turned out to be one of the shortest lived in history, but the extraordinary rise in our standard of living will surely be missed as it falls ever more precipitously in the coming decades.

You are bit too pessimistic PJ. Those that enjoyed the hay-day of the American empire are who we call the Baby Boomers. They for the most part grew fat and complacent on the richness of America in the 50s, 60s and 70s. They created the financial problems and still hold that America is #1 in everything and that we can still have everything. A world wide military, social programs, low taxes etc...

As much as it would be enjoyable from a materialistic perspective, the overwhelming trend of the Cold War era was an increasingly selfish attitude. As our empire falls, we have the prized ability to be at the right moment in history to change the culture and direction and even the essence of what America is as the former attitudes and thoughts begin to decline.

If we so choose, our generation can establish America back to a very isolationist country that devalues its military in order to provide reasonable amounts of social programs. We could go full on laissez-faire from the 1870s if the country takes a massive right wing shift again. You should be excited about being part of a critical moment in American history.

The fall of the American empire isn't really going to hurt our standard of living as much as the fact that our economic and infrastructure foundation is very weak. We have to either follow the German plan in order to become a manufacturing powerhouse again, or we need to stop deluding ourselves that somehow an American worker can be cheaper than a Chinese one and move onto something else.

America desperately needs more infrastructure, including localized high speed rail, and by some accounts an entirely new power grid. These tasks are all guaranteed to be done 100% in America, and will open up tens of thousands of long term, permanent jobs for when the infrastructure is finished and needs to be actively maintained and inspected. For some reason though, everyone seems to cling to the idea that we are manufacturers when Detroit is completely dead and the majority of people are actually working in a service sector.

[Tellos Athenaios]

America desperately needs more infrastructure, including localized high speed rail, and by some accounts an entirely new power grid. These tasks are all guaranteed to be done 100% in America, and will open up tens of thousands of long term, permanent jobs for when the infrastructure is finished and needs to be actively maintained and inspected. For some reason though, everyone seems to cling to the idea that we are manufacturers when Detroit is completely dead and the majority of people are actually working in a service sector.

There are a few issues I can see with that:
1) Money.
2) Executive impetus to see it through.
3) More money, this time for the bills that aren't picked up by either states or federal revenues (depending on project and how costs are split).

I can't see California saying, hey you know we've found this $100bn fund so let's fix our electric infrastructure in the near future.

EDIT: I guess what I am saying is that you first have to conjure funds, or alternatively have to conjure aggregated funds -- as I understand it your current schemes prevent, say, Alaska paying for infrastructure work to benefit California.

[a completely inoffensive name]

There are a few issues I can see with that:
1) Money.
2) Executive impetus to see it through.
3) More money, this time for the bills that aren't picked up by either states or federal revenues (depending on project and how costs are split).

I can't see California saying, hey you know we've found this $100bn fund so let's fix our electric infrastructure in the near future.

EDIT: I guess what I am saying is that you first have to conjure funds, or alternatively have to conjure aggregated funds -- as I understand it your current schemes prevent, say, Alaska paying for infrastructure work to benefit California.

The executive impetus would not be a problem if people actually saw the worth of these projects.

As for number 1 and 3. As much as people want to talk about reducing spending as much as possible, it is really is important to consider the possible payback of any sort of massive spending.

I can completely understand the conservative push for taking on the social programs in the US. For the most part, when you give money to the recipients of social welfare programs, the most that you can get out of it is that every dollar is spent consuming. Which is fine, because the economy runs on spending, but it doesn't generate anything other than that, and the consumption is only temporary unless those social programs are giving money to someone forever, which of course is not their purpose or allowed anymore.

What massive infrastructure does that large social programs doesn't, is actively generate lots of wealth through its use.

The Transcontinental Railroad.
The Interstate Highway System
The current electrical and phone line system.

All of these were monumental infrastructure tasks that cost the government millions to billions of dollars. But all of those projects have been responsible for untold trillions of revenue over the years. Can any American imagine what life would be like if the highway system wasn't built?

So to be honest there really is no compelling reason not to embark on massive infrastructure repairs and overhauls. Sitting there nit picking at the price just shows how ideologically blinded you are that you consider all government spending the same when it clearly isn't.

EDIT: last sentence not directed at you TA, just "fiscal conservatives" in general.

[jirisys]

So to be honest there really is no compelling reason not to embark on massive infrastructure repairs and overhauls. Sitting there nit picking at the price just shows how ideologically blinded you are that you consider all government spending the same when it clearly isn't.

Didn't private companies end up using them?

Owning them.

They pretty much own everything right? I can only think of the government. And that to some extent is owned (lobbyism).

