The West is screwed economically.

 Noble wrote a comment on another blog post that paused me in track.

Long story short?

The West is screwed economically.  I'm no economist but just trying to suss out the trend lines and we either develop a new economic system or we're gonna be faced with invading armies (no, not immigrants either but actual armies) coming to the resource rich US and Canada.

Doing my little mind exercise I'm actually beginning to wonder if it wouldn't make more sense to retreat to fortress America NOW and build up a huge nuclear arsenal cause I'm beginning to wonder if the trend lines aren't pointing to us simply being spent into dust just like we did the USSR.

Enough of my musing.  Check out what Noble had to say along with the graphics he posted...

Just want to share a view graphics to paint a picture of "why the Pacific":

G7's declining share of global GDP Take-away: the handful of North American and Western European countries don't have the economic clout that they did when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Population Density of Asia Take-away: India, China, Indonesia, Pakistan...these places have MASSIVE populations, growing industrialization, growing technology, etc.......60% of the 8 billion humans live here. I think I read once that for almost all of recorded history minus the last few hundred years, China and India were >75% of global GDP. We are returning to that baseline.

World's 10 busiest ports Take-away: How do you pry the planet away from Chinese influence when they are the factory supplying everyone with needed goods? And is it any surprise that they are aggressively trying to secure their maritime trade links and build out overland alternatives?

 We should have killed China in the crib.  MacArthur was right.  A terrible fight then would have prevented a terrible loss in the near future.

But do we have time to get them before they turn into a monster from the depths of hell?

Maybe if we got serious.  But they've penetrated too many of our institutions and govt.  Confidence is not high.  The nuclear arsenal that can destroy all comers is probably the best choice at this time.  Conventionally I just don't think we have the national will.