Empire Blues: They Never Last, Damn it!

As long as there is a money system, empire will never last, because it's very high cost and very low return. With the economy pretty much wrecked, the US doesn't really have much money of its own anymore, certainly not the kind of money needed to self finance empire. So as soon as the US credit lines are cut by private and public investors in countries such as China, Germany, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, the empire will have to close up shop.

Military and Health Care Spending Swamps the USA Economy

Two Observations:

1. The US has a far higher percentage of it's citizens in prison than any other country. It is actually a form of junk socialism. Prisoners do get their basic living conditions provided free or close to free. And ironically, prisoners in most cases get better health care than non-prisoners who can not afford health insurance.

2. A far higher percentage of the US economy is consumed by the military and by health care than any other country. Aside from greed and mismanagement in the financial sector, the other precondition for the current depression (or at least severe depression) was the relative lack of resources for industires other than military and health care.

It is hard to imagine how the US can ever again effectively compete with successful European and Asian economies that have far more diversified economies than the US does, unless both military and health care spending is brought under some control.

[The above was in response to this article.]