I'd never been out of the country for three weeks before. I missed my kids like crazy and was happy to come home. But I'd be lying if I didn't tell y...
"Debtpocalypse" didn't just appear in time for the last election season or the lame-duck session of Congress to follow. It is merely the latest installment in a tragic, 40-year-old story of the dispossession of American working people.
The fact is that the world loves what America represents: freedom, wealth, popular culture, and materialism. Most of the world wants what we have. And, by gosh, we're going to give it to them, the good, bad, and the ugly, whether they like it or not.
China's economic power could match or even surpass U.S. power in 20 years -- and there are serious signs that the United States is actually the country in decline. But the United States still has several aces.
For those of us heartsick over the moral state of things in this country, this is pure catnip.
Declinism and catastrophe are in the air, like this early spring's hay fever. We live in a complex, dangerous world. We also live in a time of bounty and relative peace. The real sin here on both sides of this debate is exaggeration, reductionism and the urge to politicize.
Any culture that can laugh at torture and murder is a culture in deep, deep trouble.
Why exactly is Iran regarded as such a colossal threat? The question is rarely discussed, but it is not hard to find a serious answer -- though not, as usual, in the fevered pronouncements.
American decline is real, though the apocalyptic vision reflects the familiar ruling class perception that anything short of total control amounts to total disaster.
The "rise of the rest," which has been going for more than a half a century, is the product of how successful a job the United States has done as Chairman of the Board of Planetary Management. We are victims of our own success, having globalized everything but ourselves.
Prices may be low, but the Republic's economy is slow and there are hundreds of thousands who can't keep up. "Jobs exist," insist local experts. "But our workforce isn't trained." In fact, many high school graduates here have a hard time reading and doing basic math.
We Americans have a lot to be thankful for. As a land of inordinate opportunities, our success has not been because we're really any better than anyone else -- but we have been luckier.
In the more than three decades I've been involved in nation-building, civil-military coordination, and just trying to help make peace in broken places...
We will learn nothing and gain nothing from ten years of tragedy, waste, and ruin unless we face up to the fact that we have lost the wars we initiated after the attacks of September 11th, 2001.
Where is the recognition that a "book of raunch," rather than reflecting a mature and vibrant culture, is symptomatic of one in steep, full-on decline, drunk on its power and narcissism (including Baker's pet vice, sexual titillation)?
Once again we do the rigid Kabuki dance, leading once again to political stalemate -- this time over raising the federal debt ceiling. Even with the ...
This large middle class is starting to shrink as more people are being pushed into the lower class. The system, as a result, is unsustainable in insuring the American philosophy: that hard work pays off.
Why do so many CEOs want to escape to a place so different from where they work? There is a certain irony, perhaps even hypocrisy, in these disparities.
Everyone connected with this over-hyped, accident-riddled mega-production -- at $65 million, Broadway's most expensive -- needs to take a long, deep breath and, at long last, get a reality check.
As Kennedy realized, we would be wise to strike a more conscientious balance between builders and artists -- both of which we will need to secure our place in a safe and prosperous world for generations to come.
Many Chinese believe that China should be less deferential to the U.S. because they think the U.S. is in decline. But this view is mistaken and China is unlikely to equal American economic, military or soft power for decades to come. Nonetheless, overconfidence has led to more assertive Chinese behavior in the last two years that alienated the Obama administration -- and this is the backdrop for this week's Washington summit. Since both countries have more to gain from cooperation than conflict, we must hope that Hu's state visit goes well.
Even if China's GDP passes that of the United States around 2030, the two economies will be equivalent in size but not in composition. In per capita income, China will not pass the US until decades later.
Previous American crises always had an identifiable, external cause that could be remedied, however painfully. But this time there is no external cause. The enemy is us. Americans are suffering from corrupt values.
American opposition to the "redistribution of wealth" has achieved the luster of a religious creed. And, as with all religions, one finds the faithful witlessly espousing doctrines that harm almost everyone.
Instead of the bloodshed that marked the end of so many past empires, this 21st-century imperial collapse could come relatively quietly through the invisible tendrils of economic collapse or cyberwarfare.
