George Bush, the Tax cuts and the collapse of American Power

[Rufus T. Firefly]

With regard to the premise of the original question: the tax cuts do not imperil US power. They do imperil US quality of life. The victims of the new debt will be -- and are already -- domestic programs and programs at the state level; the US will pay for its spending spree by sacrificing education, transportation infrastructure, health care, or anything else that has domestic but not international ramifications. The US will remain a superpower, because you can be a superpower without being a particularly pleasant place to live (like the USSR and China). But its quality of life will continue to fall to the point where even conservatives will be contemplating emigration to Europe.

[The Mad Monk]

Lucky that the US government takes a much smaller bite of the economy than most Western Countrys. The US economy is going to be very hard to damage. Their productivity and investment levels are still extremely high compared to most European nations, and as long as there is appropriate investment in the up-and coming business sectors, they should do fine.

The communications/internet/biotech economies were largely driven by State, particularly Pentagon, funding. Hopefully these can stand on their own two feet now. I predict the next growth industry will be cheap explosives and high-technology firearms to feed your satanic war machine

[The Mad Monk]

(must not disappoint the fans, y'know)

[Oerdin]

Biotech was and will continue to be mostly a priviate enterprise.

[GePap]

Biotech research will become more wordwide, since it does not take the same amount of resources to do bioreseacrh, as lets say, physics research. Places like Cuba and Brazil already have successful biotech research, and they are relatively poor. As for Electronics and the Internet, the Japanese are right there with the US, and other places like Korea are catching up fast. Technology will not be what keep the US in the lead (as it is, many armies, if they shifted spending could aquire smart weapons and so forth for cheap): it is the existing infrastructure. It would take decades for other states to build the shipyards, research facilities, and most importantly, estblish the space assets that keep the US ahead, So the continuation of the US lead will be based on the fact that we have already spent trillions on various things needed to have a military with global reach, while other state have not.

[el freako]

Originally posted by DanS
I'm guessing that India's (productivity growth) has been respectable over the last 20?

Quite respectable, however it has still been behind china's very impressive levels (and yes, I am adjusting for the inflated Chinese growth rates - using PWT 6.1 data)

Originally posted by Evil Knevil
The US economy is going to be very hard to damage. Their productivity and investment levels are still extremely high compared to most European nations, and as long as there is appropriate investment in the up-and coming business sectors, they should do fine.

- Obviously posted by someone who didn't bother to check the fact's first

Europe contains the most productive workers on the planet:
Norwegans: 32% more productive than the Americans
Dutch: 19% more productive than the Americans
Belgians: 10% more productive than the Americans
Italians: 5% more productive than the Americans
French: 3% more productive than the Americans

The average for the EU is 90% of the US level - considerably ahead of Canada's 82%, Australia's 77% and Japan's 72%

(figures relate to GDP per hour worked, source: OECD)

As for investment, well the US's investment level (investment/GDP) has been below the EU's since the second world war - it came to within spitting distance in 2000 (20.1% for the US, 20.7% for the EU) but has since fallen away.

Also as the US relies on foreign financing for all of it's net investment (i.e. that required to make it's capital stock grow) it is hostage to the willingness of foreigners to finance it.

[Sandman]

China will probably still have an economic lead on India in 50 years. China's twenty years ahead of India in terms of development, I can't see India closing that gap in just fifty years.

[Evil Knevil]

El Freako ... really?

My mistake, I always thought that US investment was higher than that of the EU nations....

I therefore surrender, and my opinions on this subject are to be ridiculed and ignored

[el freako]

Yup Europe (and Japan) have spent a higher proportion of their incomes on investment for decades.

That said the US get's more 'bang per buck' from it's investment (it's capital productivity growth is higher)

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by el freako
... the US can't have low taxes... and pay for the baby boomers retirement.

Soylent Green.

[The Andy-Man]

I think this 'China will be superpower in 2010' is just anti-american optimism. I would to like to see US power challanged, and a multi lateral world develop, but this is still a long way off, cos the EU is just going to stagnate with protectionism, and china still needs to grow whilst india is a long way behind china.

I think it was el freako who bought up the 19thC british comparison, and he is write. The reality is the US is already incredibley weak, its just no one has built to sort of military that can give them a similar role in world affairs, and no one has the sort of cash either.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
The reality is the US is already incredibley weak, its just no one has built to sort of military that can give them a similar role in world affairs, and no one has the sort of cash either.

weak compared to what??

That is a ridiculous statement. The only thing that the US military is weak compared to is unrealistic US citizen's expectations.

Let's not forget that we have projected our Army to the other side of the planet and conquered two countries, both within a matter of weeks. No other military in the world could even dream of that kind of feat nor are they likely to in the foreseeable future.

