[A-List] Debates about the declining American empire

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jurriaan:

> Your stats are interesting, but they refer to net outputs of
> farm goods, manufactured goods and services valued in local
> currency. It's not any basis for making any investment decision,
> since you would invest to obtain a large, secure profit.

Jurriaan,

I think you took my "investment" question literally. The stats I sent show,
or better said, give us some idea about, the composition of the economies
in question. As you alluded to, all these numbers would look different
depending on which method is used or even who computes them (I used to lead
a data management team among other things in the past, this is why I am
saying that. Under someone elses leadership, our numbers could have looked
differently, since you make many subjective decisions in the data
management process.) But even the most unreliable of such stats give us
some information that can be useful if used carefully. Moreover,
comparisons in percentage terms can be as misleading as comparisons in
absolute terms. For example, although farm output is 1.6% of the US GDP in
2001, when looked at in absolute terms, it is still larger than that of
many countries.

My point in sending that table was that the US economy is mostly a service
based economy and as such the "equilibrium" it is in is less "stable" than
that of another economy where service production plays a relatively smaller
role. Moreover, despite all these claims of productivity gains in the US,
service producing companies are run in highly "inefficient" ways. It is
highly likely that there would be no significant change in the output, if
you lay off, say, half of the service sector labor.

As for your definition of the leftist "decline of American imperialism"
slogan, I have no objections. Indeed, I liked it so much so that I will
save a copy of it for future reference. It also seems that we are in
agreement in that the US is not an empire and further has never been one.
Consequently, debating whether the American Empire is declining or not is
absurd. How can something that has never existed decline?

My main point in these discussions have been what I stated here:

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/2006-February/037062.html

and I copy one sentence from there: "The main bet however was whether the
American Economy was in a death bed or not." You may find it too strong a
statement of course but I do not think anyone can argue that the American
Economy is in good shape, for it is not as almost every economic signal
points to. As for when the American Economy will die, I have no knowledge
of it, nor anyone else has that kind of knowledge.

Again, take a look at this picture:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/NETFI/108/Max

You need to open a parachute to survive such a free-fall and there does not
seem to be a parachute around that this free-falling object can use.

Best,

Sabri