Is the United States too big to fail?

Fail to what?

I have no idea "fail to what," perhaps be THE LEADER of the free world.

I think that was a delusion based upon the enormous expenditures we made on the military during the cold war. That allowed the other industrial nations to develop their economies largely free of that onerous burden, especially Germany and Japan. In The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Kennedy compares the disparity between the military spending of the United States and the Soviet Union on the one hand, and German, Japan and China on the other. This is just winging it from memory, but i believe he stated that the U.S. was spending 40% of it's budget on the military, while it was less than 5% in Germany and China, and about 2.5% in Japan.

We were the unofficial world cop during the cold war, but i don't know that we were ever really the leader of the free world, except in our own conceit. Kennedy predicted the economic rise of Japan and Germany (not a stunning prophecy in the late 80s) and of China, along with the decline of the United States and the Soviet Union. Some people who are fans of Kennedy claim he predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, but really, given that his book came out only two years before the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and only four years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, he doesn't really look that prescient.

The "decline" of the United States to me more resembles the idiocy of the latifundia in the western part of the Roman Empire early in the current era. Throughout Roman history, and long before Caesar, the constant political theme was the struggle between the order of Patres and the order of Plebs over public lands, gained by conquest. Almost invariably, these were handed out to Patricians, who began to erect huge slave-driven enterprises to produce grain, olives and wine grapes, and to manufacture ceramics and textiles. Slowly at first, but at an accelerating pace, they drove the small holders off their land and the small craftsmen out of business, because they couldn't compete with the economies of scale. The population of Rome became swollen with citizens who could claim the state dole of grain and olive oil (usually signed over for the right to draw bread and oil from suppliers, who were from the order of Equites--knights--and who were the agents of the Patrician owners of the latifundia). About the only work they could find was in skilled trades in construction--smart people didn't let slaves build the roofs over their heads. Large building projects by the principiate empire kept a lot of them employed, but only part time usually.

The Patricians lived sybaritic lives, completely at odds with the virtues extolled in the republican empire, and the Equites managed their estates, and acted as their agents. Increasingly, their customer was the Empire iteself, which bought food, wine, ceramic and cloth for the legions. As long as the Empire continued to expand, the whole creaky machinery stumbled along. But that ended at the beginning of the third century--Septimius Severus was the last emperor to expand the bounds of the empire and hold them.

I'm not suggesting a close correlation, comparing state welfare and militarism--but the key here is the consumer economy. The Romans had no idea that any such thing existed. By putting small holders and small craftsmen out of business, they were destroying the consumer economy. The Empire became almost their only customer, except for the new settlers in new lands, which ended after the Severids. In the East, although slavery had been as common in the ancient world as it had in the west, most of the new lands were not conquered, and most of the land which was conquered was unattractive to the knights who went out looking for new areas for latifundia. The latifundia were most common in Magna Graecia (southern Italy), Sicily, the province of Africa (roughly, modern Tunisia) Egypt and southern Spain. So the west became hag-ridden with slave-driven enterprises while small farmers and craftsmen in those areas, most of whom had long ago been granted citizenship, flocked to Rome or the cities of the Italian peninsula and lived on the dole.

Constantine separated the administration of the eastern and western parts of the Empire. It is not correct, however, to speak of an eastern empire and a western empire--formally, these were only administrative districts. From Constantine's point of view, this simplified dealing with insurrection and rebellion, which almost invariably occurred in the west. It had the unintended consequence, though, of immunizing the east from the economic collapse of the west. Asia Minor (rougly, modern Turkey) had been in large measure bequeathed to the Empire, so it's citizens remained free, and the land remained distributed among many small holders. Their consumer economies survived. Had the Empire not been divided administratively as it was, it is unlikely that the east could have prevented the decline of the west--the west likely would have dragged the east down with it. As it was, the collapse of imperial authority in the west failed to effect the east very significantly. The Empire had constantly debased specie (the coinage) because of the runaway inflation caused by its increasing attempts to support a collapsing economy--by the beginning of the third century, silver coins had as little as 4% of silver in them, and gold coins were almost unknown, as people hoarded them because they were not much debased and the gold could easily be rendered if it were badly needed. Since much of the free economy of the small holders and craftsmen of the east could be conducted by barter (and often was, with the badly debased currency), they were not affected as much by the inflation of the west, and the administration in the east spent a small fraction of what the tottering western administration was spending, because they weren't feeding so many mouths, weren't buying the excess production of the latifundia, and didn't have to pay scores of legions and auxiliaries who were likely to rebel even if you did pay them.

The comparison here is just between the destruction of the consumer economies. By shipping jobs overseas, either intentionally or through the failure to compete effectively with Japan and China in manufacturing, the United States resembles the Empire in the west late in its history. The difference between east and west was striking and stark. Rome was sacked by the Goths in 410 CE. Constantinople did not fall to the Turks until 1453, more than a thousand years later. In today's "global economy" it is likely the that the United States will just turn into an economic trailer park melodrama, declining internally as it becomes more and more difficult for people to buy consumer goods, the economic benefit of which won't go the the U.S. economy anyway.

Fail? That suggests that we once succeeded. Having a lot of land to expand into, and large consumer markets in which other nations could not effectively compete was the measure of our success well into the second century of our history. It was late in the last century, when Ronnie Ray-gun was f*cking the people who elected him that our definitive economic decline began to become apparent and to speed up.

No. Currently, the concept of "too big to fail" has come to mean that the entity will have to be bailed out by some outside entity. There is no one and nothing large enough to bail out the US.

More hypothetically, I visualize the economy as a really big fly wheel. It's hard to tell when it starts to slow down, but it surely can.

In the Jon Stewart show, they said Americans were trading in Ford Explorers and buying Toyota Corollas in the cash for clunkers programme.

That's the same as what Set said. Obviously.

Nothing's too big to fail. It's happened to me once or twice after too much tequila.

on a serious note.. I didn't give a **** about history growing up. Now I love it. I say in all sincerity I am in awe of your knowledge regarding it Set and although I play the clown, I read your posts with great interest and have learned form them.

it's happened to other world leaders. you'd think we would learn from their mistakes.

mistake #1 - wanting to be the world's leader. if nothing else, familiarity breads contempt.

You're very kind, BPB . . . and it's never too late for you to do some reading on your own. It is entirely possible, you know, that you might form a different opinion than mine.

Toyota corollas are made in Freemont, California

Obviously

I have a real hard time reading these days... eye problems.... but i watcha LOT of the history channel

Yup. Toyota may be a Japanese-owned company, but stateside it probably employs as many American workers as any of the Detroit automakers.

Historically, at least, no one has ever been that big and I doubt that anyone ever could be.

Actually, I doubt Toyota is owned by the Japaneses either, the stockmarket is international.

U.S. is an empire and sad to say all empires fall. Just a matter of time. But the real question will be how will that effect the rest of the world. When Rome fell did that not start the dark ages. When the Nazis fell did that not start the Cold War.
Other countries economies is dependent on the U.S. If the U.S. goes under its just a matter of time before the dominos start falling.

No.



No.

The fall of all great empires has been proceeded by a large increase in rubbish and a hedonistic lifestyle by the ruling class.

None of those empires fail overnight. The US is not too big to decline slowly over the next couple of decades.