Author: Darryl Robert Schoon
The 20th century will be remembered as the century when America became a world power. World Wars I and II would decimate the then great powers of the world, e.g. England, Germany, Russia, France, Japan, etc., leaving the US as the last nation standing—the world’s sole superpower. At mid-century, in 1950 the US would be the world’s banker, its only creditor and repository of the greatest hoard of gold in history; but in only 20 years most of the gold would be gone, the remaining owed but never paid and the US would soon become the world’s largest debtor, a virtual deadbeat who could only pay its debts by borrowing more.
The 21st century would speed America’s decline. In the first decade, the US would launch an expensive war in Iraq then Afghanistan, further destabilizing its already heavily indebted balance sheet; and by 2009, China and Japan, its primary creditors, would significantly slow their purchases of US debt, forcing the US to begin borrowing from itself in order to continue spending what it did not have. When the creditor of last resort is the borrower, economic fundamentals will inevitably reassert themselves.
Since the 1950s, Americans have serially and collectively blamed communists, socialists, hippies, feminists, Mexicans, environmentalists, gays, abortion, entitlements, Japan, China, etc. for their mounting problems; and, like the veritable alcoholic, the real cause of its problems is always assiduously avoided. It is little wonder that as America’s serial enemies have come and gone, America’s problems have increased. This is because the real cause of America’s problems is not others—America’s real problem is itself.
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