By David Redick

An empire is the ultimate source of power and money for politicians, war-goods producers, and the military. An empire exists when a nation owns or controls other nations or lands. Empires have been rising and falling since the Babylonian empire started in 1,900 BC. It lasted 300 years. There have been 22 more since then, but only one, ‘Empire-USA’, exists today. For details see the link to my article on empires here.

Our political, business, and military ‘leaders’ have gone from concern in the 1990s, to panic since 2005, about the rapid decline of our world-wide economic and military superiority and control. They want an enemy and some action, and will create them with proxy/fake events as needed! This article shows how most of the ‘big-government’ changes in the last ten years are related to boosting their power, and making the citizens more docile and defenseless. For example, citizens’ rights and conduct are subdued by the TSA, police abuses, and gun controls.

The Growth of ‘Empire-USA’

The USA has been building an Empire since the ‘War of 1812’ when Pres. Madison tried to force England out of North America by invading and annexing Canada, but failed due to lack of citizen support. However, the U.S. finally won in 1815 and signed the ‘Treaty of Ghent’, which was a friendly settlement with no changes of territory, and gained us recognition as a ‘real’ country in world politics (not just a bunch of revolutionaries). The next large action was the 1845 ‘Mexican American War’ where we stole the northern half of Mexico (from TX to northern CA). For a list of wars for empire (not defense) see my article here. When England and France were weakened by the expense and damage of WW1, the USA emerged as a financial power, with the US Dollar (USD) the de facto primary world reserve currency. It was formalized in the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement and the USD was then used in about 70% of international transactions! This status allows us to create new money to pay our bills (any Seller will accept it). French leaders called this an ‘exorbitant privilege’, and it was! Since then we have expanded our money supply so much that the ‘purchasing power’ (how many apples a $ will buy, etc.) has dropped by over 95% since the Federal Reserve System started in 1913. Thus items priced in USD have gone up! Our trading partners became concerned about decline of the USD and in the mid-1960s England and France began exchanging paper dollars for our gold (redemption). We were running out of gold so Pres. Nixon ended redemption Aug-1971. The USD became ‘fiat’ (worth what the government decrees, enforced by ‘legal tender’ laws), and the world followed. Whoopee, every nation could make money out of thin air, and we led them all with Fed-based ‘monetary inflation’, followed by market-based ‘price inflation’. As the world’s leading economic and military power, Sellers continued to accept our USD, but at a constantly declining value (as we continued to create more). The effect on pricing is shown by the price of a family car going from $2,000 in the 1970s to $20,000 in 2000, and a room in Motel 6 from $6 to $50!

Since the 1990s, other major nations (and their private banks and firms) have started to avoid using or holding the USD, and now often use their own currencies for international transactions. Examples are; 1) The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa; here), 2) China bought a large amount of oil and gas from Russia, denominated in Yuan, 3) Russia is forming the ‘Eurasian Union’, and 4) China’s ‘Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’ (here), attracted members worldwide (including our ‘friends’ England and France), and are challenging the US control of world banking, and the USD status as the world’s primary reserve currency. In addition, they have started their own international bank-clearing network to avoid reliance (and control by the USA) on the current SWIFT network. As a result, the USD has fallen to use in only about 50% of international transactions, and thus our power to control foreign affairs with monetary and banking sanctions has declined. ‘On Oct. 1, 2016 the IMF plans to include the Chinese Yuan in their inter-government money called ‘Special Drawing Rights’ (SDR). This is a big boost to the Yuan’s value and credibility, and will reduce, the amount of USD per SDR. This will lower the power and value of the USD when used alone, and some analysts predict will reduce the price of all stocks, etc. denominated in USD, and increase the price of precious metals.

We are far into the Empire failure mode as described in Phase 3 below. As we continue to decline in political and economic power, our control of international events will decline until we are not a major factor. This is what happened to France and England after WW1, and many other Empires before.

How Empires Grow and Fail

The following Phases show four key characteristics that vary as empires build, grow and fail. Note that all empires fail. The USA must purposely end Empire-USA by invoking a non-interventionist foreign policy, and end other ‘control’ and ‘mutual defense’ entanglements, or it will fail the hard way!

