9/11
- Thread starter Leonardo
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The relationship is not exact but, yes, the long-term decline of the United States is driven by a need for security that cannot be sustained by your economy.
You might find Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" (useful summary here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Great_Powers) an interesting if somewhat depressing read.
To be sure, fiscal irresponsibility etc. didn't help.
@Rambowjo: Stop being a trolling arse. It might not be your disaster but that's no reason to piss all over those to whom it does matter.
It would seem that the days where you could wear a suit and get away with "daylight robbery" are over
.And, erm, I don't really remember where I was when it happened. The footage on the news was pretty surreal as if the ID4 movie had become reality. Then security measures went up at a relative's place of work. Then a while later Bush came visiting and everyone was apparently asked to stay indoors because there were a few snipers posted. Then electronic id cards were introduced. Then there was a lot of talk about terrorism and how people should give up some liberties. Then a lot of legislation went up concerning the Internet and other things. Then the financial market collapsed. Which leads up to now I guess.
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To say that our need to secure ourselves was the primary reason for our financial decline is horse manure. Sure, the national defense has always been the largest portion of our federal budget, but that spending has not increased so dramatically in the last eight years that it is unsustainable. You may not know this, but the lack of certain types of training due to budget trimming during the Clinton years and the fallout from the Gramm/Rudman Act gave need to increased spending during the Bush years, especially after 9/11, in order to augment a weakened military force.
Continued deficit spending? I fail to see how the current Administration is any different, with spending more on frivolous programs that may or may not "help" the economy get back on some semblance of track in less than a year than the monies spent on added defense and the two wars fought during the previous Administration in total.
Edit:/ What has hurt the US economy since 9/11 is two things, oil prices and the fact people are afraid. Speaking to the later, no matter how much you try and spend to make the country feel "safe" it isn't going to work 100%. It took a very long time for airline travel to get back to some normalcy, at still isn't quite there yet. Oil prices? They affect travel as well, plus our day to day lives have been so adversely affected when they did not need to have been.
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Sorry, but it comes accross as a joke whenever I hear someone in the USA complaining about oil prices. I can understand the bit about being afraid though. That can take years to subside.
Meaning in either the collapse of the two towers and the part of the Pentagon, or those that were helping to recover the victims IE firefighters, military and just your average Joe/Jane.
Apparently that would a lossy investment unless oil prices go past a certain level. Last year would have probably been a good time to go drilling because I doubt prices will go any higher in the short term. In the long term, that's another question because oil is going to become scarce. I guess by then car manufacturers will take inventions like the pentone engine more seriously.
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In general, the financial fallout alone generated through the initial fear of travel has never been recovered by the travel and entertainment industry. Take Las Vegas, for example, revenues have not been the same since 9/11. Nevada uses casino revenues to help pay a huge chunk of our public school system, so that fear is readily apparent considering the effects this is having on our schools. That, coupled with the other influences such as fiscal irresponsibility we have seen blow up in recent months, I'd say fear is a big issue. People aren't so much afraid of terrorist attacks now, those fears have grown into other areas and aspects of our lives.
It is no laughing matter when the price of fuel at the pump more than doubles in a matter of months and stays that way for several years.
I'm sorry, but drilling for our own oil is not the silver bullet. It will help in the short run, but like someone on a sugar/caffeine/pick-your-poison rush, will make the situation much worse in the long run. Our other natural and more sustainable resources will be forever tarnished and rendered useless. Also, the issue will be, in the public's short-sighted mind, 'solved', when the reailty is that we will be scrambling when the rush has ended to try to fix the crisis, ironically without any energy to accomplish it in the first place.
We should work with nature, and build things to maximize harmony between the thing and natural energy sources. Also, we should harness energy according to place (i.e. wind energy in areas near ridge-tops, geothermal near hot springs (without damaging the natural habitat in the area of course), hydroelectric near rapids (without harmful dams), tidal energy near areas like the Bay of Fundy). That is the best way to drive energy costs down, and to maximize sustainability.
Anyhow, sorry for sort of derailing the proper topic of the thread. 9/11 was truly a tragic event. It boggles my mind how people can view this as anything else. But, on the other hand, it boggles my mind that we have to continually have to look back to the event. If you dwell on the past, we can't progress forward into the future. If I were a victim of a horrendous terrorist attack, I would think that it would be a tragedy for people to, for example, build just a memorial on the site of the attack (like some of the families of the victims want, even taking away some of the viable farmland around Shanksville for a memorial), wasting money and space that could otherwise be used for more productive things that future generations can take advantage of.
We're already one of the largest oil producers in the world. Destroying Alaskan wildlife isn't going to change the fact that we consume too much and it doesn't change the fact that we need to import it from elsewhere. In fact, it would only slightly decrease the amount we'd need.
~Jason
I think you need to read the book (because the book is 1000+ pages long and I have failed to summarise adequately - my problem, not yours!) to follow the argument that I was making.
As I noted, "the relationship is not exact"
Financial turbulence is symptomatic of the long-term relative decline of the United States.
The thesis of the book is that empire declines because the effort devoted to maintenance of that empire is taken from effort that could otherwise be devoted to wealth creation.
In effect, that sooner or later empires will run at a loss and that because the brightest and best (or a significant proportion thereof) are devoted to activities not related to wealth creation (and by "wealth", I mean true productive capacity, not financial engineering) that the economy suffers a relative disadvantage compared to economies that do not devote a significant proportion of their resources to maintenance of empire.
Not too far from your argument regarding general government spending.
Well this has now taken a turn for the worst.
You guys are idiots, and hardly know what you're talking about.
QAPete couldn't save this forum from itself if he tried.
You guys are idiots, and hardly know what you're talking about.
QAPete couldn't save this forum from itself if he tried.