[el freako]

Originally posted by PLATO
weak compared to what??

Other nations in their period of superpowerdom

Originally posted by PLATO
Let's not forget that we have projected our Army to the other side of the planet and conquered two countries, both within a matter of weeks.

And it's streached your army to it's limits to do so - compare that to Britian's performance 120 years ago, and remember that it spent a third of the proportion of it's economy on defence as you do now.

Originally posted by PLATO
No other military in the world could even dream of that kind of feat nor are they likely to in the foreseeable future.

It would take the EU or China less than a decade to rival the US's military power if they seriously wanted to, they would have to spend quite a bit of cash but they could do it (remember it took less than a decade for the US to gain it's superpower status).

[johncmcleod]

This is a great thread because I have never seen such an intelligent, non-spamming thread on America.

Bush is really screwing us. He cut taxes to gain voters, and then increased military spending. By doing this he is then able to invade Iraq, Afghanistan, and whoever is next. By invading those countries he is gaining many more voters, and that is the only reason he did invade them. IMO Bush is not an idiot. He knows exactly what he is doing when he is hurting America, he does it to keep himself in power. And when he gets re-elected he'll do the same. The bad effects of his policy will really start to hurt us say 10 years from now, but by then he'll no longer be president. No more then two terms in a row is the law.

If I were in the presidency I would cut WAY back on military spending, considerably raise taxes for the rich, and tax investement profits. With all the extra money coming in I'd first spend it on the UN (if I were president I'd try to completely reform the UN, one of the many things I'd do is make the UN an independent fighting force with heavy weapons and better troops, which would cost a lot of money, which means making the nations of the world pay more to the UN) so if a country actually did need regime chance or whatever the UN would do it, which is a whole lot better then international. The US does really not NEED to be a superpower. We can have a great quality of life without it. All that can be gained by being a superpower is just bullying other countries.

Next I would use some of the newly earned money to pay off our big debt. And after that has been taken care of I would begin the transition to communism. Once that happens more will be spent on creating jobs.

The problem is with cutting back on military spending you are making a lot of people lose jobs, but it would still end up being better for the economy.

[DanS]

Other nations in their period of superpowerdom

That's ridiculous. We're quite strong for a superpower, considering especially that there have been very, very few superpowers. We have military in how many countries? Over 100? No army could challenge us anywhere, on our turf or theirs, including Europe's in aggregate (excluding the UK, which has explicitly thrown its lot in with the US).

We're weak only for a unipole, because the type of operation that we are capable of doing is limited by inclination and reality. For instance, it would be difficult if not impossible to defeat and occupy China even if we wanted to. Defeating and occupying Iran would be a stretch, unless we really started to rearm our military. I laugh when I hear us compared to the Roman Empire, for instance, considering that the UK could have done these things (and did do these things) in its heyday. Of course, we could have done these things too in ours, but luckily we took a smaller target (Japan) and continued to eschew wasteful empire-building. Or at least we wasted no more than was necessary for our goals.

Overall, it is more accurate to call us the sole remaining superpower rather than a global hegemon, since we are such a weak unipole. Don't get me wrong, we're probably a unipole, since if you arrayed all of the world's armies together against the US, the US would make pretty short work of it. But this predominance will probably only last another 20 or 30 years. Maybe a little longer, if others make mistakes or are disinclined to challenge us (I consider this likely). But your economic math is true no matter what the US does--that is, unless in the unlikely event we went on a global rampage.

[GePap]

The claim that if you took the US vs all other armies the Us would win handily is absurd., not only in terms of numbers, but of technology as well. (since all the other world armies not only include vast ones like China's, but the UK's, France's, Japan's, Israel's....) And this is ignoring utterly the fact that at least one other state has the ability to turn our major cities into planes of glass.

Power is a relative measure. Heck, the amry of the DRC could beat the Roman legions, in terms of just absolute power...but that is an utterly worthless comparison.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by DanS

You and Hershell have influenced each other too much.

Nope, Jon is way too optimistic.

"Anyway, this "soft power" stuff is hogwash. If Europe doesn't pay to keep up, it won't be listened to."

Yes, we'll just have the guys suffering from imperial overstretch for help after they misjudge the consequences of their actions.

[Odin]

The US is currently equivalent to the end of the Pax Romana, when Marcus Aruelieus(sp?) died. We are still a hyperpower, but we are loosing are grip on the world.

Basically Bush = Commodus

[pchang]

Starring Condoleeza Rice as Cleopatra?

[Odin]

Originally posted by pchang
Starring Condoleeza Rice as Cleopatra?

nah, Cleo = Big Oil.

[faded glory]

its my ****in money. Time to cut these worthless services that dont do crap. GW did the right thing on this issue. Let the tax cuts go on!

