Most of the business magazines of the 80s had articles on it, along with the horror stories when Japanese interests purchased Rockefeller Center and the Pebble Beach golf course.
The US is fine, and can easily recover. If we can find a way to get out of our foreign military endeavors quickly, and close a shit load of foriegn military bases - we will find our budget deficit shrinking. Clean up the US budget, US debt continues to be a good buy, and US corporate stocks and bonds go back to being a good investment. Add in the continued ability of the US to attract people from around the world and we can still keep our place near, if not at, the top of the economic food chain.
While China is about to hit a Dust Bowl issue. As well as a bunch of other things that make me predict a major war or other massive social unrest issue in… nine years and counting down.
To clarify, these are the points that I think proved least accurate. If you go back and read the rest of the report, most of it is more accurate than the quoted sections.
Well, yeah. Some things will be accurate. Some wil not. Some will be kinda accurate.
I mean I think it’s obvious that China and India will continue to grow. How that will manifest itself in terms of the world power structure, not so obvious.
Bush kind of squandered a lot of our goodwill and influence, but maybe Obama can get a lot of it back. Who knows?
Predictions of the future, no matter how authoritative, are wild guesses. You cannot put any stock into ANYONE, no matter how smart they seem or claim to be, who says they know how the world will be in 2025.
It was attempted in Iraq. (The actual result is an institution that was indeed elected, but is not exactly a government – too ineffectual to be considered one.)
End of US dominance? I think this is the beginning of the end for the USA.
Everything you hold dear is evaporating before your eyes:
Your democratic process was shown to be a sham in 2000.
A feeling of security due to geographical location, was flushed away in sept 2001.
Iraq demonstrated that your great elected leaders and once noble media, conspired to lie to you about the most serious of issues.
Liberty, freedom and the need for due process went out the window with Guantanimo / rendition.
Your use of torture took away the moral high ground you thought you occupied.
The banking crisis has shown that freemarket / capitalist ideal that drives your economy is nothing more that a mirage. Non of your power elite either understand or can fix it.
By the time your economy had recovered from the housing, banking and credit crisis, it will all be too late. China will be top dog economically, Iran / Syria will be the power brokers in the M.E. Europe will be looking east , not west.
You will still have your millitary, and you will maintain it regardless of your economy - think USSR in the 80s. But your economy is going to be screwed for a decade or two to come. I think the next step for the US is to use some sort of ‘modern’ nuke against someone in the next 5 years, as a dick swinging exercise. Its all you will have left.
You made a castle built on sand. Nice try but its over. New versions of govement will rise - like Chinas curious mix of capitalism and communism. They will then try to project their world view around the place - like the US has done ( ‘if you arnt with us, youre against us’ etc ). It wont work either.
BTW i think that Britain is just as fct, but we are now well used to our diminishing power on the world stage. Why do you think we need to renew Trident?
Some predictions are more probable than others. I also remember predictions of the end of the world and the second coming of JC. On the other hand the diminishing relative weight of the USA in the world is a trend which has been going on for some decades now and which is clearly accelerating. It could be that it will turn around but all indicators are not in that direction.
This mess is our own doing. We should not be in this position. The financiers not only corrupted our economic system but the snake oil salesmen convinced many other bankers across the world to follow their model. There are some powerful and rich people who are pissed. We have not shown that we will survive this mess yet. We are in a battle to save our economy. Other countries who did not dream this mess up are in trouble due to us. We are not going to get much love.
I agree completely…the fact is, we (the USA) cannot police the world anymore. take Somalia: It is NOT our job to root out the pirates and keep the Indian Ocean safe. This is something for the regional powers (India, Pakistan, SA, Autralia) to fix. second: much has been ,made of US financial irresponsibility: the fact is, we are (by our profligate ways) keeping the world from recession. So, lets us STOP importing from China-we will see how long it take the EU to erect trade barriers against the fllod of Chinese goods that have no market in the USA. Third: let’s cut a deal with putin-we keep our noses out of the caucasus, and eastern europe, and they stay out of the Western Hemisphere. Pissing off the russians will only cause us grief.
