US compared to Rome Options

[dauss]

Learn from the fall of Rome, US warned

The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.

David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called “chilling long-term simulations”.

These include “dramatic” tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt.

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”.

“Sound familiar?” Mr Walker said. “In my view, it’s time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.”

Mr Walker’s views carry weight because he is a non-partisan figure in charge of the Government Accountability Office, often described as the investigative arm of the US Congress.

While most of its studies are commissioned by legislators, about 10 per cent – such as the one containing his latest warnings – are initiated by the comptroller general himself.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Walker said he had mentioned some of the issues before but now wanted to “turn up the volume”. Some of them were too sensitive for others in government to “have their name associated with”.

“I’m trying to sound an alarm and issue a wake-up call,” he said. “As comptroller general I’ve got an ability to look longer-range and take on issues that others may be hesitant, and in many cases may not be in a position, to take on.

“One of the concerns is obviously we are a great country but we face major sustainability challenges that we are not taking seriously enough,” said Mr Walker, who was appointed during the Clinton administration to the post, which carries a 15-year term.

The fiscal imbalance meant the US was “on a path toward an explosion of debt”.

“With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiralling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks,” said Mr Walker, a former senior executive at PwC auditing firm.

Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an “unsustainable path”.

“Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernise everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems. The recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a sobering wake-up call.”

Mr Walker said he would offer to brief the would-be presidential candidates next spring.

“They need to make fiscal responsibility and inter-generational equity one of their top priorities. If they do, I think we have a chance to turn this around but if they don’t, I think the risk of a serious crisis rises considerably”.

[impala454]

so our policies on education, energy, the environment, immigration, and iraq will be the downfall of our country. it's convient and democrat-esque that the guy doesn't list any detailed reasons, or suggest what we change to keep this 'downfall' from happening.

education: people come here from all over the world to get their education. what's wrong with our education policy?
energy: wtf is this even supposed to mean. how would energy policy lead to the downfall of our country.
environment: how would this lead to our downfall?
immigration: how would this lead to our downfall?
Iraq: how would this lead to our downfall?

[schwab]

so our policies on education, energy, the environment, immigration, and iraq will be the downfall of our country. it's convient and democrat-esque that the guy doesn't list any detailed reasons, or suggest what we change to keep this 'downfall' from happening.

education: people come here from all over the world to get their education. what's wrong with our education policy?
energy: wtf is this even supposed to mean. how would energy policy lead to the downfall of our country.
environment: how would this lead to our downfall?
immigration: how would this lead to our downfall?
Iraq: how would this lead to our downfall?

education? maybe our universities are good, but the rest of our public education is fucking terrible.

im just saying that, im not trying to argue with you...about this

but hell, i think the US is getting weaker as time goes on....

[dauss]

so our policies on education, energy, the environment, immigration, and iraq will be the downfall of our country. it's convient and democrat-esque that the guy doesn't list any detailed reasons, or suggest what we change to keep this 'downfall' from happening.

education: people come here from all over the world to get their education. what's wrong with our education policy?
energy: wtf is this even supposed to mean. how would energy policy lead to the downfall of our country.
environment: how would this lead to our downfall?
immigration: how would this lead to our downfall?
Iraq: how would this lead to our downfall?

found this:
Education: "Unfortunately, we're not even in the top 20 nations in math and science scores at the high-school level. This represents a huge problem in a knowledge-based economy. If our country expects to maintain its standard of living, we’re going to have to stay competitive on measures like innovation, productivity, and product quality. Fixing our K through12 education system will require radical reform and concerted efforts by all levels of government and all sectors of the economy. We must move beyond rhetoric and start delivering real results for a broad spectrum of the American population."

The other stuff I found was talking about Medicare and health care. You didn't list it so I assume that you'll agree with him on that front.

As far as energy, he's probably talking about ethanol. Supposed savior to get us off of foreign oil and a source for renewable energy(which ties into the environment).

[impala454]

well i guess what i don't really connect is, how is not being in the top 20 nations K-12 going to bring the downfall of our country?

i don't agree on healthcare, i think our healthcare system is fine. i don't want government subsidized healthcare, nor do i believe that not having it will bring the downfall of our country.

how would not using ethanol or any other energy issue end up being the downfall of our country?

i guess my take on these kinda doomsday reports is, it's really not as bad as everyone thinks, because they spend all day imagining just how bad it is.

[THECHICKEN]

The roman empire fell because it had too much land to cover from hostile nations constantly attacking in on it. And the fact that the governmental power was pretty much disjointed after the move of the capital to constantinopel (again, largely a distance problem of governming).

The military being "over-confident and over-extended" in roman times is completely different from the current condition. Over extended in roman times means that they couldn't muster a military force to suppress the outer regions of its borders based on trained army per amount of land needed to protect... while our "over-extended" is the UNWILLINGNESS to muster forces large enough to SUPRESS another country to our will (making a draft, mandatory service, or population willing to join in herds). Much like pre-WWII, we aren't willing to commit mass people into military service... doesn't mean we couldn't.

As for "over-confident", im not even sure what that means. Because rummy thought the force that could invade iraq could also maintain stability was wrong does that mean our MILITARY was over-confident? Considering that any modern war is predetermined to have america as the superior force, its hard to say they are "over-confident"... maybe ill-prepared for PERFECT survival rates of the soldiers, but that doesn't seem like our military is in any threat of failure anytime in the near future.

Honestly the domestic side seems like a more obvious "downfall" of america (such as economy crashing), but that happened to japan and they are still around... Rome isn't around anymore because their cities were sacked and they fell completely apart... i don't see that as much of a threat in the U.S.

