Change in the Wind

I would argue that the dream of America becoming “the new Rome” was achieved. The tentacles of American influence and power embraced the world. But things in the modern world move at a vastly different speed then at the time of Rome’s greatness. The Western Roman Imperium lasted for several centuries. The American Imperium was the 20^th century. It was merely a 100 years.

Nations have life cycles which chronicle their rise, ascendancy and slipping from grace. A nation rises with it utilization of raw resources. It starts with heavily industries such as steel, energy like coal and oil, and agriculture. The wealth created by these industries trickles through society. This is the genesis of a self sustaining consumer market. Small businesses appear to meet their individualized wants. Manufacturing industries such as textiles blossom.

As the wealth factor increases, the domestic businesses increase output and start to market their wares to other nations. The people, in search of meeting even more individualized wants, create a market for the influx of foreign goods. Over time, many of the domestic manufacturing industries give way to those in foreign lands. The goods can be produced cheaper in these other countries. But the vacuum is filled by a new domestic enterprise of becoming international brokers. The Chicago Commodities exchange and Wall Street become very powerful. The domestic market expands and becomes one vast market for foreign items for sale.

As this is happening, money is available to the government for other things. Social systems like public education is affordable. Another is investment in science and technology. At the height of American power the war machine evolves to be without peer and an organization like NASA appears. The wealth funds the efforts of researchers leading to the most Nobel prizes and entrepreneurial innovation.

As the nation declines public education suffers. The disparity in wealth accelerates. The benefits of society flow to a small select group. Social mobility grinds to a halt. Other nations make notable achievements. The level of military power is a lagging indicator of demise because it is the last to starve for funds. The military is the last thing to decline. The leading indicator of change is science and technology. This is the first definitive sign of retreat.

Have you noticed the most advanced and largest particle physics super collider, the Large Hadron Collider, is located at Cern, in Switzerland? Have you noticed that France puts a lot of satellites in space for private companies and nations? Have you noticed that when we needed the largest transport plane in 2000 we had to ask the Russians? Do you know we dismantled our heavy lift rocket program and Russia has the heavenliest lift rockets? Have you notice that NASA has to send astronauts to Russia for advance space training? Have you noticed the Hubble Space telescope is on its last legs with no America replacement?

In today’s newspaper was a satellite achievement. The American Spitzer infra red telescope just failed? The newspaper said the timing was fortuitous. The EU just launched a new far better one, named “Herschel”.

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Bubbles

Bubbles are temporary financial windfalls. They inflate and at some point burst as financial reality sets in. Bubbles are undesirable because they are the harbinger of unsustainable financial situations. So far our financial managers have been unable to manage a gentle deflation of a bubble. It takes a great deal of political will because they are national in scope. There will always be losers in the process of a collapsing bubble and it always results in some form of “backlash” with recriminations. Too often we see a bubble clearly. But also too often, the solution is unpatible. It is politically better to just let it catastrophically burst.

The American Dream is the biggest bubble of all with buoyancy created by an ever expending economy and easy credit. The utter collapse is occurring all around us. The American Dream postulates that there is the wherewithal that any person with diligence and hard work will improve their station in life. The corollary is that each succeeding generation will fair better than the last. The wherewithal in America is evaporating. The engine of social mobility, education, is no longer world class. Healthcare is becoming unavailable to expanding numbers of people because of affordability. The infra-structure, that provides the basis for creativity and entrepreneur activities, is inadequate or crumbling. America has broadband speeds so slow that much of the world does not consider it “broadband”. The same is true for “bullet trains”. We adopt the label, but lack the reality. Our roads and bridges were largely constructed in the 1930s and 40s. Even the interstate highway system is over half a century old. We have acquired a disparity in the distribution of wealth and opportunity like any other second world nation.

The younger people that entered the workforce are starting to realize they are the serfs in this America. The cards are stacked against them. An immutable aristocracy is now part of the landscape. They realize the best they can hope for is to survival in the social and economic froth.

Enticing

Here in America we venerate the Masters of painting and sculpture. Foremost among the Masters are the likes of Michelangelo, Raphael, Da Vinci and Berneni. But here in America we also forget the ramifications of the fact they worked on commission for their livelihood.

“Occasioning ly” [poetic spelling] our delicate senses are shocked when we come across an erotic rendering by the Masters. In most cases these rendering are excluded in America from public view, despite the accomplished nature of their rendering. It was as true then as it is today, sex sells.

American zeal to protect us is everywhere. Do you remember that former US Attorney General John Ashcroft spent $8,000 on curtains to hide the "Spirit of Justice" statue, with one breast exposed at the Justice Department? The statue was commissioned in 1933 [C. Paul Jennewein] and had stood unchanged for decades. I wonder how many great artistic works of the Masters and others are hidden from the public view by the “Victorian” guardians of American sensibilities?

Playboy Magazine had the erotic market sewed up at the end of the 1960s. Then a rival entered. Penthouse Magazine was determined to do Playboy one better. It displayed larger endowments and complete nudity. Playboy tried to compete by going with complete nudity. It quickly learned complete nudity was not as erotic as partially covered suggestive nudity.

Perhaps America will learn that the more effort it puts into hiding sexuality, the more enticing it appears. If I recall correctly, Schindler's List and some of the other realistic Holocaust movies had some large scale depictions of nudity. But I don’t think you will find many people that considered it erotic.