What if America vanished over night?

I was doing something dangerous the other day; thinking.
Something most politicians don’t want us to do.

I was thinking about American business, and how far flung it is, because some beer song on the radio happened to say that Hawaiian shirts are not made in Hawaii, but Taiwan, but that’s O.K., because it’s an island too. Connections were made in my frazzled brain like lightening, and just as dispersed.

There’s a whole lot of nations out there who dislike us, would love to have us fall, if they could, probably would invade us, and those who try to ruin our economy.

However, if the USA goes, so goes most of the developed world as we know it.

We have businesses in almost every nation on Earth, using local people, local goods, dumping cash in local banks and boosting local economies by making things we sell. We import vegetables from most of the agricultural nations, export masses of grain to others, buy metals, technology, soft goods, pots, pans, glasses and cups. We buy most of the oil in the world. We back foreign based research, invest in foreign medicines, foreign movies, cartoons, cars, tires, wood, canned goods, assorted tiny parts, and knowledge.

We export millions of tons of goods from military parts to medication, from seed to fertilizer. We import Mexican foods, native blankets, throws, silver and pottery. We have mines, industries, schools and banks in Africa. We own shares in international shipping and cruse lines, build most of the worlds passenger planes, provide deep sea technology and medical advances.

Nearly the entire world depends on our investments and products. Cut off all American business and the world market will crash, whereas no other nation can affect the world as dramatically as we can. Let France drop out and people will cheer. Wipe out Saadam’s little plot of hell, and the oil economy will stagger but not fail. Russia could vanish and not do more than cause the DOW to dip a few points. Canada could shut down and … well, what does Canada do anyhow except send it’s folks into the US to not tip waiters and to go home packed with American goods? Cuba could shut down and never be missed. Their prime economy is exporting people to Florida and sucking up illegal American dollars from illegal American tourists.

I wonder if all of those little anti-American countries out there have ever considered this? Knock us out and we take everyone with us. If we were to stop buying Saudi oil, they’d either have to go back to burning camel chips or double the price for the rest of the world.

China, now. If we cut off China from all of our goods and businesses, they’d have to attack someone to burn off the surplus people and gain funds. South America would go belly up without our goods and our thirst for cocaine. Drug lords would have signs saying ‘will work for food.’

Yeah. I felt better after all of that.

In WW2 it was 'wait ‘till the Americans get here to kick ass.’ Now it’s ‘wait until the Americans invest here to kick ass.’ Soon it will be ‘the Americans have landed on Mars’ and then ‘the Americans are on Europa - and they’ve found life.’

oooooooh boy…
THIS is gonna be a fun thread, let me tell you.

This is just a warning shot because, quite frankly, it’s late here, and I’m going to go to bed. I also don’t wanna screw this up with half-thought out statements coming from a tired head.

But some Canadians are ginna have fun with you, boy…

:slight_smile:

So, basically Pat Buchannan’s first day in office, to swipe one from Mike Nelson :slight_smile:

I envison a lot of Canadians and Mexicans looking over the big hole saying “What the heck?” “I don’t know, you had it last.”

Would all the water rushing into the former USA be enough to signifigantly drop the ocean level?

Oh, wait. That’s not what you ment?


“You think you can take me? Go ahead-on.”

::inspects shirt label::

Actually, this t-shirt was made in the US. It says so under the Hanes logo. :smiley:

Seriously, “Hawaiian shirts”, or “luau shirts”, or whatever, is not what we call them here. They’re “aloha shirts”. They’re part of standard business attire here (for men, of course). In downtown, suits and ties stick out.

Don’t you start thinking of some hideous shirt combining 42 loud and unmatching colors; they usually have floral patterns, with fewer than 3 different but complementary colors.

People who wear the tackier shirts, the turquoise ones with orange sunsets and pink flamingoes on them, are generally recognized as “tourists”.

Hawaiian shirts not bought in Hawaii are made in Taiwan. Hawaiian shirts bought in Hawaii are made in Hawaii, the US, and sometimes, Malaysia.

There are a number of flaws in the OP, but the principal one seems to be the assumption that the USA = the developed world.

Pretty much true of every other developed country, as is the stuff later on about foreign research and Mexican blankets. Also, some people would disagree that US investment always “boosted” the local economy.

The USA might be the single largest consumer of oil (though I’m not even sure about that), but I doubt that it consumes more than the rest of the world put together.

This is a baseless assertion. No doubt some countries rely heavily on inward investment from the USA (though that can be a mixed blessing). Others rely on inward investment from Europe, the Far East and other places. Others are pretty much self-contained.

Actually, a sudden drop in demand would generally cause prices to fall. Every country in the world consumes oil, so I don’t see that one country’s disappearance (albeit a big one) would have a massive effect in the long term.

I’ve always said when you ask the really weird questions, you turn to science fiction for the answers.

Finity by John Barnes is a novel about a world where America has disappeared and a group of American ex-pats are trying to find out why.

Another similar novel is Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson in which all of the inhabitants of Europe disappear one day in 1912.

