Quote Originally Posted by Ronin13 View Post
Really though, I don't think, in modern times at least, that empires fall the same way Rome, Greece, and Persia fell. We won't fall in the same way that there will be wide scale death, famine, and a hostile foreign army coming in and taking over (although you never know with China and the Blue Hats). I also think, due to the symbiotic nature of our international world today, so many rely on the US to stay afloat (We do have that with China, and where would the Saudis be without us?) that it would be in the EU and Asian markets interest to keep us afloat and spending our hard earned money on them. The other problem is, we're still #1 in a lot of vital areas in the world- oil consumption, defense exports, air travel to name a few. I don't think we'll so much as fall or fail or collapse, look at the British Empire- a shadow of it's once great former self- or the Soviet Empire- that's a bit closer to where we're headed if the left continues to rape our economy. So no, I'm not afraid of us collapsing altogether, I'm more worried about us declining to the point where it's going to be painful, but America will still exist- in a sense.

I'll buy some of that, but completely disagree with regard to the part about wide-scale death, etc...Our society is very different from any of the other historical examples you gave for one very important reason - we now live in a society which his largely "order-on-demand" with regard to nearly every critical resource. A catastrophic crash or failure which disrupted either food or fuel transport for even 1-2 weeks would likely result in casualties on an absolutely massive scale, caused by everything from lack of food/water/meds/etc., to the nearly instantaneous riots which would likely take place, and that doesn't even count the absolute shitstorm which would happen when they tried to control the situation via marshal law, which would most likely be the case....