[seahorse2]

The Soviet Union was able to collapse without beginning the feared WWIII. Would the same be true today if the USA collapsed economically? There are two major differences I see between then and now, which I believe are more likely for a USA collapse to end in war. Those differences are these:

(1) The USA is extremely dependent on ME oil, thus, the US cannot strategically afford to lose political or economic influence (military dominance) in the ME. The Soviet Union never had this problem of having to import energy resources just to survive, the US unfortunately has to import lots of energy resources just to survive. The Soviet Union could rebuild from within, I'm not sure the USA can, not with worthless dollars;

(2) The Soviet Union did not have an "Israel." We all know how important the Israeli/Arab issue has been and always will be. The Soviet Union was able to let go of the stranglehold of its various controlled states without the possibility of causing WWIII. I'm not sure that's the case with Israel. Israel simply could not manage on its own financially. Unless someone can step into the shoes of the US and finance Israel's economy and military, either it would collapse on its own, the Arabs would swarm it, or both. Thus, I venture to guess that even if Israel things the US economy is in danger of collapsing and that it may lose its military economic support, then Israel would probably act to take out its perceived most immediate military threats, i.e. Iran and Syria, and would do so before real danger of a US economic collapse.

Just food for thought.

[Twilight]

The Soviet Union never had the "If we go down, we're taking everyone else down with us"* mentality. On a grass-roots cultural level, it was able to accept a world without itself. In fact, many believed it would be an improvement. I don't see most Americans coming round to that belief.

* Actual quote from another forum.

[MOCKBA]

The Soviet Union was able to collapse without beginning the feared WWIII. Would the same be true today if the USA collapsed economically?

There is a very long way to go before USA would collapse economincally and it would happen way after other would collapse. Doesn't mean that there wouldn't be painful corrections, but collapse is something quite different.

Just a food for thought - immediately prior to collapse Sovient Union was extremely dependent on Canadian wheet, i.e. without Canadian wheet they could just close all stores and call it communism since apart from salt and matches there was nothing to buy. Thanks to Canadian farmers at least pasta was available and people managed...

Being unable to afford coffee flawored drink is an order of magnitude different from being unable to buy anything.

[MOCKBA]

Just another food for thoughts - USA is not that dependent on ME oil in a sense that USA is more dependent on Canadian and Mexican oil and only then on Saudis and Nigeria. Without ME oil though Japan and China would have outbid USA for Mexican and Canadian oil and that would be a problem.

So once China collapses nobody would care about ME oil but Europeans, kinda the way it used to be most of the time... and by that time oil majors would be allowed back to Venesuella.

[threadbear]

Actually Mockba, if you are following the sub-prime meltdown and unwinding derivatives you'll quickly understand the implications, for the US.

A meltdown as severe as anything Russia faced, is quite possible. The Russians were somewhat prepared for the depths of deprivation, the Americans are not. They face a wake up call from their cozy slumber in 600 thread count sheets.

There's going to be a Twilight zone feel to the coming economic crisis. People will be shocked and awed into reality, still surrounded by all the stuff they've accumulated in their frenzy of acquisitiveness. They'll have to struggle to find enough to eat and fight to keep the utilities on, in their million dollar Toll bros. homes. Ugly.

[ColossalContrarian]

Someone on PO.com once noted that the difference between the collapse of a communist nation and the collapse of a capitalistic nation is that when a communist nation falls the people at least have somewhere to live. In a capitalistic nation houses are empty and the people have nowhere to live…

[MOCKBA]

Actually Mockba, if you are following the sub-prime meltdown and unwinding derivatives you'll quickly understand the implications, for the US.

I actually do and so far we had:
1. funds blocked in France,
2. bank meltdown in Germany and
3. bank run in England.

In USA in the mean time they paid out LTCM size deal out of last year profits (note that this time around LTCM size deal was paid out from private money) and Apple had the most successful product launch in last quarter of a century (Adobe the first to report profits in Q3 just reported highest profits ever too). This all speaks for itself, but on sub-prime note I believe the acid doesn't sit on US banks ballance sheets and as pointed out in Economics forum, most likely it sits with pension funds and I argue probably outside US - not that much pension in US anyhow.

On sub-prime related note, do you know how sub-prime meltdown recoiled in Kazakhstan? The way things are going not only current generation would go into slavery to European banks for a freaking camcoder, but their children too would have to work all their lifes to pay for daddy's camcoder. And you are talking collapse in US. Come on! Go read any recent George Soros book - may be you would learn something interesting.

