Is The United States Repeating History

[Aesir]

(this was originally going to be an essay but I decided to tone it down some, just so I can get the debate rolling on this. DH has been kind of slow and after reading some articles by Chalmers Johnson I decided this might be a good debate.)

Is the United States following in the foot steps of the Soviet Union? A few things caused the Union to Collapse and no it wasn't Ronald Reagan. Though you could write forever on the reasons why the Soviet Union crashed, such as Imperialism, Rigid interpretations of Lenin-Marxism or just the dissatisfaction by the people. Largely though it came from it's inability with reform. Sound familiar?

Much like the Union the US has many problems that could very well lead to it's collapse we share many of the same issues though it may be hard to see. We have a very rigid view on the Economy which now Dominated by Special interest, Imperialism, and total dissatisfaction within the government. However like the Union we to seem to have this inability to reform.

Economy:
- Bad Regulation, our government regulates business in all the bad ways. Largely due to the damage done by the Reagan administration. Though it began to fall a part near the end of the Carter as well.

- We now have businesses with the to-big-to-fail blanket who can do whatever they want economically. Oh if they fail who bails them out? (this goes beyond the Obama Bailout.)

Imperialism:
- We have to many commitments in to many places. With bases all over the world, roughly over 700 bases are known.

- Our foreign policy now reserves the right to go to war based on the whim of the executive branch. All in the name of snuffing out aggressive forces, which aren't clearly defined. (Bush Doctrine)

(I kept it short just to get to the point)

Now many of these things seem relativity easy to fix, or at least within the power congress and the president. However the nail in the coffin will be our inability to reform these issues. Now I don't have much faith in President Obama never have probably never will, but he's now in charge of an Executive branch that's more powerful then it's ever been. He could be a reformer and challenge the things that need to be challenged. The question is does he have the challenging personality needed to go against special interest in both the defense department and in our economic institutions, or will the American Empire just crumble under stress like all other Empires?

 

[Jam Stunna]

Whether you like Reagan or not, he did really put the screws to the Evil Empire, and that at least contributed to it's collapse. I've read a few articles (presented from a conservative standpoint, admittedly) that state that the real purpose of Star Wars and missile defense wasn't to actually have a workable shield, but just to force the Soviet Union into spending money it didn't have to compete technologically with the US. That, combined with the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and, ironically enough, Gorbachev's tolerance of reform, is what led to the Soviet Union's collapse.

I'm not saying that's all true, but I think parts of it are, and that's the history that I'm afraid we're going to repeat. We're spending money that we simply don't have, whether it's maintaining military bases, Medicare/Social Security, financial bailouts or whatever the case may be. Debt always catches up with you in the long run, and that's the major problem we're facing.

 

[Aesir]

Whether you like Reagan or not, he did really put the screws to the Evil Empire, and that at least contributed to it's collapse. I've read a few articles (presented from a conservative standpoint, admittedly) that state that the real purpose of Star Wars and missile defense wasn't to actually have a workable shield, but just to force the Soviet Union into spending money it didn't have to compete technologically with the US. That, combined with the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and, ironically enough, Gorbachev's tolerance of reform, is what led to the Soviet Union's collapse.

I'm not saying that's all true, but I think parts of it are, and that's the history that I'm afraid we're going to repeat. We're spending money that we simply don't have, whether it's maintaining military bases, Medicare/Social Security, financial bailouts or whatever the case may be. Debt always catches up with you in the long run, and that's the major problem we're facing.

Bolded:

This is why I don't take conservative view points seriously. Reagan and Thatcher played little to no role in the down fall of the Union. During a bulk of their terms the Union was still functioning effectively. The tough communist policies did little to shake The Union because the Communist responded with their own tough policies.

Also Gorbachev was in constant fighting with special interests in his own country, so he was never able to enact the reforms needed to keep his empire afloat. Ultimately it was the rigidness of communism ideology that lead to it's collapse. Maybe Reagan and Thatcher played a role but to think American policy could alter a country just as powerful as us is an illusion.


Also about starwars:

Furthermore, by 1987, under the tutelage of the newly freed dissident Andrei Sakharov, a designer of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, Mr. Gorbachev dismissed whatever theoretical threat Star Wars presented to the Soviet system. As Mr. Reagan persisted at a Washington summit in trying to win Soviet approval for Star Wars tests, Mr. Gorbachev told him, ''I think you're wasting money. I don't think it will work. But if that's what you want to do, go ahead.''

