Reply #17: The Dollar as reserve currency gave us more than 50 [View All]

years of a stable currency. That stable currency allowed us to develop close to the highest standard of living in the world. Reserve currency gave that same gift to the British until they lost it. Part of the monetary problems we have is that many nations are looking around for a different reserve currency. I'd bet it becomes the Yuan, eventually.

The deficit commission is a symptom of the economic dissolution that is driving the collapse and part of the collapse. We existed as an empire from Bretton Woods (1944) until today. For more than 64 years there was no cat food commission. So the assertion that it is why there is a deficit commission is incorrect. For most of it's existence, Social Security was successful and happy and the U.S. continued to create a social net until Nixon. Since Nixon, the expanding costs of empire have halted for the most part the further development of the Safety Net. Reagan and deregulation are the primary reasons why the empire is collapsing today.

Now the wars are part of the economic collapse, but especially the decision to fight wars on credit. We did not do this in the past. Other currents that lead to the collapse are Peak oil (especially the oil crises of 2005-2006), and the banking collapse caused by massive deregulation.

We use oil because the entire world has moved through a "Hydrocarbon Age." Like the Bronze age and iron age, it developed from the intense use of a certain material. It started with the whale oil booms of the 17th and 18th century, through coal and to the most efficient oil. We are a pinnacle culture of the "Hydrocarbon Age" and inherited that status from Great Britain, the first empire of the "Hydrocarbon Age." Our existence is closely tied to oil and we would decline even without the economic problems as oil declines.

And as soon, or sooner than our own loss of the Empire others will bloom. China and India are the most likely, as they ae moving most easly through the economic fallout of our slow collapse. It is very likely that we will take the European Union with us.

Another reason for the Catfood comission is the bank bailouts. Ireland did the same thing and resuced their banks, then because of the enormous cost, have followed with massive cuts to their own social safety net.