{"id":65308,"date":"2023-05-02T05:12:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T10:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65308"},"modified":"2023-05-02T05:12:46","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T10:12:46","slug":"americas-empire-is-bankrupt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65308","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s empire is bankrupt"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-sm-4\">\n<div class=\"metabox\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/unherd.com\/2023\/04\/americas-empire-is-bankrupt\/\">America\u2019s empire is bankrupt<\/a><\/h3>\n<p><strong>The dollar is finally being dethroned<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article-body container-fluid\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div id=\"artbody\" class=\"col-sm-9 col-lg-6 \">\n<div class=\"pianocontentwrapper\">\n<div class=\"noa\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"noa-web-audio-player\" src=\"https:\/\/embed-player.newsoveraudio.com\/v4?key=unh80r&amp;id=https:\/\/unherd.com\/2023\/04\/americas-empire-is-bankrupt\/&amp;bgColor=f5f5f5&amp;color=446c76&amp;playColor=446c76\" width=\"100%\" height=\"110px\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Let\u2019s start with the basics. Roughly 5% of the human race currently live in the United States of America. That very small fraction of humanity, until quite recently, enjoyed about a third of the world\u2019s energy resources and manufactured products and about a quarter of its raw materials. This didn\u2019t happen because nobody else wanted these things, or because the US manufactured and sold something so enticing that the rest of the world eagerly handed over its wealth in exchange. It happened because, as the dominant nation, the US imposed unbalanced patterns of exchange on the rest of the world, and these funnelled a disproportionate share of the planet\u2019s wealth to itself.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s nothing new about this sort of arrangement. In its day, the British Empire controlled an even larger share of the planet\u2019s wealth, and the Spanish Empire played a comparable role further back. Before then, there were other empires, though limits to transport technologies meant that their reach wasn\u2019t as large. Nor, by the way, was any of this an invention of people with light-coloured skin. Mighty empires flourished in Asia and Africa when the peoples of Europe lived in thatched-roofed mud huts. Empires rise whenever a nation becomes powerful enough to dominate other nations and drain them of wealth. They\u2019ve thrived as far back as records go and they\u2019ll doubtless thrive for as long as human civilisations exist.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-4\">\n<hr \/>\n<\/div>\n<p>America\u2019s empire came into being in the wake of the collapse of the British Empire, during the fratricidal European wars of the early 20th century. Throughout those bitter years, the role of global hegemon was up for grabs, and by 1930 or so it was pretty clear that Germany, the Soviet Union or the US would end up taking the prize&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>America\u2019s empire is bankrupt The dollar is finally being dethroned Let\u2019s start with the basics. Roughly 5% of the human race currently live in the United States of America. That very small fraction of humanity, until quite recently, enjoyed about a third of the world\u2019s energy resources and manufactured products and about a quarter of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[1949,1758,827,834,839,5482],"class_list":["post-65308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-geopolitics","tag-america","tag-john-michael-greer","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-us-dollar","tag-world-reserve-currency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65309,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65308\/revisions\/65309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}