[RdSnt]

It is also important to remember that the Soviet Union was deliberately collapsed by those in power. Primarily Gorbachev took the long term view and shifted the country out of the race. I would regard the broad strokes of the re-construction of Russia, including the rise of Putin, to have been quite deliberately managed.

[RdSnt]

The profits are based on inflated $US, that are almost worthless.
Certainly some of these companies are profitable on the books, yet it's based on purchases through borrowed money. There is no tangible support for that debt, which is at levels where saying "record levels" is a laughable understatement.
Fundamentally though the US economic is a fraudulent, ponzi scheme that is wholely dependent on international financing. Each day the US must find $3billion to keep the system afloat, from international markets. That's just the daily needs.
That you say it's other countries that are going to suffer and that all the problems have been offshored is also laughable. As the international community continues to loose faith in the US market, the $US will sink even faster and noone will invest what is needed to keep the system going.
Greed has killed you, you just don't know it yet.

Actually Mockba, if you are following the sub-prime meltdown and unwinding derivatives you'll quickly understand the implications, for the US.

I actually do and so far we had:
1. funds blocked in France,
2. bank meltdown in Germany and
3. bank run in England.

In USA in the mean time they paid out LTCM size deal out of last year profits (note that this time around LTCM size deal was paid out from private money) and Apple had the most successful product launch in last quarter of a century (Adobe the first to report profits in Q3 just reported highest profits ever too). This all speaks for itself, but on sub-prime note I believe the acid doesn't sit on US banks ballance sheets and as pointed out in Economics forum, most likely it sits with pension funds and I argue probably outside US - not that much pension in US anyhow.

On sub-prime related note, do you know how sub-prime meltdown recoiled in Kazakhstan? The way things are going not only current generation would go into slavery to European banks for a freaking camcoder, but their children too would have to work all their lifes to pay for daddy's camcoder. And you are talking collapse in US. Come on! Go read any recent George Soros book - may be you would learn something interesting.

[MOCKBA]

The profits are based on inflated $US, that are almost worthless.

That's right anytime Apple sells iPod Touch for $299 in US while paying $120 to Chinese slaves it is because of inflated $US and 309Euro=U$426 it gets from the French is also because of inflated USD. I guess once US collapses Apple would be booking $600 per every iPod Touch sold to the French and apparently it would be very bad for Apple. Should I run another example of US poultry sold to China so that Chinese could sell theirs to Japan?

[threadbear]

Actually Mockba, if you are following the sub-prime meltdown and unwinding derivatives you'll quickly understand the implications, for the US.

I actually do and so far we had:
1. funds blocked in France,
2. bank meltdown in Germany and
3. bank run in England.

In USA in the mean time they paid out LTCM size deal out of last year profits (note that this time around LTCM size deal was paid out from private money) and Apple had the most successful product launch in last quarter of a century (Adobe the first to report profits in Q3 just reported highest profits ever too). This all speaks for itself, but on sub-prime note I believe the acid doesn't sit on US banks ballance sheets and as pointed out in Economics forum, most likely it sits with pension funds and I argue probably outside US - not that much pension in US anyhow.

On sub-prime related note, do you know how sub-prime meltdown recoiled in Kazakhstan? The way things are going not only current generation would go into slavery to European banks for a freaking camcoder, but their children too would have to work all their lifes to pay for daddy's camcoder. And you are talking collapse in US. Come on! Go read any recent George Soros book - may be you would learn something interesting.

There is a temporary layer of insulation, a buffer zone between the average Joe and the coming crisis. As you describe, the subprime is hitting the commercial paper market, not the banks, directly. This will however have a rebound effect on the banks and consumer, it just isn't playing out in real time, as it is in Britain.

You are quite wrong in your approximation of the severity of the crisis. It seems you have been fooled by an appearance of economic health. It's hard to believe but the U.S. is in worse shape than Russia ever was. Google "Derivatives tower".

[RdSnt]

I don't think you quite get it. The US consumer is not buying the IPod with cash, he is borrowing the money from China to pay for it. Essentially the US consume must go cap-in-hand to the Chinese and ask politely, "Please may I buy another bobble that I don't need?"
The US is no longer the master of its own home or destiny.
And the Chinese government has become the ultimate slum landlord.

The profits are based on inflated $US, that are almost worthless.

