> -----Original Message----- > From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On > Behalf Of Bruce Bostwick > Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 7:49 PM > To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion > Subject: Re: Scouted: U.S. to collapse in next two years? > > On Jan 2, 2009, at 8:35 PM, dsummersmi...@comcast.net wrote: > > >> From the Wall Street Journal: > > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html > > > >> As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of > >> U.S. > >> In Moscow, Igor Panarin's Forecasts Are All the Rage; America > >> 'Disintegrates' in 2010 > > > > I read this a few weeks ago and got a good chuckle out of it. It > > shows > > than Americans aren't the only ones who can be clueless about how > > things > > work in other countries. :-) > > > > Dan M. > > Well, one element of it is almost certainly true -- the USA that we'll > be living in in 2010 will not be the USA as we know it. If we continue > with "business as usual", the mostly-completed process of running the > country into the ground will very likely reach a point of no return > before then
Ah, I'd really like some hard data to support that hyperbola. As messed up as Bush was, by most measure, the US is far better off than most countries. Take, for example, one I worry about the most: foreign debt as a percentage of GDP. It is now, by my rough calculations for 2008, at about 45% of GDP. While I think this is bad, it's much better than Great Britain, where it stands at 380%. If you are over 40, you should remember how Japan was going to blow the US out of the water in the '80s. China is the new champ....only they are finding their growth is sliding from 10% per year down to a far lower level that folks are guessing at. We know industrial output is down from last year, so they have as much trouble with the trade imbalance as we do. The US is far less densely populated than any other developed country, its air and water suppliers are far less polluted than 40 years ago, and racism has fallen to the point where we've been able to elect a black president. And yet, you sing we're on the eve of destruction? Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