[PLATO]

Originally posted by GePap
The claim that if you took the US vs all other armies the Us would win handily is absurd., not only in terms of numbers, but of technology as well. (since all the other world armies not only include vast ones like China's, but the UK's, France's, Japan's, Israel's....) And this is ignoring utterly the fact that at least one other state has the ability to turn our major cities into planes of glass.

Power is a relative measure. Heck, the amry of the DRC could beat the Roman legions, in terms of just absolute power...but that is an utterly worthless comparison.

GePap, Idon't know if you are exactly correct in your assumption. Beyond the weapons that are in the field now are several factors.

First, The logistical support capability of the US is vastly larger than the rest of the worlds combined. This would necessitate them fighting defensive wars whereas the US philosophy is totally offensive. It would not take very long for any army in the world to become overextended very far beyond its own boarders. This would not be the case with the US.

Second, while the relative production capacity of the US is not what it once was, it is still vast even when put up against the rest of the world. Don't know the exact figure but I would imagine that it is still around the 30% mark. In addition to this there are vast resouces of production still available in this country with fully developed transportation systems between them and the production facilities. Couple these facts with the vast number of educated workers (by world standards) available to be added to a production force.

Third, the organizational structure of the US military and its training facilities would weigh in heavily. Having one centralized system would provide an efficiency over the rest of the world trying to field new troops from a variety of training systems and methods. This says nothing of the benefits of having one set of standardized weapons.

Fourth, The bluewater Navy of the US could easily and effectively deal with all the rest of the worlds service ships in short order. Anti-submarine assets are huge (ex: SOSUS) and have been a large focus since Soviet heyday. No threat will approach the country by sea. Conversly, critical production facilities of the rest of the world are easily within range of our strategic bombers. The rest of the world combined does not posses the capability of breaching our air defenses. This would cause the production gap for the US to grow in the same way it did in WWII.

The conclusion is that the "Rest of the World" force would be unable to prosecute a quick end to a conflict and that the longer it went on, the stronger the US strategic position.

Nuclear options are the great equalizer. Once they are put in the equation it becomes a nightmare scenario. The US strategic forces are certainly capable of laying waste to the world. The problem is that there is no effective defense against having the favour returned.

[el freako]

Plato, to deal with your points:

Originally posted by PLATO
First, The logistical support capability of the US is vastly larger than the rest of the worlds combined. This would necessitate them fighting defensive wars whereas the US philosophy is totally offensive. It would not take very long for any army in the world to become overextended very far beyond its own boarders. This would not be the case with the US.

True to begin with, but the sort of war you are describing would probably mean that the combatants are spending 15% to 25% of their GDP on the military (compared with 2% to 4% now) - so both sides are ramping up production from a low level, and the non-us side can easily outproduce the US.
Within 4 to 6 years the rest of the world could easily outproduce your navy, take control of the seas and build the logistical support to enable invasion of the US homeland.

Originally posted by PLATO
Second, while the relative production capacity of the US is not what it once was, it is still vast even when put up against the rest of the world. Don't know the exact figure but I would imagine that it is still around the 30% mark. In addition to this there are vast resouces of production still available in this country with fully developed transportation systems between them and the production facilities. Couple these facts with the vast number of educated workers (by world standards) available to be added to a production force.

First off 30% is a massive overestimation of the US's share of global manufacturing productive capacity - the US's GDP is only 20% of the world and manufacturing accounts for a much smaller than average share of your GDP so your share of world manufacturing output is around 17%.
You could not have a large army and increase production like you did in WW2 as there is no huge pool of untapped female labour to draw on.

Originally posted by PLATO
Fourth, The bluewater Navy of the US could easily and effectively deal with all the rest of the worlds service ships in short order. Anti-submarine assets are huge (ex: SOSUS) and have been a large focus since Soviet heyday. No threat will approach the country by sea. Conversly, critical production facilities of the rest of the world are easily within range of our strategic bombers. The rest of the world combined does not posses the capability of breaching our air defenses. This would cause the production gap for the US to grow in the same way it did in WWII.

You seem to be making the same error twice here.
First, big though it is, the US's strategic bomber fleet does not have enough aircraft to significantly damage production facilities worldwide - and by the time you could build enough to do so the rest of the world would have strong enough defences to make it suicide to try.
Second, no navy is going to be stupid enough to challenge yours on the high seas with it's current force composition - they will stick close to their shores under the protective wing of their airforces untill they have built enough ships to overwhelm you , this would probably only take 3 to 4 years, then the US would find itself unable to control the oceans and vunerable to air attack itself.


The only way the US could take on the rest of the planet and win is if it can achieve a crippling blow with the forces it has now, before the rest of the world can bring it's economic might to bear, and US forces are a fraction of the size needed to pull this off.