That's right anytime Apple sells iPod Touch for $299 in US while paying $120 to Chinese slaves it is because of inflated $US and 309Euro=U$426 it gets from the French is also because of inflated USD. I guess once US collapses Apple would be booking $600 per every iPod Touch sold to the French and apparently it would be very bad for Apple. Should I run another example of US poultry sold to China so that Chinese could sell theirs to Japan?

[Russian_Cowboy]

The Soviet Union was able to collapse without beginning the feared WWIII. Would the same be true today if the USA collapsed economically?

No, it would not. Whatever the American media is lying to you, the Soviet Union's collapse did not have much to do with economics. In the past, the USSR went through extreme economic hardships without any danger of collapsing. With the exception of the tiny Lithuania and very tiny Estonia, all the republics that seceeded from the USSR-Russia have always been economically worse off than Russia itself since the collapse of the USSR.

The true reason for the collapse was the formation of new nations within the USSR that started over a hundred years ago. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Russian Empire gobbled up and included in itself peoples as diverse as the Finns, Armenians, Mongols, Athabascans (in the Russian possessions in Alaska), and the Chinese (in Port Arthur and Dalian region, now a part of China). Most of these peoples had almost nothing in common. Right after the Russian revolution in February 1917, the central government weakened, and most of these peoples declared independence.

The Bolsheviks took over a few months later and their Red Army conquered most of these new nations (except for Finland and Poland) and converted them into the USSR at the end of 1922. The goal or the "Soviet Dream" binding these nations together was building communism in the USSR and in the entire world that the USSR was supposed to gradually conquer.

However, the other countries were not in a hurry to join the USSR and considered it an enemy for a valid reason. The Soviet citizens were essentially living in a besieged stronghold where normal human ambitions, enterprise, self-expression were "forbidden fruits." It was very hard to survive for many years in an Absurdistan where the state of the art technologies were adjacent with everyone, including the hard working folks, having to get by on a tiny pittance.

As a result, the communism as an ideology promising high standards of living and the ability for everyone to satisfy all their desires, miserably failed. Mikhail Gorbachev declared the end of the Cold War and, after that, there was nothing to hold together the very diverse pieces of the former Russian Empire. The USSR immediately fell apart along the boundaries separating various peoples of the USSR. Since these boundaries were drawn by Lenin and Stalin back in 1922-1924, they were quite outdated, and, as a result, numerous local conflicts flared up along these boundaries.

The economic collapse that followed was the result of converting the Soviet plan economy into a market economy. The collapse itself was neither a reason for nor a consequence of the USSR's disintegration. At least four of the former Soviet republics (Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia) are in the danger or even in the process of falling apart into even smaller pieces. So, when you hear from President Putin that the US military machine is threatening Russia or the denigration of the Western countries and the former Soviet republics, or similar bullshit, this is because he needs an external enemy to prevent (or, to be more exact, slow down) Russia's falling apart again.

As far as the US is concerned, it may fall apart for the same reason as the USSR did. This reason is the loss of the American dream. After the natural resources are depleted, only very few Americans will be able to maintain high standards of living and make their American dream come true. Then new nations will be born inside the US. These nations will unite people of similar ideals and similar vision of their future. Possibly, the "red" republican states will secede from the blue democratic ones. However, birth of new nations is a fairly long process. It should take at least a couple of decades before these nations are fully formed and only after that will the US fall apart.

[MOCKBA]

It's hard to believe but the U.S. is in worse shape than Russia ever was.

I actually lived in Russia when it collapsed. Nowadays I live in US. So I kinda can compare and in my opinion giving up $4 coffee drinks is not in the same ballpark as being unable to get food and hardly could be an indication of "worse shape than ever" but what do I know - I am fooled.

[mmasters]

It's hard to believe but the U.S. is in worse shape than Russia ever was.

I actually lived in Russia when it collapsed. Nowadays I live in US. So I kinda can compare and in my opinion giving up $4 coffee drinks is not in the same ballpark as being unable to get food and hardly could be an indication of "worse shape than ever" but what do I know - I am fooled.

Would you say the US is poised for a greater fall than Russia experienced?

[threadbear]

It's hard to believe but the U.S. is in worse shape than Russia ever was.

I actually lived in Russia when it collapsed. Nowadays I live in US. So I kinda can compare

Read Dmitri Orlov. And as I have taken pains to try to explain to you, the disaster is yet to come to the U.S. This is a prediction-- am not talking about the present. It's too bad you left one failed state and moved to another. Escaping the clutches of the Russian bear, only to be squeezed to death in Uncle Sam's loving embrace of a credit contraction.

