Saturday, July 10, 2010

Niall Ferguson Warns of Sudden Collapse of American ‘Empire’

Harvard professor and prolific author Niall Ferguson opened the 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival Monday with a stark warning about the increasing prospect of the American “empire” suddenly collapsing due to the country’s rising debt level.

“I think this is a problem that is going to go live really soon,” Ferguson said. “In that sense, I mean within the next two years. Because the whole thing, fiscally and other ways, is very near the edge of chaos. And we’ve seen already in Greece what happens when the bond market loses faith in your fiscal policy.”

Ferguson said empires — such as the former Soviet Union and the Roman empire — can collapse quite quickly and the tipping point is often when the cost of servicing an empire’s debt is larger than the cost of its defense budget.

“That has not been the case I think at any point in U.S. history,” Ferguson said. “It will be the case in the next five years.”

Ferguson was conscious of opening the Ideas Festival on such a stark note.



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12 comments:

  1. I believe the word you where looking for was
    AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



    Red

    ReplyDelete
  2. It will happen faster than any other collapse in history.

    Technology = Expedience = Speed = Energy
    (Lightning information, media, and transport)

    Power = Size+Strength = Expansion = Acquisition
    (Military might and economic/political influence)

    The nucleus is ready to blow, taking everything it consumed with it.

    Woodrow Wilson and FDR planted the seed of the central system as a superpower.

    The 1960s and 70s planted the seed to destroy the youth and empower the Communist Movement.

    The 1980s was a time when things were about to become right with Reagan but then the 90s came.

    The 90s (despite Grunge music being great) steered popular music into hell, encouraged the youth to give two shits and just do drugs, pushed the two party system into heightened polarity (now civil war), and annihilated the education system.

    2000-2009 was the decade which people gave up on reality and life, started using dope with their children, fell in love with reality tv shows (unreality), and finally put a Communist in office.

    2010-2020: The rate of decay seems to increase with the decades in sequential order. I can't imagine anything being worse than this last decade. But it is erroneous to say it will start getting better in the mathematical sense. The supernatural is the only thing that would turn this around... an actual miracle that is inexplainable by logical means.

    Bless you all.

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  3. Nothing new here, everyone on this blog has known this for years.

    It's just a matter of time, and me thinks the collapse is coming very soon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Collapse is imminent, by this time next year we will be experiencing chaos, riots, unbelievable pain and suffering.

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  5. Ferguson's a corporate shill especially for the defense establishment and not nearly as smart as he would like us to think he is. A con man, of letters, maybe, but a con man nonetheless.

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  6. I hear you, 9:45. Glenn Beck for President. I've had enough of these Commie Bastards. Go Glenn. We need to round the Commie Liberals up and put them in work camps. They are enemies of the state and their day is coming soon. They will pay for their evil.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love glen beck the man educates on the truth. Obama trying to destroy our country.
    The shit will hit the fan, not enough see it, I am sick about people acting like every day is a normal day. It's not, Prepare America, prepared.
    Cneri in California

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  8. since this is approved , I'd like to say, Lets get a topic on jobs, Here in the suburbs of Los Angeles there are nooooooo jobs, not even mcdonalds, but in tennessee where I have a strip center, a person wants big bucks for an A/c estimate and I am told jobs are available.
    So I'm scensing a big gap in the jobless, but having said that, rent there is 500, rent here for a small 1 bed is 1300, so average home is 2500. Maybe since there is more desperation and no jobs we get free quotes, More talk on jobs, please

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  9. Gurnge music is great!! You're kidding, right.

    The "collapse" is likely to be more like Japan's very long depression then like Russia's sudden economic and political collapse. We may enter a long funk ala Jimmy Carter including inflation. Of course if you are out of a job it will be a depression to you. There will be riots but in general it is the left that riots and demonstrates and they are in general planned not spontaneous they will be in specific cities for specific reasons not nationwide. Shortages, no jobs, collapsing markets, and bankruptcies. But no revolution or civil war.

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  10. Oh, please, we're not going to fall apart because of government debt. We're tanking because (1) the housing bubble burst, (2) the banks played the stock market and lost, but the taxpayers bailed them out, (3) we have had price inflation for the last two years on consumer goods, food, and utilities, but income hasn't gone up, so people cannot pay their bills.

    My friends are educated white-collar workers who are worried about going homeless because they can't earn enough to pay rent. I'm not talking about a home mortgage, I'm talking about rent, the electric bill, the cost of phone and internet connections, and the price of feeding your family and pets.

    Only the really rich have managed to get by without cutting back, and that's because they get tax breaks and government handouts. That's right, the rich get money just like those on welfare. Ask Michelle Bachmann, the Congresswoman who is a right-wing loon; her family farm collects a hefty chunk.

    The collapse is here for the rest of us.

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  11. someone will get it right.once that happens,you can expect the U.S. to break up into at least 4 different republics.

    socialism,communism and democracy are dead,they don't work,never did,never will.

    first one to develop a system based on balance and local resources and economies will trigger the second Renaissance. anything is destined to fail...

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  12. I just worry about food. I have a tent, but where will I get water and I have NO idea how to garden!!

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Everyone is encouraged to participate with civilized comments.