DALE: Global perspectives

"the earth is flat (or spikey" - so what else is new? i dont feel threatened when iran or venezuela or russia says america is a has been - not so long as their citizens are banging down the doors to escape their homelands and get in here. wealth envy is such a well known deadly sin, its even in the 10 commandments. the fact that apologists for fascist and quasi socialist states hate america is also nothing new - a high standard of living is a direct refutation of their economic and political failures. the proper thing for the average american now is to open a pizzeria or a pet shop in the storefront that just became vacant. negotiate a great lease deal, watch your pennies when stock your inventory, and give great service. this has always been the way to get ahead. ask sam walton, or steve jobs, or even warren buffet.

The issue for the U.S. is the dyfunctional multilateralism that has been promulgated since the early 1990's. The world agrees on policies but only enforces regionally when it impacts them directly. What is trying to form is some type of global governance to replace U.S. primacy. It will not work because there are too many exceptions to the compliance. The U.N. is probably the closest model and it's failures are proof in pudding so to speak. Russia and China both, see the U.S. economic primacy recession as an opportunity to strengthen their regional power and control. If Russia can hang on long enough, they also have the advantage of energy independence. This can be used to force NATO out of Europe and establish Russian economic and political dominance in Europe. China has established economic control of it's region and is working toward military parity with both Russia and the U.S. Unless the U.S. can get back on track with energy independence and sound free market economic risk policies, it is likely that we will transition to a regulated market, socialist government to government economy, dealing with the regional powers. This will act to stifle free market initiative because the government will determine the market and job requirements, not the market. It will probably put an end to U.S. innovation and technology and reduce the U.S. economic model to the European political model. On those lines, we may be seeing the beginning of a resurrection of the "Dark Ages" with socialism overcoming democracy and the arrogance of government regulated markets overcoming free market economies. Fear is already a driving factor and indicated by the scientifically unsubstantiated consensus science of Global Warming and economic nationalization of global bailout programs. One might even say it started with the Y2k ignorance state of fear, was carried through to global warming and now global economic rescue. We really need a better understanding of complexity.