See, this is where it gets interesting. Do we really have to figure it out? I think there is a natural evolution to how this works and trying to "figure" it out only makes it worse. All empires try to hold on until the very end. And when they go down, they usually go down fighting (wars). But again, history shows that all empires do indeed collapse. Our prosperity here came at the expense of the rest of the world. Now there is a mean reversion where the rest of the world is catching up. The way to stop it would be to use force and make the rest of the world poor again. But is that really moral? Do we really have a right to a never ending perpetual empire? I don't believe we do. And let's be honest captain, you and I both know the only way to preserve the empire is through war. All economic actions we take will only force the military actions. I think it's time we all come to terms with the fact it's over. The empire has fallen. In my opinion it will fall slowly just as Rome did. My guess is the process will take about 75 to 100 years to complete. But I don't think there is any way to stop it. I see no reason to believe why we should be able to cheat history.
Two observations. First, I am reminded of a good friend who refuses to take care of himself. His argument is, What's the point of eating right and staying fit, since you're going to die anyway. For some reason, the idea of increasing the chances of living a long and healthy life by doing the right things is just the avoidance of an inevitability as far as he is concerned. Second, is war necessarily the only option? The idea of looking inward and cleaning house doesn't even enter the picture?
Actually, the summary indicates that the the interior of your distribution is becoming less wealthy, and less numerous, relative to the upper and lower tails, respectively. I agree with you about the standard of living, I've said as much myself elsewhere, that all our complaining is really just rich people complaining. But you have to consider when you compare our spending power to third-world spending power: our cost of living is much higher, too. If everything is "ok" from a mathematical and scientific viewpoint, which you present, then how do we qualitatively account for the 10% who are out of work now, and the 7% or so who have given up? If they are enjoying standards of living that "elite generations" of the past only dreamed of, they are doing so because of handouts.
Sure, you can clean the house, but come on, that's not going to stop the inevitable. Look, within the coming collapse there are going to be several smaller cycles. Some will be periods of increased prosperity and others with deep recessions. But the longer term cycle is down. I'm not calling for the dark ages. Even Rome today is quite lovely. The US is not going to look like Ecuador. It's just going to look much more like everyone else. Which means we are going to have to share our prosperity. That means less for us and more for everyone else. All the little things you are likely to suggest are just that, little things that will not impact the bigger picture.
They saw our social mobility statistics (of late), and they know the game is unwinnable. Sure, in theory it's winnable, like the lottery, we know that.
Agree 90%. In the years ahead we are more and more going to resemble our parents, that is, the Europeans.
The eternal realist in me agrees with you. Makes me wonder what the hell we're doing here in the first place. However it seems to me the great hero, to some, Ronald Reagan said something about a shining city on a hill, and if I remember right, he said there is something worse than war. Taken from his speech: "I did not tell that story out of any desire to be narrowly chauvinistic or to glorify aggressive militarism, but it is an example of government meeting its highest responsibility. In recent years we have been treated to a rash of noble-sounding phrases. Some of them sound good, but they don't hold up under close analysis. Take for instance the slogan so frequently uttered by the young senator from Massachusetts, âThe greatest good for the greatest number." Certainly under that slogan, no modern day Captain Ingraham would risk even the smallest craft and crew for a single citizen. Every dictator who ever lived has justified the enslavement of his people on the theory of what was good for the majority. We are not a warlike people. Nor is our history filled with tales of aggressive adventures and imperialism, which might come as a shock to some of the placard painters in our modern demonstrations. The lesson of Vietnam, I think, should be that never again will young Americans be asked to fight and possibly die for a cause unless that cause is so meaningful that we, as a nation, pledge our full resources to achieve victory as quickly as possible. I realize that such a pronouncement, of course, would possibly be laying one open to the charge of warmongering -- but that would also be ridiculous. My generation has paid a higher price and has fought harder for freedom that any generation that had ever lived. We have known four wars in a single lifetime. All were horrible, all could have been avoided if at a particular moment in time we had made it plain that we subscribed to the words of John Stuart Mill when he said that âwar is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.â The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth a war is worse. The man who has nothing which he cares about more than his personal safety is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself". It would seem to me that what he was saying is that the end will justify the means with regard to our global domination, and that we DO have a moral obligation to do so. Guess it all depends on whether you're living in the land of the emperor or not, eh?
The problem captain is this, if the rich kid walks down the block enough times passing the poor, sooner or later that rich kid is going to get his ass kicked. Captain, we're running out of safe blocks to walk down where the poor don't lie.