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the suck of sorrow's avatar

For these far flung empires there must be an inflection point where before, empire was an asset additive strategy and after, an asset draining one. Where these inflection points occur might be empire competition, say France vs England, or domestic resistance, say India driving out the British. (In my view British wealth was built on the back of India, the Brits owe India reparations.)

My bet is a close study of our empire's asset ascendancy shows it peaking in the end of the Vietnam conflict and the Arab oil embargo. We are 5 percent of the world's population using 25 percent of the daily fossil fuel production in an attempt to keep this empire solvent. We are floundering in debt that our wealthiest get to claim is owed to them. Our society is not gaining any assets, but asset class inflation is furthering the gross imbalance of wealth distribution of our country.

We will be better off kissing off the empire delusions of our political class and preparing for the shit storm that Mother Nature has up her sleeve.

Feral Finster's avatar

All this has long been obvious. What does China or anyone else propose to do about it?

John Kirsch's avatar

Very good until the mention of "climate" at the end.

Thomas Neuburger's avatar

Thanks for the compliment, John. About climate, I'd absolutely love to be proven wrong.

Thomas

John Kirsch's avatar

IMO, the problem with "climate change," or whatever it's being called now, is that it's unfalsifiable.

That makes it synonymous with religious belief.