Ferguson on the Future

Niall Ferguson writes on fiscal policy and imperial decline here.

He notes that swelling interest payments on our enormous national debt will consume more of the nation's GNP in future decades and as they do discretionary spending will be squeezed. The most obvious candidate for cuts will be the American military and as it declines so too will American influence. What makes things worse is that much of the debt payment is in the form of revenue transfers to China, our major military rival. He further notes that imperial collapse can come rapidly and that we are hurrying down the same path toward insolvency as other earlier imperial powers that experienced rapid decline.