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macmanmike6100, the combined U.S. federal budget and external trade debt continues to accumulate annually at a rate of at least $1.4 trillion. At minimumn, the combined existing federal treasury and external debt is $14 trillion. At 6 percent annual interest, it costs $840 billion to service the interest on the $14 trillion, and next year the combined debt will have accumulated to at least $15.4 trillion.

The total <a href="http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/us.html">U.S. GDP in 2005 was $12.5 trillion, and federal spending was at least $2.466 trillion</a>

Hoping for world peace, considering what I've outlined as far as U.S. military capability and the runaway U.S. debt accumulation, aggravated by growing competition for petroleum and other raw materials, with a Chinese currency that rises in value, as the U.S. dollar falls.....causing even higher petroleum, import costs, with no sign of any lessening of the amount that the U.S. imports, or of new signifigant discovery of supply, and the increasing "off budget" expense of financing delayed occupation aggravated by deteriorating security climates in both Iraq and Afghanistan, seems a bit unrealistic.

I'm betting that most Americans will be unwilling to accept the coming costs of peace, which probably include a doubling of the dollar price of oil, and everything that we currently buy at Wal-Mart, in a span as short as in the next 36 months. Expenditures on the military intelligence complex will fall as our already bankrupt U.S. government can no longer borrow money at rates under....say.....12 percent....
The question then will be simple....do we use the military power, before it rusts at the dock, or on the launch pad, in an attempt to force Russian and China to disarm, or be "taken out", or do we quietly fade into an Argentina style decline?

I know what we will decide....so....why wait? Every new day where we import 14 million more bbls or petroleum equivalents, borrowing an additional $980 million each day to do it....brings us closer to the day that no one will extend us the credit to do it. On that day, the U.S. will be weaker economically and less militarily powerful than it is today, and Russia and China will both be stronger and richer than they are now. There is no plan that I know of, to lessen the speed of the U.S. spiral into paper currency spending power implosion, and no plan to stop it and reverse it.

All I see is an avoidance to even pay any attention to the trend....can anybody offer an alternative, or rosier set of predictions? If not, shouldn't discussion focus on when the best time will be to threaten China and Russia into capitulating, militarily, and what to do to them if they refuse?