[imcarthur]

A lot of symptoms are being mentioned but real cause? I think the beginning of the end started when you began to think that you were the best. Then you started to act like it & spend like it. Coming out of WW2, the rest of the world was broken & over the next 3 decades you tried to fix it – but in your own mold. An impossible task as others have discovered in the past. Of course, the Soviets were trying the same thing from their end of the stadium but they started with some severe handicaps - thankfully. Even though this tussle led to some colossal foreign policy mistakes, it directly & indirectly (NASA etc) provided a lot of fuel for domestic growth. And when you weren't fixing the world you were spending your spare change in an orgy of capitalism & consumerism. Reality started smacking you in the face in the 70s but you brushed it aside for more of that good ole economic orgying again. Except that this time you borrowed the money. And you ignored the awakening of the world, seeing it merely as an economic opportunity & not the very real threat that it has become. At a time when you should have been readjusting, you were getting fat. The last two decades have just been the start of the spiral around the drain.

Reversible? No. Survivable? Yes. But your time at the top of the heap is gone forever.

Ian