And the next time you try something dangerous like thinking when you’re out of practice, you should do some Junior Jumbles or TV Guide crossword puzzles first to warm up.

The French would go on strike!!! :eek:

You know, I watch these naturalist shows, Discovery, the Learning Channel and National Geographic as well as some of the animal station. In virtually every country people go to, there are American products, copied American goods, American influence or American foods. I was once surprised to watch someone in the middle east, in a business operating a computer that the display came up with native and English letters. (It was not just for the cameras either.)

Piper aircraft can be found all over the world, old and new ones, though they originate in Vero Beach, Florida. It’s odd to spot an old Piper Cub still puttering around Africa, Asia or Australia. The DC-3, made during WW2 still flies today in South America, Vietnam, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and India, among many more other nations.

English is virtually a universal language – though the French try to avoid it – but we got that from the British. However, even the stalwart Brits get to gnash on Big Macks, sip Pepsi and Coke, and they have a Walmart invasion.

The French are using American based space technology to try to undermine the shuttle with cheaper cargo flights, the Russian space shuttle is a copy of ours – though they can’t fly it any more and we are underwriting their membership in the new space station. You can buy American goods in almost every corner of the world, even though the labels might not be in English.

We introduced the British to gum, something which I’m sure they still hold a grudge about. We introduced the world to pop top beverage cans, another something that we will probably never be forgiven for because those original, little, damn sharp pull off tabs can still be found in some of the remotest corners of the globe in the most seemingly inaccessible spots.

Our space plastics are now used and manufactured in almost every industrialized nation there is. I do strongly suspect that several nations would cheerfully declare war on us for creating and marketing the ghetto blaster, especially ones where you can record and play tapes right off of the radio. (On behalf of America, with no authority to do so, I apologize for that.)

If everyone in America simply – poof! – vanished, then Canadian hockey teams might start winning the Stanley Cup again … or, at the very least, they would make the finals.

…low blow, man…
true, but low blow.

“It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.” — Adolf Hitler

I have chosen this line out of your entire post…cuz…well…it made me laugh.

Sadly, it’s partly true. Canada exports a lot of goods, resources etc, to the U.S. If you were gone, we’d find someone else to trade with. Granted, there would be a period of upheaval…but we’d get over it.
What would happen if Mexico vanished? France? Germany? Iceland?

We’d get over it…that’s what. The states has a far reaching grasp on the world, but we’d be fine if you were no longer amoungst the trading. It would be tough…but we’d get by.

One thing I wouldn’t miss is the…"we Americans are so powerful and good…what would the world do without us?"

When you travel in around the globe, can you proudly wear your flag on your backpack?..with out fear? No you can’t.

You choose the reason why…and have an extra large piece humble pie.

My post is coming off a little too strong I think…I want to bring it a bit closer to home…lets say the Americans on the Straight Dope vanished…the board would survive, it would be different, but it would go on.(if the board wasn’t based in Chicago!)

In short…you’re important to the world…but you’re not the world…just a part of it.

Because I’m sure others will in due course.

FarTreker is either our old friend Sentinel, or someone closely connected to him.

The evidence:

Like Sentinel, MarkSerlin, RainbowCSR and the other variations on this particular trollish theme, FarTreker is based in Florida and lists walking as one of his hobbies.

The real giveaway is in the posting style however: a string of mindless, jingoistic, “We’re No. 1” factiods about the USA, followed by a number of (more or less intelligent) responses which are completely ignored only to be met with another dumb list.

Have a look at this old thread if you don’t believe me: Why are Americans so disliked worldwide?.

Check out the posts by Sentinel, RainbowCSR and NightGirl. Could they, by any chance, be related? I think we should be told. In the meantime, my advice would be DNFTT.

My goodness Tom, you might be right.
It would certainly explain the vaguely queesy feeling I have gotten in my stomach over the past few weeks, when reading one of FarTrekers posts. This one being a prime example. Untill now, I wasn’t able to put my finger on it. But the similarities ARE striking, when reading the linked thread. Which is also pure entertainment, because Serlinel starts interacting with his multiple personalities there:

I don’t know whether to laugh or shake my head in disbelief.

And even if Tom isn’t right about the Serlinel bit, the OP is still mostly nonsensical. I’m not even going to adress it, because it’s already been done adequately.

I would be upset if America vanished over night…

Mexicans, Canadians, citizens of the United States, and all those good people in South America gone… me included. What a bummer that would be.

Okay, enough humour.

If the United States vanished over night there would be 300,000,000 less people to feed. That can’t be a bad thing can it?

I would have less television channels to watch, again… not a bad thing.

People on the Canada US border would have oceanfront homes, I bet they’d be happy.

I’d miss many of the friends I have made south of the border. Not good.

My dream of motorcycling to Mexico might be derailed and that trip to Sturgis would be off. This would really suck.

All in all, I think we’d go on. There isn’t anything that the U.S. provides that I couldn’t live without except some of it’s great people.

You keep forgetting the economic devastation. I don’t know for sure, but what other nation exports so much bulk food, like wheat and grains, to other nations? I haven’t noticed waving plains of grain in France, though they have some impressive vineyards. Italy doesn’t seem to have gain ships leaving in mass for the Middle East, Africa and China.

