MacLean's: Why the American empire has lost control—and its failure is imminent (Chris Hedges interview)

[Hersh]

31 minutes ago, Destino said:

It’s late, so I want be sure I’m reading this right.  You’re saying that the states of KY and WV should be essentially designated poverty zones and recommend those areas be abandoned?  

 

I know he can answer for himself, but I took it as more rural places where jobs just aren't going to return. Not the entire states. 

[Destino]

9 minutes ago, Hersh said:

 

I know he can answer for himself, but I took it as more rural places where jobs just aren't going to return. Not the entire states. 

So not just two states but literally everywhere in the country outside of a metropolitan area?  Just densely packed urban areas surrounded by wastelands... like every depressing sci-fi movie ever made.  I knew that vision of the future sounded familiar.  

[Hersh]

10 minutes ago, Destino said:

So not just two states but literally everywhere in the country outside of a metropolitan area?  Just densely packed urban areas surrounded by wastelands... like every depressing sci-fi movie ever made.  I knew that vision of the future sounded familiar.  

 

What are you even talking about? He talked about replacing coal jobs in rural areas specific to the states he mentioned. Not all rural areas regardless of industry.  

[Destino]

22 minutes ago, Hersh said:

What are you even talking about? He talked about replacing coal jobs in rural areas specific to the states he mentioned. Not all rural areas regardless of industry.  

Coal and manufacturing jobs.  "There is no way good to keep low skilled manufacturing jobs in the US.  If they aren't out sourced, they will be automated away."  So all low skilled manufacturing jobs, including those that remain today.  There's no way to bring any of these jobs back, especially not to these regions, so people just have to decide if they want to choose poverty or move.  If that's the argument, I don't see why that exact logic would be limited to just two states.  Do you? 

[PeterMP]

8 hours ago, Destino said:

It’s late, so I want be sure I’m reading this right.  You’re saying that the states of KY and WV should be essentially designated poverty zones and recommend those areas be abandoned?  

 

No not, really. 

 

"But in terms of bringing a lot of jobs to WV that would support a level of employment that the coal industry did, there isn't really anything we can do."

 

The economies of the coal states supported large populations based on the labor needed to get coal out of the ground.  It no longer requires nearly as much labor to get coal out of the ground and so those areas are no longer going to support nearly as large populations living with the same wealth.

 

Obviously, there are still some jobs associated with the coal industry and related chemical industry that aren't going away.  There still is the ski industry, government jobs, etc..  But if you live and work in those towns and are expecting us as a country (or the government) to bring jobs back at those levels, it is not going to happen.

 

We could also talk about what THEY could do.

6 hours ago, Destino said:

Coal and manufacturing jobs.  "There is no way good to keep low skilled manufacturing jobs in the US.  If they aren't out sourced, they will be automated away."  So all low skilled manufacturing jobs, including those that remain today.  There's no way to bring any of these jobs back, especially not to these regions, so people just have to decide if they want to choose poverty or move.  If that's the argument, I don't see why that exact logic would be limited to just two states.  Do you? 

 

How many low skill manufacturing jobs are there in the US today?

 

Not all manufacturing jobs are low skill and not all low skill jobs are manufacturing.

 

**EDIT**

In select industries, we will keep a few niche low skill manufacturing jobs.  For things like textiles, if you are doing a small run of something specialized.  If it is specialized, then the already heavily automated factories won't be able to deal with it.  If it is a small run, then the costs of automating as compared to generating it non-automated will be high.  And for things like clothing, unless you are shipping at a large scale, shipping costs are high so out sourcing is less likely.

 

The textile industry in this country isn't completely dead and unless something happens to the nature of shipping, it never will be.  But it is also never going to support the number of workers that it did in the early 1900s.

[Spaceman Spiff]

On 10/20/2018 at 4:10 PM, Springfield said:

I think that people’s perception is that they get taxed incredibly highly by the federal government and receive very little in return.  At least at the state and local level, we see road improvements, schools and police (granted some of those receive federal funds).

 

Where does all of my federal money go?  I know I’ve got a lot of friends that get paid with federal funds to work with contractors that do basically dick.

 

Thats why the government sucks.  There’s no return on investment.  People don’t mind cutting taxes because they feel like they aren’t getting anything in return anyhow.

 

100%.  

 

I said awhile ago, I'd like to see a report each year as to where my federal taxes went and how the money was spent.  Dollar for dollar, where'd it go?  

