The Collapse of the American Empire

tBlaming China for US economic and social woes is like blaming the iceberg for sinking the Titanic.

IMO the US economic & social rot set in in the early 1980s when Regan adopted the Chicago
School's US version on Neo-Liberalism ad rebounded it as Reagonomcs. This have the Whitehouse
seal approval to:
(a) shifting US manufacturing out of the USA to 3rd world low labour input jurisdictions
(b) importing he overseas manufactured good & flogging then in the high values US markets
(c) diverting he profits to tax havens to avoid US tax

And all his was justifies by a Neo-Liberal slight of hand of
- 'Small Government (which never happened)
-low taxes (call that tax evasion)
-let the market resolve market issues/problems (code for no Government legislation to prevent gutting industrial America)

That's the nub of the matter historically and Covid is just a giant Hurricane Cathroina that will blow bu in another year
or so but the eeconomic kick-started by Reagan 40 years ago will prevail short of a major reversal of US
economic & trade policy.

Trump solution:
-blame China (that hasn't worked)
-blame the mexicans/illrgal immigrants (that didn't work)
-blame the Washington elite (drain the swamp) (he just made it bigger)
-repatriate US corporate profits by lowering the corporate tax rate (just lined the pockets of the uber rich & increased the wealth gap)
-force repatriation of US manufacturing (did the opposite by Harley Davidson & Tesla moving in part to China & GM migrating to mexico)

The Trump blame game was a flop as were his Billionaire remedies (no trickle down there)
His only win was cutting a farm/energy trade deal with China(h) which ironically cut our exporters throats.

The way global economies are behaving throughout Covid clearly indicated that China will pass out the USA in GDP (USD)
while it has already become the biggest global GDP (PPP) as far back as 2014 when the USA "woke up"

Historically countries/empirtes that maintained global leadership in GDP/Trade for a few decades had their currencies
adopted as global reserve currencies and when major armed conflict happened they invariably won!

So, IMO, the USA has two options with respect to a rising China:
- war now while the US has a military advantage (but a Nuke War may not be winnable by either sides)
-retreat gracefully fover time rom being global hegemony and hand the reins over to China(h) (China's preference)

So where have our political geniuses left us?
As a neutral middle power we could have escaped the worst devastations of a US/China Nuke war
but instead ScoMo has put the executioner's patch on us all and invited China to SHOOT you bastards like Breaker Morant!

Lt. Harry Morant: "shoot straight you bastards don't make a mess of it"