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To add to the comment: If you want to be the capital of an empire, you have to act like it—like Troy, Rome, or Constantinople—meaning you run deficits and play
by atmosx 2y ago
To add to the comment: If you want to be the capital of an empire, you have to act like it—like Troy, Rome, or Constantinople—meaning you run deficits and play buyer of last resort. When you are no longer that, the empire has indeed collapsed.
Relate: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1998/08/18/the-buyer-of-last-resort/055b2b02-0a30-48cb-916d-648b9ab8290e/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1998/08/18/t...
- rayiner 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sgt101 2y agoIt's not like they're the controlling power behind the scenes of the international hedgemon. They're a person commenting on HN. Calm the drama.
- aqme28 2y agoI don’t get your point. Should Americans not want to improve the position of America? Make America Great, so to speak?
- rayiner 2y agoMaintaining an empire will destroy your society in the long run. What’s good for America in the long run is a country populated by americans, producing and consuming goods and services made by other americans within the umbrella of the same democratic polity.
- Pigalowda 2y agoIs that from the protocols? What would you know about society and empire? You’re just some dork on the internet too much.
- germinalphrase 2y ago“ a country populated by americans, producing and consuming goods and services made by other americans within the umbrella of the same democratic polity.” Which is a fine vision. Of course, Americans will have to consider why the goods on our shelves are so plentiful and so cheap.
- apawloski 2y agoAll we are doing is making America weaker on the global scale while you cling to this fantasy. But to be clear, in this fantasy, do you acknowledge and accept that costs for Americans are going to up? Things are going to get more expensive across the board for Americans? Do you trust that this administration is competent enough to protect American companies?
- brendoelfrendo 2y ago[flagged]
- victorbjorklund 2y agoare you including immigrants from africa in your def of who these "americans" should be?
- dukeyukey 2y agoWhat's good for Americans (everyone really) is easy, open access to huge global markets, where economies of scale and differentiation can bring the most prosperity. There's no reason Americans, Brits, Swedes, Italians, Singaporeans and so on can't do this. The handful of bad (albeit powerful) actors shouldn't stop this.
- fullshark 2y agoThe premise is the leaders of America since WW2 have been focused on things outside America for too long, hence "America First" and "Make America Great Again."
- EthanHeilman 2y agoI believe this poster is viewing this statement by another Hn poster as official confirmation that US foreign policy has been driven a single mission of subjugating other countries. I disagree with this view. The US is powerful on the international stage because the US is not an empire. US global power is based on the US being a mostly fair dealer. This is extraordinarily rare in world history and extremely powerful because it transforms a zero sum international competition game into a game where most countries are invested in the success of most of other countries. Most of human history follows the logic of "The further off from England the nearer is to France" and that is why most of human history is soaked in blood. Until this year, Europe didn't worry about war with the US. This meant that Europe didn't have to consider the risks that trading with the US or buying US weapons would weaken them relative to the US in a future conflict. ---- Melians: "And how pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule?" Athenians: "Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you." Melians: "So [that] you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither side?" Athenians: "No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness and your enmity of our power."
- kelipso 2y ago> The US is powerful on the international stage because the US is an empire. There, I fixed that for you.
- EthanHeilman 2y agoCare to provide any evidence for your claim? At the very least put in the work to redefine the word empire to have such a broad and expansive definition that the US would qualify
- kelipso 2y agoMultiple definitions I guess. NATO countries are very much part of the US empire but pretty much all the countries that we have military bases in would be part of a looser definition of the US empire. We can control international relations that most of Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Korea have to a fairly strong degree. I would say this along with us having had fairly strong influence in the economies of these countries historically and our ability to easily coordinate military operations with them make these countries part of the US empire.
- pc86 2y ago[flagged]
- losvedir 2y agoSorry bud, I think that's just your tinnitus, not a dog whistle.
- yohannparis 2y agoThey were no need to play the antisemite card. Nothing in the original comment suggests it.
- schiem 2y agoThe point of dog whistles is that most people can't hear them.
- RajT88 2y ago"Globalists" is a dog whistle. But sometimes people do also literally mean "people in favor of globalism".
- acdha 2y agoFew people use “globalist” in the 1940s sense these days, but it is widespread among far-right conspiracy theorists, many of whom use it to refer to Jews while leaving room to claim they weren’t - similar to how often Soros is mentioned in contexts he has no other connection to. That doesn’t mean that anyone who uses it is definitely engaged in anti-semitism but it forces the reader to have to question whether it’s being used for multiple reasons.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- noitpmeder 2y agoMassive over reaction here
- Pigalowda 2y agoI think sir, you need to “touch grass” as the kid’s say.
- alabastervlog 2y agoYou could have picked up any poli sci book or audited any international-focused poli sci class any time in the last... I dunno, a bunch of decades, and there'd have been a lot of talk about American hegemony, how maintaining that drives a ton of her actions, and what benefits that hegemony brings to the US or others (and the costs). It's, like, a central topic of the whole field, and unipolar hegemony has been the basic framework of contemporary international relations study since the USSR collapsed (with a side-topic of "what about China?" rising in prominence over the years, and their struggle to bring a return to a dual-power system becoming a major topic in the last couple decades) This isn't secret knowledge, it's like the first thing covered after "what even is International Relations?" It's the 2+2=4 of the topic.