Star Wars Didn't Work Last Time
and It Still Won't

The Union never really took it that seriously.

 

[Jam Stunna]

Even as late as October 1988, a full three years after Mikhail Gorbachev had begun the revolution that eventually cost him his country and his job,

That line came from the article you posted. Gorbachev's reforms definitely did help to bring down the Soviet Union.

 

[Aesir]

That line came from the article you posted. Gorbachev's reforms definitely did help to bring down the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev was anything but a saint, the article doesn't go into detail about the reforms, but ultimately he was fighting special interests all the time. The Unions military machine wanted more and more money and Gorbachev was more concerned about the economy then winning an arms race.

The fact is reforms made by Gorbachev were pointless and had little to no effect, because the system it's self was unreformed. It needed to be brought down and made from scratch again. Of course opposition from special interests would have halted this.

Which is what I meant by it's inability to reform. The reforms made were more distractions then solutions.

 

[LordoftheMorning]

I hesitate to post, as this sort of debate gets reeeaaallly hairy sometimes.

Personally I think Reagan's policies were the right way to go and that he was a great president. I'd argue that there's far too much regulation in our economy, not just the wrong sort. I attribute the current recession to the government pressuring loans to people with bad or no credit history in order to let homeless people get homes. Unfortunately, these debts were never payed off, and do we need to ask why? Left alone (not entirely, but mostly), the free market solves for almost any problem you can dish out.

I don't think I'm very well-read on the Cold War, so I'm not sure how much of a contribution I'll be able to make to this thread. Ah, well. One more year of high school .

 

[Aesir]

I hesitate to post, as this sort of debate gets reeeaaallly hairy sometimes.

Personally I think Reagan's policies were the right way to go and that he was a great president. I'd argue that there's far too much regulation in our economy, not just the wrong sort. I attribute the current recession to the government pressuring loans to people with bad or no credit history in order to let homeless people get homes. Unfortunately, these debts were never payed off, and do we need to ask why? Left alone (not entirely, but mostly), the free market solves for almost any problem you can dish out.

I don't hold Reagan with all the blame the last four Presidents have been lack luster, 2 of them ride on a wave success that I think is wrong given but that's another debate.

Reagan also demolished many good regulatory practices that protected workers and consumers. You'd be surprised what a President can do with the claim that anything is big Government.

What we have today is just a series of bad regulations. We subsidize industries left and right, for instance the health care industries are given 16%(old figure it's probably more then that.) of our GPA. (most nations don't spend nearly that much.)

A market shouldn't go unregulated, it needs rules to thrive unfortunately our leaders are ignoring that tidbit.

Anyway about the mortgage crisis the economic melt down is far more broad then to blame it on one issue.

An analysis for The Wall Street Journal of more than $2.5 trillion in subprime loans made since 2000 shows that as the number of subprime loans mushroomed, an increasing proportion of them went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional loans with far better terms.

As you can see they weren't giving them to people with bad credit over half were to people with good credit.

But the biggest problem with the Sub prime mortgages was they went largely unregulated. Any regulation that exists today is BAD regulation. The Government just let happy hour on Wall Street prevail and now we have crisis that could have been adverted. It's not no one knew about this, many people saw the problem of sub prime mortgages and bad regulation.


source:

1. http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_7624265 (originally posted in the Wall Street Journal.)

 

[Darxmarth23]

I wouldn't say that it is repeating history. Every country has its ups and down. When you rise, the next thing that is gonna happen is that you will fall, until you pick yourself back up again.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Personally I think Reagan's policies were the right way to go and that he was a great president. I'd argue that there's far too much regulation in our economy, not just the wrong sort. I attribute the current recession to the government pressuring loans to people with bad or no credit history in order to let homeless people get homes. Unfortunately, these debts were never payed off, and do we need to ask why? Left alone (not entirely, but mostly), the free market solves for almost any problem you can dish out.

No. Just no.


The government did not pressure people into bad loans, the community reinvestment act had specific provisions about not forcing risky loans.

What it actually, was force companies to extend EXISTING practices into neighborhoods that were previously ignored, AKA redlining.


There's a mountain of evidence for this, but one of the most significant pieces of this was that the housing crisis was an exurban (commuter neighborhoods) issue, NOT an urban one, and urban neighborhoods were primarily effected by the act.

