http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46181723/ns/business-world_business/#.TyYCpsWLssI

I suppose there are worse ways to spend your time than globehopping to conferences on American Imperialism at someone else’s expense.

Check his premises. Check just some of his numbers and references.

Anybody with a brain would have quit reading after “Scenario 2020.” I read the whole thing, so maybe I don’t have a brain.

Compare his future scenarios with the future scenarios of the original paper that he’s supposedly using as a source (a pretty good paper, by the way). The scenarios in the reference paper are in the form of fictional letters.

Every one of McCoy’s scenarios is an exercise in leftist wishful thinking. An “I told you so” in the safe realm of imagination. And best of all, a final victory for communist China over capitalist America on a dozen fronts.

Bitter academic leftists were playing this same tune when I was in college, almost word for word, except the Soviet Union was the rising military power, Japan the rising economic star, and Vietnam was the bell tolling the final days of an imperialistic empire. These angry deadenders have had a hard on for the End Of Amerikkka my whole life.

It’s simply a recognition of the fact that there are patterns and forces in nature, many of them out of our control, many which were at one time but no longer, not taken advantage of in time to do any good. Does this mean we should become fatalistic, simply quit and do nothing? Of course not.

What it means is we should recognize those patterns, make allowances for them, mitigate their worst consequences and exploit those that may fall in our favor as best we can. Recognizing we are in trouble, or that we have made mistakes, is not the same as giving up. Failing to recognize and accept those things IS giving up.

The only alternative is to blame others for our own failures and to take personal credit for our blind good luck, which in my opinion, is a recipe for disaster. It will be the difference between being at the top of the heap for another ten years, then collapsing into obscurity, or staying in the running, in the top five for the rest of the century.

At the risk of being trite, “There’s nothing you can do about the weather, but you can always trim your sails.”

For example. GWB lying. Even after even GWB admitted he lied, there are people who still won’t admit it. “I told you so” runs off like the “Minute Waltz” at a deaf people’s convention.

As to the enthusiastic applauding, that may be what some folks would do. The people I know are screaming that message to the rooftops in hopes that practices can change. Better late than never. We grew up in a world where the US was No. 1, and don’t want to live in a world where assets have been so squandered to where the US is No. 2 or 3 or 4.

I think that is the reason. Power loses it’s strength when it’s used. And the US has used up it’s power. Sad.