http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today...00/9398261.stm
Pessimists may agree with this:
Quote:
What is interesting about the declinists' case is that it has little to do with the obvious foreign threats to the power of the United States.
The real problem is an inability to get the nation, as they see it, to wake up to impending disaster and mend its ways.
There is an interestingly moral tone to their argument. The point is that the US debt - her accumulated deficits - cannot easily be addressed without serious and painful changes to society, probably including tax rises and an end to some entitlements.
Barack Obama's budget hinted at what has to be done but in truth would do little to address the fundamental problems that cause the US to function, or fail to function, as it does.
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While optimists may favour to focus on things like that:
Quote:
"I don't think we're the only nation that can invent great technologies, I don't think we have a lock on intelligence or education," she says.
"But that cultural characteristic of welcoming, indeed requiring, the challenging of authority - in a world where knowledge, ideas, innovation is the currency - we're very well placed.
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And realists like me?
We would probably think that it may go the way pessimists point out, but that the optimists' arguments may describe factors that may help to delay the decline a bit and reduce its momentum by more or lesser degrees.