Inspired in no small part by the political charade over the bail-outs and boondoggles that plague the TV screens and electronic ether, I’ve compiled a top 10 list of ways in which the US increasingly resembles the collapsing Soviet Union for your information / despair / entertainment / Schadenfreude / ridicule / etc.
A list of how Russians screwed up and Americans are repeating their mistakes step by step. A list that may provoke much needed debate and change that we can really believe in.
10
An alcohol epidemic from the 1960′s on that kept Russian life expectancy flat ever since.
Dietary catastrophe resulting in historically unprecedented obesity and diabetes rates.
9
Hated and feared for human rights violations, invasion of Afghanistan and Communist rhetoric, and its socialist model discredited.
Hated and feared for use of torture, invasion of Iraq and post-Cold War triumphalist arrogance, and its neoliberal model discredited.
8
Military overstretch, economic distortion and disaster in Afghanistan.
Imperial overstretch, runaway military budget and return to the “graveyard of empires”.
7
Wasteful investments into infrastructure, bloated bureaucracy and inefficient industry.
Decaying infrastructure, misplaced investments into suburbia, bloated financial system and hallowing out of industry.
6
Collapse in morality, bloated bureaucracy and soaring corruption.
Regulatory capture, bloated special interests and legalistic mafia.
5
Suppression of statistics and silencing of dissent.
Manipulation of statistics and ignores dissent.
4
Dependence on foreign credit from debts and oil sales.
Dependence on foreign credit from debts, “dark matter” and the $’s status as global currency reserve.
3
Young reformer takes power and talks of glasnost and perestroika while avoiding real reform.
Young “outsider” wins the elections and talk of change and hope…
2
Ethnic nationalism and separatist tendencies.
Tax revolts and state rights.
1
More and more people began to predict Soviet collapse in the late 1980′s.
More and more people are beginning to predict an American collapse now…
