Can the empire strike back?

As you land in to China’s shiny new Airport and drive into town you are immediately stuck with the modern highways steel and glass city infrastructure that china has managed to put in place in just under two decades. China was technologically one of the most powerful nations for centuries having invented even gunpowder in the 15th century. But till now and even up to the 19th century it was considered a poor country, mainly as it had put in severe restrictions on trade in the middle kingdom.

Argentina was also another country that well endowed like the USA in the 19th century but went bankrupt three times, while the US has enjoyed an uninterrupted run of more than 100 years of prosperity. The implication is that sudden shifts are relatively rare in history. But consider continental Europe over the past 70 years - until recently a normal human lifetime. Unless they were Swedish or Swiss, an ordinary European man or woman lived during that period under several quite different systems of government. But all nations and civilizations decline; is it time for US Empire to down the drain like Egypt, Greece, Britain, and India like China in the past? However the Silicon Valley’s overwhelming bias towards optimism remains one of America’s enduring assets.
America with its great wealth, depth of learning, advanced technologies and solid democratic institutions should be able to weather all storms. However the recent economic crisis is not a short term business debacle but a deeper malaise and ongoing deterioration of politics and the culture of power. The abject failure of financial regulation, 9/11 terrorism senseless war on Iraq, massive military budgets, war in Afghanistan, bailout of investment banks and corporations shows that the rot runs a lot deeper. The road ahead is strewn with many other obstacles like the bowing down to lobbyists and a government that chases the fat cats for power and wealth at the cost of the rest of the world is a disquieting aspect of a government that is becoming shamefully inept. Politics splintered into extremist parties with Wall Street owning the Democrats and big oil corporations / Industry owning the Republicans it’s a catch 22 situation. America’s elite, super rich and industry and government is only offering lip service to CSR( corporate social responsibity) has been abandoned as more and more policies are anti-people.
Unless there is a return to civic virtue and the incentives to Corporations to corrupt the Government are removed the economic slide will continue till like other nations us will also be another nation that was once a superpower. We seem to be approaching one of those periods of discontinuity that have happened so often in the past. It may seem unthinkable that the European banking system could implode, or that a global currency like the euro could dissolve into nothing. Surely we would be better off if we put an end to our obsession with endings. Humans are sturdy creatures built to withstand regular disruption. Conflict never ceases, but neither does human resourcefulness, adaptability or courage.