I’ve been looking at history of other major civilizations, their rise, their golden age, their decay, and their eventual collapse. Among those I’ve looked at so far are the Ottoman Empire, the Chinese Qing Empire, the Roman Empire, the Inca Civilization, and somewhat at the Egyptian empire and at the Soviet Union. When looking at these, I see several common threads.
- Enemies outside the empire
- Empire consisting of a very “diverse” group of individuals, usually obtained via conquest. The empire is racially diverse, culturally diverse, linguistically diverse, and religiously diverse.
- Corruption within the government of the empire, and many scandals
- Moral misdoings and scandals
- Financial corruption or bribes
- Military malfeasance or outright treason
- Drugs
- Citizens of the empire becoming “lazy”, leading to the need for:
- Payments to citizens from the government – guaranteed minimum income, “make-work” jobs mainly from or at the behest of the government or direct “entitlements”
- Slaves or a distinct underclass
- Attempts at border or perimeter control which fail
- Endless wars, many of which were unwise or could not be won and damaged the faith of the people in either their government or their military
- Bankruptcy
- Hoards who came in to the skeleton of the once-great empire, with the sole desire to break, damage, and destroy what was left. This is decidedly different than someone coming in with the intent to take its wealth.
Certainly, all of these do not apply to every empire that has risen or fallen throughout history. All have several of them. Now, I could write a several-volume book about the rise and fall of empires, but I’m only going to target a few from the above list, which appears very interesting to me in light of what is going on in the United States of America.
A combination of the lack of or failure of perimeter controls of the nation have partly lead to a permanent underclass, which the United States of America relies upon to be there and available. While I will not get into there being “jobs that Americans will not do”, it is obvious that an employer can pay an illegal alien much less than minimum wage and does not need to provide safe working conditions for such an alien. They provide cheap labor, which allows the company for which they work to sell its products at a lower price and make more profit on it. That is true whether the company is a factory, is a farm growing produce, or whatever else.
If these jobs were performed under US laws, including wage and hour laws, OSHA standards, paid all US taxes including FICA and unemployment insurance, the price of produce, of some frozen foods, of construction, and some other products would greatly increase. If there were more jobs, and higher paying jobs, the US could afford these things. But, the fact of the matter is that we do not want to. We do not want to get rid of illegal aliens at least until they threaten OUR jobs or at least OUR industry. Besides, if the company needs to end employment of some workers, the illegals can be deported and the company nor the State have to pay them unemployment insurance.
The lower wages among Americans, the lack of employment of other Americans, employment well below someone’s education, training, and experience (underemployment), combined with some “creative accounting” by some organizations and individuals adds up to a lack of tax revenue. Combined with the heightened need for some social programs plus a large military and some other things increases the expenditure of the US Government. Hence, the recent “debt crisis” whereby Congress could not or would not raise the debt ceiling enough to pay the outstanding bills worrying creditors about default. Hence the lowered credit rating by Standard & Poor’s in 2011 when they “played chicken” with the debt ceiling until the last second. See “Washington Post: S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating for first time”.
They did this again just before January 1, 2013, when it was all over the news, and the resolution kicked the can down the road for 3 months. They’re doing it again in February, 2013, when the resolution made in late December, 2012 expires in March, 2013. Now, February 21, 2013, it’s not all over the news. Instead, people have become distracted to the point of near hysteria over mass shootings and gun control. Some people say, “They’re just finally reporting the news.” or “People have finally gotten tired of so many people senselessly killed in gun violence that they’re (we’re) demanding a resolution.” No, the violence has existed for a long time. Fewer people are killed every day with firearms than are killed by drunk drivers, and there’s no real hysteria over that, and no calls for “extreme action” against those who drink and drive, serve, or sell alcohol. The way the news involving gun violence is being reported, news articles and reports filled with reports of gun violence leading to the perception that it’s more prevalent and extremely common, and people whipped into a frenzy over gun violence as a destraction from the gravity of the situation involving the government shut down, sequestration of federal pay to Federal workers, including everything from Head Start to the FBI to the guards in Federal penitentaries, to the EPA, FTC, FDA, and other 3-letter agencies, and the military. This will lead to newly-unemployed or “laid off” workers in the millions or 10s of millions, and lead to many many people unable to make debt payments on everything from homes to cars to credit cars to school loans. This will lead to less purchasing, and lead to a depression beyond the 1930s! We saw what happened with gun violence in the 1930s – with the BATF being unable to pay its agents either, along with no federal law enforcement, this will be a return to it.