America, I like it, I like some european countries more in many aspects, I like Chile more in some aspects ( YOU PIÑA!), I like ESV on a tiny more aspects (girls and tropicalism).

Ask me about political policies on each of those countries, and America will be my no.1 most hated.

~Jirisys ()

[a completely inoffensive name]

Didn't private companies end up using them?

Owning them.

They pretty much own everything right? I can only think of the government. And that to some extent is owned (lobbyism).

America, I like it, I like some european countries more in many aspects, I like Chile more in some aspects ( YOU PIÑA!), I like ESV on a tiny more aspects (girls and tropicalism).

Ask me about political policies on each of those countries, and America will be my no.1 most hated.

~Jirisys ()

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Maybe I am missing something here.

[Tellos Athenaios]

So to be honest there really is no compelling reason not to embark on massive infrastructure repairs and overhauls. Sitting there nit picking at the price just shows how ideologically blinded you are that you consider all government spending the same when it clearly isn't.

It's nothing to do with my ideology or my ideas on government spending. It is however about being in a position to make the call, either because you've got a lot of money to spare or because there is political will to grant you a lot of executive leeway. With the USA debts being what they are, it will take quite a bit of economic boom before the infrastructure will be invested in --or conversely it takes far worse unemployment for the general populace to accept significantly more direct government intervention in the way various markets operate. My reasoning for this is that in a scenario of moderate recovery/growth I think most US states (if not all) will opt to reinstate services formerly cut first before embarking on grand new spending plans which is related to my argument for the latter, namely, that there is a lot of debt to deal with already so an alternative approach to getting this funded requires a bit of a paradigm shift in how the USA operates.

[jirisys]

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Maybe I am missing something here.

'Tis my stomach talking.

My life has no point.

~Jirisys ()

[a completely inoffensive name]

It's nothing to do with my ideology or my ideas on government spending. It is however about being in a position to make the call, either because you've got a lot of money to spare or because there is political will to grant you a lot of executive leeway. With the USA debts being what they are, it will take quite a bit of economic boom before the infrastructure will be invested in --or conversely it takes far worse unemployment for the general populace to accept significantly more direct government intervention in the way various markets operate. My reasoning for this is that in a scenario of moderate recovery/growth I think most US states (if not all) will opt to reinstate services formerly cut first before embarking on grand new spending plans which is related to my argument for the latter, namely, that there is a lot of debt to deal with already so an alternative approach to getting this funded requires a bit of a paradigm shift in how the USA operates.

I'm sorry man. I made my edit 20 min after the fact. I wasn't trying to attack you with that last sentence. It was meant to be towards average conservatives who think that high speed rail is just as wasteful as the current social security.

I mostly agree with what you said, especially the last sentence, but I think it can, and hopefully will be done within a decade or two.

I disagree about states reinstating former services first. I think the current Republican Party is trying and eventually will succeed in eliminating programs they consider wasteful once and for all. Michelle Bachmann said during the debate that she wanted conservatives to have a big society type bill that liberals like to pass but with exactly the opposite intentions: the systematic removal of social programs from the US.

[Skullheadhq]

Don't forget that is the Netherlands who first recognized the new-found USA in november 1776. We're still your friends, America.

[Major Robert Dump]

I don't plan to live out my days in the states. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about the USA, but this place is gonna be the lauhging stock of the modern world before I die.

The taxes are getting too high in some places and not equitable in others (depending on the whims of those in office), the politics are too inflammatory, the rules are frequently one-sided and reactionary, I'm expected to pay into a retirement fund I won't live to see, the political class operates on their own set of rules and have practically zero accountability, the government -- to include everything from the DC to the military down to the city level -- operates at such an inefficient standard that profiteers get rich while a wasteful standard is set at the public dime, the middle class is going away as all the middle class creating-jobs are outsourced at the encouragement of Washington policies, we still can't show titties on prime time television but can have violence to no end, the stanadard of living is so high that people don't care about what goes on around them as ong as they get theirs, you can't even trust something like a pension, 401k or IRA anymore because the people who manage those can steal you blind and suffer nary a consequence, and the one that really gets me is that a very large percentage of our poor people are obese, which really speaks volumes about the country, its mentality and its priorities.

We're a country full of pansies pretending not to be pansies. I mean, hell, we can't even do socialized medicine and emissions regulations right, instead we get some joke-of-a-system that involves insurance companies and pollution credit program that creates a new derivitives market out of thin air and does nothing to stop pollution. Just wow.

I don't have a problem not living in a country that is not all that free if the place at least makes no pretense of being such. I think I shall pick a country that is not the release valve for one or more other countries social underclass, perhaps one that encourages migration from people with a little money and education. I'm thinking either the Phillipines, or Hungary, or Kiwi, or New Zealand.