Phase 1 – Growth (shown on chart below)

* Land: Gain initial Homeland territory by ‘discovery’ (too bad for the natives), or conquest.

* Strength: Start growth of economic, political, and military strength. Sound money (coins made of precious metal, plus redeemable paper notes; Private mints; No central bank).

* Government: Initial type can be anything; Democracy, Socialism, Communism, Monarchy, etc.

* Ethics: Most government people and citizens are hard-working and honest. Government is a ‘servant’.

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Phase 2 – Maturation

* Land: Add contiguous land, or remote colonies, by conquest, annexation (Hawaii), or negotiation.

* Strength: Become a world leader in economic, political, and military strength. Homeland receives cheap imports from colonies. Currency is debased (base metals added, or weight reduced) to allow more government spending, without raising taxes.

* Government: Grows stronger and acts as boss, manager, nanny, owner, etc. Power is used to ‘manage and control’ other nations to impose/protect the Empire’s ‘interests’.

* Ethics: Corruption and decadence grow; 1) In government, due to increased power and arrogance, and 2) In citizens, due to decline in personal responsibility caused by nanny state.

Chart 1: The Phases of an Empire

Chart Height Shows Combined Political, Military and Economic Strength (Power and Wealth)

Phase 1, Growth – Phase 2, Mature – Phase 3, Decline or Fail

Xxxxxxxxx

Phase 3 – Decline and/or Failure

* Land: Lose colonies (or control of other nations) by revolution or voluntary release (due to expense and unrest).

* Strength: No longer a world leader. Power declines by 50% or more. Value of fake currency crashes in purchasing power by 50% or more. Default on debt (or pay-off with low value paper currency).

* Government: Gets weak and desperate. Leaders try to gain power to survive citizen discontent. Roman-style ‘Bread and Circuses’ grow, now called grants, subsidies, stimulus, and entitlements. Government controls, and ‘tough’ police tactics make citizens more submissive.

* Ethics: Corruption and decadence are rampant in both social and government conduct.

Failure occurs as either; A. The Nation survives, but at a reduced level of strength and standard of living (England, France, Italy, Spain, and Russia are examples), or B. Ceases to exist due to takeover by other nations or groups.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx End Phases

Solution

The self-serving politicians, Generals, and business leaders fight the decline in their favorite way; More War and Controls. That keeps their salaries and orders coming, but does not solve the problem of economic failure we face. They keep troops in NATO (and pay for most of it) and the far-east. We have troops at more than 180 bases in over 100 countries! We must remember that use of violence trickles down from military to people and police (for militarized police, the citizens become the enemy), which results in Blowback in the form of terrorists and refugees overseas, and more riots and cop-killers at home.

As Justin Raimondo said (AntiWar.com, 6Aug2016);

The age-old scam of governments creating problems that they then use as an excuse to increase their powers so they can “solve” them is on full display in Libya – and Syria, and Iraq. All these countries had secular governments where not a trace of Islamist radicalism could be found. Their “liberation” by the Western powers, who launched regime change operations in the name of “democracy,” gave rise to ISIS – and created the rationale for yet more destructive intervention.

Citizens of the USA need to fight for a return to the limited constitutional powers granted to our government by the people. Then there will be no wars by Presidential decree, our spending will be limited by return to the gold standard, and economic growth will blossom.

We citizens need to stand up and fight the big-spending ‘Establishment’, and their illegal and immoral wars for economic and political goals (not defense), or they will spend and bomb the USA into economic, moral, and social failure. They don’t care about failure of the US economy, and the social damage caused, because they will be in a villa on a nice island somewhere!

If you have read this far you must be interested, so I suggest you DO SOMETHING such as support a candidate for Congress or President that will fight for us. There are many other ways.

Thanks, and good luck.

Image Credit

Author: David Redick (BS-Engineering, MBA-Economics), writes about government and monetary issues. His goal is to bring more Liberty, peace, prosperity and justice to the USA and world. See his books on Amazon.com, and visit his site www.Forward-USA.org.