[GePap]

Originally posted by PLATO


First, The logistical support capability of the US is vastly larger than the rest of the worlds combined. This would necessitate them fighting defensive wars whereas the US philosophy is totally offensive. It would not take very long for any army in the world to become overextended very far beyond its own boarders. This would not be the case with the US.

The US has the ability to supply 500,000 men better than anyone else. The Us could Never support 6-10 million men, which is what the rest of the world's armies combines come to, so to say the US's logstics ability are greater than anyone elses really makes no sense. Second, the US depends on countless OVERSEas bases to store it's stuff. By definition, if it is taking on everyone else, it CAN NOT use overseas bases. This greatly limits the abiity of the US to project power. the fact is that the US can roject power as it does becuase it has a network of friends around the world letting the US through. We don't generally own our oevrseas bases like old Empires did.

Second, while the relative production capacity of the US is not what it once was, it is still vast even when put up against the rest of the world. Don't know the exact figure but I would imagine that it is still around the 30% mark. In addition to this there are vast resouces of production still available in this country with fully developed transportation systems between them and the production facilities. Couple these facts with the vast number of educated workers (by world standards) available to be added to a production force.

Europe and Japan alone have more educate dworkers than the US, the EU's eocnomy by itself is about 90% of the US's, Japan's 40%, and China 30% or more. If the war were to become a war of attrition, where production mattered, the US vs the world would lose. add to this of course that the US is a net importer of raw materials, including various rare metals the US can not replace, and energy. The loss of US food would hurt many, but most other markets in which the US dominates someone else could eventually plug up.

Third, the organizational structure of the US military and its training facilities would weigh in heavily. Having one centralized system would provide an efficiency over the rest of the world trying to field new troops from a variety of training systems and methods. This says nothing of the benefits of having one set of standardized weapons.

This is only a major thing in places were multiple un-coordinated armies would have to face the US. That is not that likely.

Fourth, The bluewater Navy of the US could easily and effectively deal with all the rest of the worlds service ships in short order. Anti-submarine assets are huge (ex: SOSUS) and have been a large focus since Soviet heyday. No threat will approach the country by sea. Conversly, critical production facilities of the rest of the world are easily within range of our strategic bombers. The rest of the world combined does not posses the capability of breaching our air defenses. This would cause the production gap for the US to grow in the same way it did in WWII.

This is the point closes to reality. The fact is that the US could successfully have a fortress US: sort of situation, where it kept foreign navies form ebing able to move forces to the western hemisphere. But it would be very strained, and the training of the Japanese, UK, and French navies are nothing to sneeze at. As for within range of bombers: the fact is that overseas bases that our planes ussually use to refuel can be counted as NOT avaiable. That greatly shorttens the range of our planes, since you can only count on them having the range to fuel from the US itself. Any oevrseas refueling bases would be quick targets and alsmot imp[ossible to defend.

The conclusion is that the "Rest of the World" force would be unable to prosecute a quick end to a conflict and that the longer it went on, the stronger the US strategic position.

The Us could certainly sit at home and cu itself off from attack: the US could not make significant beachheads into the other continents beside the Americas, and if the US tried to go too deep into Latin America, the US would get bogged down bad in guerrilla and terrorist fighting. The compleet cutoff of foreing capital, fuel, metals and so forth would eat away at the US economy. Certainly the rest of the world would suffer to, speicfically form an end to US grain and meat exports. otherwise, they can make it out better than we.

Nuclear options are the great equalizer. Once they are put in the equation it becomes a nightmare scenario. The US strategic forces are certainly capable of laying waste to the world. The problem is that there is no effective defense against having the favour returned.

There are plenty of states that would escape fatal aamge from a nuclear strike if the entire US arsenal had to be parcelled world-wide. The area that is the US would be made inhosipitable for a long, long time.

In short, NO, the US could not take on the world.

[DanS]

Well, even if we couldn't take on ROW (which we could IMO), then that just proves my point all the more.

If you want to paint the US as a unipole, then you've got to recognize that the US doesn't have the capability to perpetuate this situation and has never really had this capability. So why care too much about it? If you want to paint the US as a superpower, then we can perpetuate this situation forever, basically.

What Bush does now will have almost zero impact on these facts, unless he gets us nuked. Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, and Iran during his presidency won't change the parameters. Continued large deficits (which aren't planned, currently) during his presidency won't change the parameters.

[BeBro]

BTW, what happens if China really becomes the superpower? Will we see a lot of China-bashing here?

[DanS]

We'll be pretty old by that time. I see them more as wanting to be strong regionally. Once China gets European bases, nuke subs, carriers, an expidtionary force, and a credible navy, then we might reevaluate the situation.

[BeBro]

[DanS]

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[Ted Striker]

"The Collapse of American Power"