Source


But the best evidence is the fact that CRA actually DETERRED irresponsible lending.

Source


Yes, institutions covered by the CRA were CONSIDERABLY less likely to make risky loans.



Regardless of that, it wasn't the loans themselves that actually brought about the collapse, it was the reselling of the mortgages many times which ultimately made far too many sectors of the economy dependent on those loans, so when defaults occurs, it wasn't just the bank that initially made the loan that suffered, it was the entire economy.

Defaults alone would've hurt the economy, but without that factor it would've been a far more localized factor, and would've just caused a temporary contraction, not a collapse.



As for capitalism in general, you're incorrect, at least in terms of pure capitalism. Capitalism has natural boom and bust cycles. As a practical matter, leaving it at that is simply not a good idea, because economic collapse destroys countries. As a practical matter, moderating both via economic regulation is necessity for any functional country in the long term.

 

[aeghrur]

I need adumbrodeus's logic and reasoning and education... cuz apparently when I said the economy needs to be regulated, RDK called me an idiot. >_>
Although, too much regulation would be bad cuz it would cause stagflation.
and bad regulation causes economic collapse too.
and no regulation also causes economic collapses.

 

[LordoftheMorning]

I have a response, but is this the topic that we're debating in this thread? It seems like every thread comes down to economy and just stays there. What about the other things in the OP? Let's talk about imperialism.

I say the U.S. is not imperialistic. If we were, we'd be colonizing Iraq by now. The U.S. is only making sure that conflicts between nations don't threaten our own security.

Now! Tell me I'm a moron!

 

[Reaver197]

Well, as it turns out, Iraq was never a threat to our security, and we stopped paying attention to the region where the people who were a threat to our security was hiding.

 

[Darxmarth23]

Well one thing is for sure. We should be picking ourselves up and out of this hole we have dug. I really don't think that we are "repeating" history as much as we are going through our ups and downs. It happens to every country.

 

[Pr0phetic]

Well one thing is for sure. We should be picking ourselves up and out of this hole we have dug. I really don't think that we are "repeating" history as much as we are going through our ups and downs. It happens to every country.

This is certainly a down. We're makign some advances, but we need more leaps to get out of this hole dug by war, horrible economic decisions, and a greed-filled corporate field. I don't think we're repeating history, I think we are starting to move on. We went to almost rock bottom over 8 years, only way to go is up.

 

[Aesir]

I have a response, but is this the topic that we're debating in this thread? It seems like every thread comes down to economy and just stays there. What about the other things in the OP? Let's talk about imperialism.

Well considering the state the economy is in do you blame us? lol I'm getting kind of sick about talking about the economy anyway.

I say the U.S. is not imperialistic. If we were, we'd be colonizing Iraq by now. The U.S. is only making sure that conflicts between nations don't threaten our own security.

Now! Tell me I'm a moron!

Colonialism =/= Imperialism, Imperialism can be expressed via attitude or action. Colonialism is one action of imperialism. The actions can be less obvious many have called this economic colonialism. Instead of just going in there and blasting the place, we just set up free markets and control the country that way. aka Globalization.


I think it's more accurate to say "The US is only making sure it's interests are secure." We have more then 700 military bases stationed all over the world. A bulk of these are postioned in places that pose little or no threat what so ever. You mentioned earlier that we don't have colonies well I would argue our bases are our version of a colony. It's a US presence that essentially saying to the rest of the world. "you better be with us, because you sure as hell don't want to be against us."

Another aspect of Imperialism is we seem to have this idea that we're the only ones who know how to make good government, Nation Building is an imperialist policy. We basically go into another country set up a new pro-American government and leave. You see this in obvious ways such as Iraq and less obvious ways like say Iran for instance. Iran today is largely anti-American because of our aggressive policy against things we don't like.

Granted if you compare our policy to say Russia in the day of communism then yeah we don't seem nearly as bad as we could be. However Imperialism is still imperialism and it's not a favorable practice especially considering our countries history which is very much against imperialism.

I had more to say but I'm actually quite tired I'm sure you can find a good rebuttal to this, I hope at least. I was kind of wishing this topic would be more active considering I basically called the united states an evil empire.

 

[Darxmarth23]

I was kind of wishing this topic would be more active considering I basically called the united states an evil empire.

I think we subconsciously acknowledged that we kind of have been for the past 8 years.