U.S. Government Now Warning U.S. Government of Imminent Imperial Collapse
Critics of our precious freedoms are constantly braying about America's tragic decline and fall and how it's just like the collapse of Rome's Western Empire, and now another America Hater has joined that tired chorus: David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States and chief of the federal Government Accountability Office.
Walker, the former Arthur Anderson and Price Waterhouse executive serving a 15-year term at the GAO, has been traveling around the country trying to get people to pay attention to the coming collapse of America. But people here are pretty busy charging up poison Chinese toys and McDonaldland burgers on their credit cards, so nobody really listens to him. Now he's talking to the British papers, hoping maybe somebody over there will write something and then maybe some website in Washington will post something, which is actually what we're doing right now.
So other than how we all wear togas and speak Latin, how is America similar to the last days of Rome?
* "Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were 'striking similarities' between America's current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including 'declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.'"
* The United States isn't actually owned by the United States. Other countries with money -- "some of which are our allies and some are not" -- actually pay for our continued existence by holding our massive, ever-growing national debt.
* We are tied up in a bunch of distant foreign wars that has left America weak and defenseless, as proven by the unarmed Mexicans who easily overran the country.
* No health care system, too many old fat sick people. This isn't quite like Rome, but everybody got stabbed at or eaten by lions by the age of 30 in Ancient Rome, so they didn't have this problem.
* Nobody saves any money in this country, and the majority of people are actually carrying crushing debt loads, so a little financial downturn like the current one will basically leave everybody in jeopardy and parents will begin eating their fat children.
* Public education is a disaster and Americans are idiots, which is why all of our doctors, engineers and scientists have to be imported from smart countries like India.
* Everything is literally falling apart, like the Minneapolis bridge, because the infrastructure hasn't been maintained or replaced.
* All the water and sewage systems are collapsing, too, so pretty soon we'll have raw sewage gurgling down the potholed streets.
* Bush and Congress have raised taxes (on working people) so much that the government is now collecting a staggering 18.8% of GDP as taxes.
* "Current U.S. policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also is on an 'unsustainable path.'"
Learn from the fall of Rome, US warned [Financial Times]