 

That'll never happen, probably because there'd be riots when people found out where their money goes.  

[PeterMP]

23 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

100%.  

 

I said awhile ago, I'd like to see a report each year as to where my federal taxes went and how the money was spent.  Dollar for dollar, where'd it go?  

 

That'll never happen, probably because there'd be riots when people found out where their money goes.  

 

The federal budget and federal funding for the most part are all public knowledge.  In the area of national defense, there are a few things that aren't, but even there much of it is in the public domain.

 

The creation of the internet alone has been worth the ROI of essentially all of the taxes people have paid.  That was something that private industry was no where near supporting or creating.

 

9 hours ago, Springfield said:

 

Tldr they racist af

 

I would have used the term xeonphobic, but everybody has racist tendencies.  Some people are just more willing to act on them then others.

 

The GOP, and sometimes Democrats (including the Bill Clinton in his run for President and Hillary in 2008), haven't spent decades using language and doing things that subtly appeal to racists and xenophobes because it doesn't work. 

[Spaceman Spiff]

26 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

The federal budget and federal funding for the most part are all public knowledge.  In the area of national defense, there are a few things that aren't, but even there much of it is in the public domain.

 

Yes, that's true.  But I'm talking about where Spaceman Spiff's 2017 taxes went, specifically.  I want to know where all my dollars went.  25% of it went to defense, 25% went to funding programs...or did some of it go to members of congress settling sexual harassment claims?  

 

https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/16/politics/settlements-congress-sexual-harassment/index.html

 

Quote

Where did the settlement money come from?

Taxpayers. Once a settlement is reached, the money is not paid out of an individual lawmaker's office but rather comes out of a special fund set up to handle this within the US Treasury -- meaning taxpayers are footing the bill. The fund was set up by the Congressional Accountability Act, the 1995 law that created the Office of Compliance.

 

Sorry, ****wads.  I'm not giving away a significant portion of my income each year because you can't act like a responsible person at work.  I don't mind paying taxes and having my money go to good programs but just because you can't keep it in your pants around a young intern doesn't mean we have to foot the bill.  YOU'RE ****ING ELECTED OFFICIALS (no pun intended).  YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE LEADERS.  You're supposed to be setting a good example for everyone and then you set up a ****ing fund where taxpayer money goes in order to settle your sexual harassment claims and hope no one notices? 

 

The American public isn't here to serve them, it's the other way around.  I do believe that concept has been lost over the past 20-30 years.  Sexual harassment claim towards you?  Deal with it out of your pocket like anyone else would.

 

So yeah, I want to know where it all goes at the federal level, dollar for dollar.  Like @Springfield said, the ROI sucks.  

 

 

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

Yes, that's true.  But I'm talking about where Spaceman Spiff's 2017 taxes went, specifically.  I want to know where all my dollars went.  25% of it went to defense, 25% went to funding programs...or did some of it go to members of congress settling sexual harassment claims?  

 

https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/16/politics/settlements-congress-sexual-harassment/index.html

 

 

Sorry, ****wads.  I'm not giving away a significant portion of my income each year because you can't act like a responsible person at work.  I don't mind paying taxes and having my money go to good programs but just because you can't keep it in your pants around a young intern doesn't mean we have to foot the bill.  YOU'RE ****ING ELECTED OFFICIALS (no pun intended).  YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE LEADERS.  You're supposed to be setting a good example for everyone and then you set up a ****ing fund where taxpayer money goes in order to settle your sexual harassment claims and hope no one notices? 

 

The American public isn't here to serve them, it's the other way around.  I do believe that concept has been lost over the past 20-30 years.  Sexual harassment claim towards you?  Deal with it out of your pocket like anyone else would.

 

So yeah, I want to know where it all goes at the federal level, dollar for dollar.  Like @Springfield said, the ROI sucks.  

 

1.  You are talking about a meaningless level of accounting that would be expensive.  What difference if your dollars didn't go to it, but somebody else's did.

 

2.  I suspect, if you looked at it, it isn't really a bad ROI.  What is the value of the internet and the corresponding communications revolution?  That isn't something that was coming out of private industry.  (That people in private industry don't waste/time money is a myth.).  There are certainly examples of companies paying questionable legal fees for upper management/CEOs.

 

(Heck, even most of our electrical infrastructure and means of production are the result of the federal government and things like loan guarantees.  Private industry isn't really on its own building the infrastructure to generate and deliver electricity.  If it weren't for the federal government, parts of this country would still not have electricity running to their house, and other parts would have limited access to electricity as production of electricity would be limited.)