Aerobus - excluding the current crash, does not produce the amount of European mass air transport that we do, and the Concord, with it’s incredible flying record, was becoming obsolete and no new ones made. Most commercial aircraft were designed and made here. However, many other nations do not keep up with the repairs recommended on such craft. Even the well run British air uses American made craft.

America never did have a major ship building industry, aside from military, so the Scandinavian and British beat us in that.

We not only export masses of basic goods, but there is a major industry going on in the criminal network in stealing American cars to sell over seas. The economic devastation would be great if America were to suddenly close it’s borders and become autonomous, allowing no import or export including that of electronic business deals.

Mexico would have a major problem because a large chunk of their population works in the States illegally, sending back money and goods. Plus we buy a large amount of their agricultural and trade goods. They import goods from us. We have major businesses operating in their country.

We consume a major amount of world produced goods. A friend of mine who lives in Canada likes to come down now and then and gripe about finding ‘Yankee’ trash in Canadian stores (and I remind him to tip the waitresses down here). He brings me down an excellent Canadian smoked ham and I give him a crate of sweet oranges from my wild orange tree, which he loves. (Citrus canker free.)

Like I said, economically, if the US vanished, the effect would be devastating world wide.

BTW to those of you who think I’m someone who I’m not, please stop accusing me.

Entirely possible–and entirely irrelevant to the real world.

The U.S. isn’t going away any time soon and the majority of anti-U.S. feeling in the world is generated by the attitudes you have been posting (unsolicited).

There is a certain amount of hostility toward the U.S. scattered around the world. Most of it is in response to how individuals are insulted by U.S. attitudes or squeezed by U.S. policies. The way to alleviate those bad feelings are to make sure that our government only steps on toes when there is a genuine threat against us and to stop posting “yay us” sentiments on internationally read message boards when we’re not even being insulted.

I’d say you’re missing Japan and the Netherlands here. Also, I think Germany produces more ships than any Scandinavian country.

Furthmore, most European airlines have mixed fleets consisting of both American and European planes. British Airways, I agree, predominantly has Boeing planes. But some airlines solely operate an Airbus fleet.

The sudden vanishing of the US would have an economical impact, but it would be managable in the long term. There is nothing that the US produces that can’t be gotten somewhere else. And that goes for every other country I can think of as well.

In short, I really don’t see the point of this OP, other than the fact that you apparently seem to like convincing yourself that the United States is the most important nation on the planet. Which it may be in some respects, and which it certainly isn’t in others.

JimmyNipples said:

Nice test, I must say. Although of course, with America’s political and military impact on the world, the US flag is bound to provoke anger somewhere in the world. But true enough, there are numerous flags that would be safer as a backpack ornament.

Policies are like ‘a-holes’ – every nation has them. Someone is bound to be ticked off. It is obvious as heck that people in different nations, reared under different beliefs, using different technologies or traditional methodology, will not think along the lines of everyone else.

Brief example. Dessert Storm. We could have gone in and wiped out Sadaam but the Arabic community, while agreeing with us chasing him out of Iran, because of his religious standing, would have frowned heavily on us going into his lands and running him to the ground.

I won’t go into a diatribe about why American policies are enforced and unpopular but necessary. That is not the object of the post.

Notice, at the beginning, the post states ‘What If…?’

Far Treker, I’m really not sure you have a particularly broad grasp of how the world works. Maybe if you just unfurled that flag from around your mind you might see things a little more clearly. Just one example of many possible’s….

Do you not see that Saddam is the greatest friend the US military, the CIA and even Israel has ? The reason the Coalition didn’t drive on to Bagdad is because Saddam’s (cut off at the knees Saddam rather than puffed up chest Saddam) existence serves a purpose for each of those mentioned. Actually, not a purpose but is underpinning policy:

In relation to the Military – Western Military’s are (relatively speaking) running out of meaningful opposition. You can’t justify Cold War levels of manpower, research and budgets to the electorate without a theoretically genuine threat. The Military need to demonise Saddam cos there ain’t a whole lot else to justify the Military size. Lose him and what are you left with….China, North Korea, Cuba, Serbia ?

CIA and Israel – If US foreign policy has been consistent in one area post WW2 it has been in the need to keep the Arabs disunited. As long as they are busy looking over each others shoulders and need (at least the possibility of…) the West to help them, the Arabs aren’t united and focusing on the common enemy i.e. Israel. Nothing is more important to the boys at Langley than destabilising the Arab nations and what they have done has been a considerable achievement.

Israel has had a long time to wreak the revenge it normally would for something like missiles being fired into its land yet Saddam remains unscathed. If you choose to believe the nonsense about how difficult he is to pinpoint maybe you should enquire what the military is doing with all those satellites. Israel needs a cut down to size Saddam.

We don’t live in a noble world, Far Treker, and your flag is not an exception. I’d suggest trying to look at the world for what it is rather than looking at it through a rose tinted tv screen.

And maybe try to grasp a little economic theory along the way.