Of course, if the US economy is totally ruined, the “good news” is that the illegal aliens will return to their home countries where the economy is far better, and where law enforcement exists. That will leave jobs that the illegal aliens used to do available for desperate unemployed US citizens, who also do not have any unemployment benefits nor savings. That will not be legal, but there will be no one to enforce such employment laws, and US citizens will take such jobs for such wages, hours, and conditions. Too many people still won’t be able to afford to buy what they’re growing or making, but perhaps that will improve the trade imbalance. The cost will be that the US sinks into a third-world anarchy if it does not emerge with some other type of (funded) government.
Now, Congressional Representatives take the following oath of office
“I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. (So help me God.)”
Playing chicken along political party lines with the debt ceiling, resulting in damage to the “Full Faith and Credit of the United States”, as described in Article 6 of the United States Constitution does not fit well with this oath. The term “Tea Party Downgrade” has been bantered about regarding Congress’ refusal to get any sort of debt ceiling passed in a timely manner, long-past the time when the budget should have been set, and seriously discussing the possibility of default on debt payments. A discussion is available at UPI.COM – Tea Party Downgrade. More heated words have been used, allegedly some are referring to the “Tea Party” members who were unwilling to negotiate as “terrorists” Joe Biden likened tea partiers to terrorists, which I hasten to add has been officially denied.
So, what is the goal here of those participating in the debt ceiling deadlock? It certainly was not just to get rid of some programs or lower some expenditures of the US Government. That would have been the function of a budget. It was not to lower the cost of such debt, since Standard & Poor’s has been talking about lowering the United States government’s credit rating since this spring. See . They knew it was a risk, Standard & Poor’s clearly stated what it wanted to see, and nothing was done. This will make borrowing more difficult and more expensive for the government as well as businesses and individuals dealing in US dollars.
This won’t help the big corporate entities nor will it help the average American. It won’t help banks. It won’t help importers or exporters. It won’t cut the interest payments on the debt even if the debt is lowered. It won’t even help the Congressional representatives or even a tiny fraction of them.
So, what’s the point? Generally, I look to see who is making money on the whole thing, and I come up with a blank. In this case, I have to look to some other reason than a financial one.
Back to looking at the previous empires throughout history, and one frequent thing that comes in just prior to their demise are some group who seem to have as a primary purpose to destroy what is there, with a secondary purpose to steal things, and a possible tertiary philosophical or religious purpose.
In Egypt, for instance, in its later, declining years, the countries were ruled by Pharaohs who were Greek Ptolmies, the best known of whom was Cleopatra VII. Greeks came in and took what was of value to them, damaged and destroyed other things, remodeled Egyptian temples for worship of Greek gods.
The ancient civilizations of Central and South America were destroyed by an outside force which they didn’t anticipate, was much better armed, plus were carriers of deadly diseases to which the Aztec, Inca, and Maya people had no immunity – especially smallpox. Indeed, the United States of America has the worlds best military by any account. Indeed, it has been said that “Having the worlds second best military is the worlds most expensive hobby.” So far, the USA has maintained that. If defense spending goes to zero – which means not buying, replacing, or repairing any equpment along with not paying any military members, the US will soon have the second, third, or fiftith-best military.
The other, such as happened in Greece and Rome, was a combination of people getting to complacent (e.g., “We’re the best, and nobody would dare take (us) on.” That was combined with religion, which in addition to taking time and resources from all other endeavors, had scriptures and myths of the Gods giving the Greek or Roman people sovereignty over the world.