[Springfield]

I mean if the Australians can do it, then I suppose we can as well...

 

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

No, it's meaningless and expensive, @Springfield

 

 

[PeterMP]

@Springfield

@spacemanspiff

 

You really think they are showing where that specific individual's money went?

 

?

 

(The smiley options on this page are awful!)

 

All, they are doing is multiplying the amount that person paid for taxes by the percent of the total budget for each category.  Everybody that paid $2,190 got the same exact thing.

 

If you paid $1000, you got something that said you paid $386 to general welfare ($1000*$846/$2190).

 

Here's tables that break down the US budget by different categories:

 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/historical-tables/

 

Divide each section by the total, and then multiply by the total amount of income tax you paid, and it will give the same thing Australia has done.

 

(Or do you need somebody to do the math for you?)

[Spaceman Spiff]

I'm an English major, so yes  

[Going Commando]

I think Hedges looks at the development of the world from a narrow perspective.  I don't think he understands geography or history really.  He cherry picks from history to make arguments for a political agenda rather than truly understanding the comparisons he's making. 

 

First off, we don't have an empire in the way that the Romans or French or British did.  They fully controlled foreign territory that they relied upon economically.  To speak on the example he misused, the British weren't just flailing around in Suez in the 50's out of insecurity and a desire to maintain Imperial prestige.  They were desperate to retain control of the Suez because they relied on dominating the access points to the Mediterranean for oil imports and access to their Asian territories.  It was a rational consideration of national interest at play, they just lost.  In the short term, the result was that energy prices became very high in the UK and their reliance on oil importation made them very vulnerable to embargoes until they developed new sources of importation and cut their reliance on foreign energy by increasing their efficiency in usage and developing renewables.

 

We don't actually control vast swaths of foreign territory that we exploit for the development of our own economy.  We've got five friggin territories, with a population of about four million people.  Instead, we have a web of alliances that we use to put military infrastructure around the world in order to maintain a balance of power so that major wars don't break out any more.  Our goal isn't to harvest the human and natural resources of these foreign areas to feed our economy and military.  It's not to keep their market access exclusive to us either, we push for open markets instead because we do better in open competition.  Our true goal is to keep any regional power from gobbling up too much territory such that they become a global threat.  It's a geopolitical objective that most of the rest of the world shares.  Hence the web of alliances.

 

The geography of the United States is the reason why we'll always be a global power as long as we keep the whole country in one piece.  Massive swaths of arable land--China has five times our population with less than half as much arable land, for comparison.  More miles of navigable river networks than the entire rest of the world combined.  Two ocean access.  Tons of domestic energy.  Regional geography that stunts the development of any rival regional power.  We have the most favorable geography in the world.  It's the reason we became a global power in the first place.  We're not going anywhere unless our geography radically changes.

[Going Commando]

Another thing Hedges said that was off to me: "we've lost control of our economies."  The United States has never controlled its economy.  We've been a market economy since the beginning of English settlement.  Western and Northern Europe haven't controlled their economies since the late Middle Ages.  China's control economy is one of the key reasons it got subjugated by European Imperial powers for four centuries.

[Bozo the kKklown]

11 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

We don't actually control vast swaths of foreign territory that we exploit for the development of our own economy.  We've got five friggin territories, with a population of about four million people.  Instead, we have a web of alliances that we use to put military infrastructure around the world in order to maintain a balance of power so that major wars don't break out any more.  Our goal isn't to harvest the human and natural resources of these foreign areas to feed our economy and military.  It's not to keep their market access exclusive to us either, we push for open markets instead because we do better in open competition.  Our true goal is to keep any regional power from gobbling up too much territory such that they become a global threat.  It's a geopolitical objective that most of the rest of the world shares.  Hence the web of alliances.

disagree strongly with this.

 

Especially with the harvesting natural resources portion. We are in these nations for oil and other goods. Having bases in these parts of the world is bascially on some Mafia, "we will protect your neighborhood for this price" thing. Just because they are not singing the American National Anthem doesn't mean that we don't have a significant hand in many of these nations policy decisions.

[No Excuses]

7 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

disagree strongly with this.

 

Especially with the harvesting natural resources portion. We are in these nations for oil and other goods. Having bases in these parts of the world is bascially on some Mafia, "we will protect your neighborhood for this price" thing. Just because they are not singing the American National Anthem doesn't mean that we don't have a significant hand in many of these nations policy decisions.

