A Decade of Self-Delusion/Buchanan

[Castout]

Originally Posted by Oberon

All great nations rise and fall, look at us, we spent the best part of a century or two ruling the oceans and labelling the world. Between us, Spain, France and Germany we owned most of the planet, nowadays the most excitement we get is bickering in the EU.

The British ruled the ocean and expanded its empire until post WWII and without its colonies the British could ill afford to maintain a dominant military. Now it's just another nation among others in EU. US rose after winning the second world war. It benefited from having won the second world war especially during the 1960s to 1970s having nullified economic competition from elsewhere. A benefit that it now no longer receives as other European and Asian countries have caught up in getting hold of a share in the economic pie(demand) themselves.

Any mankind enterprise is bound to fall sooner or later. There's no company that's going to stay around forever as there's no nation that's going to dominate forever. They could fall either by external pressure or internal problems such as regression(corruption and complacency) or a combination of both. I wish I could live another 100 year to see which country is going to hold superpower status and see how the world responds to it.

Anyway just my 2 cents.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Combined all the aforementioned items in AVG's post, with things like, the diminishing middle class. How class boundries are becoming increasingly distinct. Executives making huge salaries bonuses while outsouricng american jobs overseas. I feel we've become a consumerist nation of two distinct classes: those in service oriented jobs, and the gilded elite that manage them; with little in between.

I was under the impression when I was visiting a friend in Florida that 99% of their population worked liked dogs, and the remaining 1% lived in jaw dropping splendor because of it.

Annoying fact: I was only two blocks from the "public" beach, but couldn't get to it because of the unbroken line of rich people's houses blocking access to it.

If I ever move to a warm state, it will have to be either California or Hawaii.