[MOCKBA]

Would you say the US is poised for a greater fall than Russia experienced?

Nope, quite the opposite. US would do better (without $4 coffee) then most and we are seeing that already. Why is it they have bank runs everywhere but US? Suppose to be the other way around, ain't?

I once again recomend reading Soros on Globalisation and how the system is rigged to implode from outskirts preserving the center.

[Russian_Cowboy]

It's hard to believe but the U.S. is in worse shape than Russia ever was.

I actually lived in Russia when it collapsed.

This means you are over 90 years old. Russia (Russian Empire) collapsed in 1917-1918. The USSR collapsed in 1991, but half of its population did not consider themselves Russians either officially or inofficially. Until 1989, the Eastern European states were effectively associated members of the USSR as they did not have a technical sovereignity. But would you consider those Germans, Hungarians, Bulgarians etc. to have been Russians? I do not think so. In addition, the secession of Russia from the USSR had a different mechanism from the secession of all the other Soviet republics, so if you lived in Russian Federation in 1991 at a young age, this experience may not be helpful.

Would you say the US is poised for a greater fall than Russia experienced?

The US is not poised for a fall YET, it is poised for a crisis, recession, depression, etc. An impending economic meltdown in the US does not mean that the US is about to fall apart. Economic hardships do not necessarily mean disintegraion of a nation. Will different parts of the US immediately become different nations in case of economic hardships? I do not think so. It takes time, at least several decades.

[seahorse]

I think my question is, if the US goes into a depression, for example, will that depression lead to war, i.e., something akin to war being the culmination of the 30s depression? Or, can the US somehow go into a depression, lick its wounds, and it not end up with world war, like the Soviet Union in the 90s? Again, I think the situation for the US is much different than for the Soviets in the 90s, namely bc of the US dependence on ME oil and Israel's need for massive financial support to sustain itself, which, if that support is threatened, could in and of itself lead to a ME war.

[gg3]

Another factor to calculate into the mix:

A rational ideology is one that is death-averse and this-world-oriented.

An irrational ideology is one that is death-neutral or death-seeking, and next-world-oriented.

American ideology of the 1920s through 1940s was rational, as was Soviet ideology. Nazi ideology was, come to think of it, an interesting mix because it overlaid an otherworldly mythos on top of its prevailing this-worldism even more so than did communism. The communist utopia was clearly first and foremost a material state of affairs; whereas the nazi utopia was as much a spiritual one as anything. The ideology of imperial Japan was similar to the nazi otherworldliness in that it attributed godlike characteristics to the Emperor. And Mussolini's fascism was more this-worldly than Hitler's.

Fast-forward to the Cold War: two rationalist ideologies square off against each other: American democracy and capitalism, vs Soviet communism. Deterrence held and kept the peace because the leaders on both sides wished to avoid death and wished to achieve material prosperity for their citizens.

Fast-forward to today: the two dominant contending ideologies are irrationalist. Fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity are both death-embracing (sacred forms of martyrdom in both cases) and next-world oriented (deliverance and salvation, the coming of the Mah'di, the second coming of Christ).

Putin's ideology seems like a nationalistic realpolitik that does not generalize to other nations or offer them anything except businesslike relationships; so there is presently no ideology centered in Russia that makes an attempt to organize the world according to a grand international vision.

Militant fundamentlism in both Christianity and Islam, can produce a positive feedback cycle of escalation that is highly conducive to starting wars.

Militant fundamentalist Islam, confronted with a rationalist Western ideology, does not constitute a closed positive feedback loop.

All we need to do is keep the peace until Bush is out of office...

---

As far as USA collapse is concerned, the 1930s depression didn't do it, but we were a more resilient people then.

Some fairly wellknown author has published a book on the thesis that the US actually consists of about six distinct nationalities: New England, the Southeast, the industrial northern Midwest, the agricultural central Midwest, the Western desert states, and the Northwestern forest states.

Since I'm in Northern California, that makes me a citizen of the latter, which is aptly named Ecotopia.

As much as I dislike a good deal of what comes out of certain other regions, e.g. religious extremism and authoritarianism in all its forms, I don't want to see us break up. I believe that the diversity of the US is our greatest strength; the cultural equivalent of the checks and balances that make (made) our government work as well as it does (did) (and after the next election, may begin to again).