 

Besides the ME, every other ally in the EU and Asia supports US military presence.

[Bozo the kKklown]

2 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

Besides the ME, every other ally in the EU and Asia supports US military presence.

Do they have a choice?

[No Excuses]

1 minute ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

Do they have a choice?

 

Yes. They can get ****ed by Russia or China, which none of them want.

 

The ME would also be a colossally worse place without the US, as much as no one wants to admit it. 

[Bozo the kKklown]

4 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

Yes. They can get ****ed by Russia or China, which none of them want.

 

The ME would also be a colossally worse place without the US, as much as no one wants to admit it. 

You making my point for me with the, "we will take care of you" stuff.

 

I am not saying those nations wouldn't do that. My point is that we have more power over their policy because of our military and economic presence.

 

I know a lot of people are fine with that and being the world's only superpower but I am not. (I don't want any superpowers and do not want any exploitation of countries)

[Going Commando]

8 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

The ME would also be a colossally worse place without the US, as much as no one wants to admit it.  

 

The entire world benefits from our military hegemony.  We keep the peace with very little cost to their autonomy.  We subsidize everyone's national security but we do it because it's better for us than the alternative.  Humanity can not afford another major war in the era of nuclear weapons.

[No Excuses]

2 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

You making my point for me with the, "we will take care of you" stuff.

 

I am not saying those nations wouldn't do that. My point is that we have more power over their policy because of our military and economic presence.

 

I know a lot of people are fine with that and being the world's only superpower but I am not. (I don't want any superpowers and do not want any exploitation of countries)

 

You are asking for a fantasy world that doesn’t exist and likely never will. The world is better off with the US in power. The Chinese and Russians will have no problem filling in the void once we leave. Other countries know that too.

[Going Commando]

13 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

You are asking for a fantasy world that doesn’t exist and likely never will. The world is better off with the US in power. The Chinese and Russians will have no problem filling in the void once we leave. Other countries know that too.

 

I don't know that Russia will ever be more than a regional power again.  An incredibly annoying and disruptive one no doubt, but a regional power.  There are too geographic and demographic factors working against them.

 

- Small population

- Small economy that is ultra-reliant on hydrocarbon exports

- Large hinterland unsuitable for economic development with few defensible natural borders

- Very powerful regional rivals

- No allweather port cities.

- Atlantic Ocean access cut off by the Scandinavians, Germans, and Brits in the North, and by the Turks and Ukranians in the South.

 

They're not going to usurp our position in the world.

 

China could cause global instability by trying to push us out of the Pacific.  But for they're so far behind us, you're talking about a massive strain for them to create a rival blue-water navy.  And then they'd have to create the kind of web of alliances throughout Southeast Asia, Oceana, and the Americas that we have, and you're right, those people prefer being friends with us.  This seems unrealistic.  I think China is content to keep their competition with the US confined to the global economy.  And we're certainly not interested in starting a war with them.

 

I think the real threat to global stability would come from a splintering of European solidarity, or a break between Europe and America.  Something that could push us out of Europe and cause the recreation of intense European regional rivalries between fully developed nations with nuclear weapons.

[PeterMP]

2 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

Massive swaths of arable land--China has five times our population with less than half as much arable land, for comparison. 

 

Your post is great and while much of what you posted will not change (access to two ocean, lots of natural resources, etc), but with climate change, this could change.

 

Whether climate change globally will be good for human is probably a 50/50 proposition.  For the US, there is no way it is a 50/50 population.  It is hard to imagine a shift to a climate that would benefit the US.

[PeterMP]

The biggest issue is the ability to produce food for a large enough population that then can allow for specialization among the rest of your large population, resulting in a large population with diverse skills that can do other things.  We are one of the leaders in technology, and it is not because Americans are smarter than the rest of the world.

 

Given the current climate, the only large country in the world that can do that is the US.

 

As the climate warms tropical diseases come north (which is happening now) (making it more hazardous to work outside) and shifting areas that are most suited in terms of summer temperatures for growing most food crops to further north will change things.

 

If we keep doing what we are doing, I would not all be surprised to see Russia and Canada become more global powers.  Large parts of their countries that are not suitable for growing food crops currently will potentially become good areas to grow crops, while areas we grow food crops will likely become to hot to be good places to grow crops.

 

There is also the issue of possible shifts in precipitation patterns that could shift things to China or some other country.