
Britain overreached imperially. The U.S. has been doing it financially.  - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/weekinreview/12leonhardt.html?ref=business
======
jmtame
History can be a fascinating topic of study. If you look back at all the
civilizations across the past 4,000 years, particularly those in East Asia,
you can trace the downfall to a few major things:

1) Corruption in the government, leads to inefficiency and greed 2) Angry
inhabitants, which leads to revolts and overthrowing of governments (caused by
#1)

You would think of all things, these two wouldn't be a big deal. You would
think most civilizations would fall because there were enemies ready to attack
and take them over. But peace could be purchased at a price, giving you time
to build your empire and compete. The most powerful force of all, the greed
and corruption, has the power to bring a nation to its knees, as it has done
in the past.

Take a look at history and let it speak to you. You'll see that the United
States is a baby, it's no more than 230 years old. Many civilizations lasted
500 years at a time and made enormous scientific and mathematical
contributions, so we're still very "young" by comparison. I feel like we're
growing very arrogant and think we can't lose our superpower status. But that
type of attitude is like the attitude of a CEO who gets complacent with his
startup and no longer pushes for growth or progress. And we all know what
happens to those companies.

*Final edit: Just wanted to say that on HN, I understand there's sort of a "don't read politics, it's too Diggish, let's just talk about startups." But I think there's a vast amount of knowledge that can be gained by looking at history and things like politics, as I don't see much difference in trying to run a country and run a company. You have to keep your people happy (both employees and customers), you need to create value, you have to stay competitive. There's a lot of interplay.

~~~
mynameishere
History is a poor predictor. I think that, if you _really_ looked at the
common reasons for collapse throughout history you would see at the top of the
pops, "Invasion by Mongols", and "Invasion by Puritans", and "Invasion by
Bantu", and the like. I'm not worried about those, howsoever historically
relevant they are. You list corruption and discontent. I'm also not worried
about those....

What we really have, on the ground, are a few fundamental facts:

1\. China (among others) is subsidizing the American economy on a grand scale.

2\. America, China, Japan, and Europe are all facing recessionary demographic
events. America and Europe are facing potential respective
Brazilianization/Islamification.

3\. The massive productive capacity (agricultural combines, robotics, and
computers, for instance) compared with earlier economic depressions will mask
the worst effects of your typical crisis such as mass refugees, starvation,
etc.

There is, sorry for the cliche, a "whole new paradigm" in this instance.
Nobody knows what is going to happen, because the facts are all historically
unique.

...

ADDENDUM: This is the movie I'm watching right now. See if you can spot all
the differences between now and then ( _great_ movie if you haven't seen it)

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9022016584178907197>

Best line of the movie:

"One"

~~~
maurycy
History is a poor predictor because there is no history. History is a tool.

For instance, what is the real reason for the current crisis? There is a lot
of explanations: goverenment (cheap money, urging to lend to poor), capitalism
(complex derivates, greed), poor models (Blackswan), empty money (gold bugs).
The same goes with attemps to solve the current crisis. There are too many
ideas to count.

How do you expect better explanations of the past, if you hardly understand
the events going on right now? Of course, the idea is that history was
explained better and we can learn from it; the truth is that you end up with
explaining reality with previous bad explanations, and your bad explanations
will be used later...

------
hugh
That headline overreached analogically.