Another major thing is that the people became lazy, and complacent. People did not participate in government anymore. There were other forms of entertainment that kept being more and more degraded or degrading. In Rome, there were first sports and exhibits performed in the coliseums. Near the end, it was Christians and others who were unpopular among the masses being fed to lions. It is known that voter turn-out is very low – especially in odd-year elections, or in non-presidential elections. Even in local elections, many people do not know who is running for such offices as county commissioner or school board. Those jobs can make some huge differences in the future, especially the school board. They get to decide what is taught or how, which impacts what these kids will be able to do in the future. It is difficult to say whether music is better or worse, but having some huge rock-concerts with a great deal of drugs and mosh-pit violence is less desirable for society than concerts were in the early part of the 20th century. Movies – well, during the “golden age” of Hollywood, a great deal of money was spent making movies – expensive sets and costumes. Today, we have more impressive computer-enhanced or generated graphics. Not as much is spent on sets, mainly because better ones than could be built can be created using a computer. Television seemed to go down hill. It has gone downhill to the point that I do not own a television anymore! When I am places where a TV is being played, I see “reality” TV shows – where people are put into ridiculous situations, and people find entertainment out of that or their embarrassment over not handling something properly. Truly, these are of good quality for home video, but I do not think they warrant national play! Sometimes I see game shows, and there is not much put into making those. There are rarely good TV series, mini-series, or made-for-TV movies. A great deal more time is spent each hour on commercials than there were in the 1950s, or the 1970s, or even the 1990s. The content of these commercials has changed. Rather than advertising something like breakfast cereals, household cleaners, toys, automobiles, and vacations as there were in the past, from my own non-scientific observation, I see a great number of advertisements for prescription drugs. All of the things I listed in the previous sentence could be purchased by anyone, but a prescription drug requires a prescription from a medical professional, and it is sold to treat specific things. These say, “Ask your doctor if you would benefit from (drug)?” That means more visits to the doctor. There are no clues about what these drugs are to treat, except that they show unhappy people at the beginning, and active, happy people at the end portrayed doing enjoyable activities. See the category on this blog for other posts I’ve made about medical delivery in the United States.
We have poor entertainment-like things on the TV. There is news on the TV, but it is a distilled version, a condensed version, showing only one or two sides of a particular issue. One can get better information from local, regional, national, international, or foreign news sources. One can subscribe to these in print, or many of them are now available on the internet. If you can read blogs, including mine, certainly you can look at the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company), Terra (Mexico) The Sidney Morning Herald, Le Monde (France), Pravda (Russia), al Jazeera (Quatar), the British Broadcasting Company, and many others. It is also helpful if you can read a couple of these in a foreign language, but most of them have many or all of their stories in English. Do you know any foreign language well enough to read a news article in it? Much of the world can read a news article in any of several languages. It might be well worth your time to learn a foreign language such that you can read a news article written in it. Many languages will do for this purpose, including Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Russian, Hindi or Mandarin Chinese. Some of these languages are easier or more difficult than others, and some of them are frequently taught in US schools. It would be well worth your time to dust off your high school Spanish, French, or German and read news in it.
Or, is it better to watch another reality TV show? Is it really much more civilized to watch a woman go into a home of a man and children she doesn’t know, of a different culture, different social class, different religion, and different values and watch her make a fool of herself and have the kids fail to respect her as an authority than it is to watch someone being fed to a lion in a Colosseum? Okay, I suppose it is better in that no one is getting killed, but it does not further the understanding among different people, but heightens the differences.
As I said, much of the world can read, write, and speak in several languages. They may speak it with an accent, but they can speak and understand it. The more they listen, the better they can speak it. They can market items that are sold in their countries to foreigners, increasing their market – to other manufacturers, distributors, and consumers. They can learn to understand other cultures to help in developing and marketing products and services to them – including us. If you were to take a vacation into much of the world, people there could speak English to you, and ensure you had a better time. In the United States, we expect others – including representatives from foreign firms and travelers speak English. This reduces the desirability of the United States as a destination, while it increases the desirability of other countries.
Meanwhile, the US has a momentous national debt, which continues to grow. Although, contrary to popular opinion, it is far from the highest debt/GDP ratio in the world. Numerous countries are higher. It has a gigantic trade imbalance, which is also growing. We are importing more than we are exporting, making the dollars we use as “tokens” to pay for these things more plentiful and more worthless. Meanwhile, we have a large number of people who are not working, refusing to work, voting themselves “bread and circuses” (e.g., entitlements), while the government makes hiring someone for a business to be less and less attractive and more costly. Who owns this debt? US banks only own a fraction of it. All of the “Occupy” protests won’t do a thing to solve that problem, although they may create a bigger problem in themselves. Foreigners own much of the debt – both public and private. If it’s not paid, or is paid with “too cheap” of dollars (inflation), they may demand other things in payment or collateral.
We might not need World War 3. Not if a peaceful foreclosure will do.
Of note, empires seldom last more than 200 years… Democracies or representative democracies seldom last nearly that long.