God im tired, hoped that reads like i said in my head... heh

[pysex]

again...i don't think they're saying this shit could happen tomorrow

these are things that could be problems in the future...and how do you change the future? you change the present

[impala454]

true... i just wonder where step 2 is that kinda makes the article mamke sense i.e.

step 1: gather underpants
step 2: ---
step 3: profit!

step 1: education, environment, energy, immigration, iraq
step 2: ---
step 3: american falls

i mean, the only major country I recall that's fallen in the past couple hundred years is the USSR, and it fell simply because they couldn't make the communist society work (shocker).

[Jim]

It may be a stretch, but if there is a pattern in America's education going to the shitter, that means in 20 years we may be one of the dumbest nations in the world. And if that's the case, our downfall could be more obvious.

[GOB]

i'm assuming most of your morons came from crappy schools, which is why you are arguing that our educational system sucks.


i received most of my education from an amazing school district... and then i moved to texas during my senior year; it was like going back to eighth grade. go figure.

[THECHICKEN]

Gotta love how in europe the children are REQUIRED to speak 2 languages (one being english) before graduating. And yet we bitch constantly on how we can't speak one other language (spanish) and how english should only be learned by mexicans coming here.

Seems like a good grade school system could have been developed by now for the U.S.

[impala454]

i dont understand either why everyone thinks our K-12 is so bad. you got kids learning algebra in 6th grade, doing calculus by their sophomore year in high school, taking physics and chemistry and biology classes that are way more advanced than anything that was even available when our parents were in school. you've got junior high kids building robots and doing all kinds of neat hands on stuff. you've got programming classes starting to come up.

i personally went to public schools in deer park, tx (SE houston area). i thought that i came out extremely well prepared for college. if i recall correctly i started algebra in the 7th grade, and ended up taking calculus my jr year, and then no math at all sr year bc i was lazy (heh). i know some kids got bussed over to the local CC for calc 2 their sr year, i sure as hell didnt wanna do that.

and i know what some will say "but zomgs the inner city schools are so terrible blah blah blah". well.. i'd be very interested to see some comparison of what they're learning there vs 20-30 years ago. i'd be willing to bet that at the worst they're still getting into geometry and trig and such by their senior year.

[Mommy]

our education system is absolute shit. I subbed at all the high schools in LISD. One time, I was subbing a geography class at Coronado and more than half the class couldn't tell me where England was on a map. Uhhh I learned that in like the 3rd grade. Public education is shit in most Texas schools.

[FORSAKENR320]

i don't understand why people put such an emphasis on k-12 graqdes anyway. countries who are high on the education list send their students to study at OUR colleges. and our work system is the true training program. what alot of people lack on paperwork they are trained first hand on the job anyway. hell, dogmeat spent 5 years getting an engineer degree, and when he got hired, THAT"S when he actually started learning something about the job. high school education may be low, but capitalism works and is the drive of this country.

[impala454]

our education system is absolute shit. I subbed at all the high schools in LISD. One time, I was subbing a geography class at Coronado and more than half the class couldn't tell me where England was on a map. Uhhh I learned that in like the 3rd grade. Public education is shit in most Texas schools.

thats because people don't give a shit about geography class

[Divergent Realit...]

thats because people don't give a shit about geography class

ding ding.

we have a winnah.

the little shits dont care.

[impala454]

i didn't say they don't care, i said they don't care about geography class. it doesn't mean they're stupid.

[THECHICKEN]

i didn't say they don't care, i said they don't care about geography class. it doesn't mean they're stupid.

...riiiggghhhtttt

[The Fanatic]

Stupid little uninterested shits

[Divergent Realit...]

i didn't say they don't care, i said they don't care about geography class. it doesn't mean they're stupid.

maybe i should include my implied parts in parenthesis...

ding ding.

we have a winnah.

the little shits dont care (about geography).

[impala454]

heheh

hell my degree was like: 3.5 in CS, 3.9 in math, crap in the rest

[blaarg]

Compared to a lot of countries our K-12 system really really under-prepares kids, especially in public schools.
I can tell this from a math perspective (since this is what I know most).

We are getting surpassed by leaps and bounds from Eastern European countries (Romania for one), Central Asian countries (India, Russia) and Eastern Asian countries (China, Japan, Korea). If you have ever seen text books from any of these regions you would understand. Here in the states we teach math as mostly repetition (here are 120323094 integration problems: DO THEM!) while there they teach methods and strategies to solve way more difficult problems. That is why when you look up American Mathematical Olympiad teams (the top students in math) the majority of them are either immigrants or 2nd generation immigrants.

As for the higher education system reason "We have students all around come here to study." One reason that you might be overlooking is because schools in the above mentioned countries are VERY difficult to get into. Take the India Institute of Technology who had 198,000 applicants in 2005 and a little over 3,000 got in (less than 2%!). Compare that to say, idk, Harvard with an acceptance rate of 10.3% for 2007 (the LOWEST of any Ivy League school). So naturally those that don't get accepted come to the US to study where admittance is a lot less competitive.

[impala454]

That is why when you look up American Mathematical Olympiad teams (the top students in math) the majority of them are either immigrants or 2nd generation immigrants.

funny i always thought it was because their parents beat the shit out of them if they make a B, and they have no social life, not the quality of the schools.

[THECHICKEN]

Compared to a lot of countries our K-12 system really really under-prepares kids, especially in public schools.
I can tell this from a math perspective (since this is what I know most).

We are getting surpassed by leaps and bounds from Eastern European countries (Romania for one), Central Asian countries (India, Russia) and Eastern Asian countries (China, Japan, Korea). If you have ever seen text books from any of these regions you would understand. Here in the states we teach math as mostly repetition (here are 120323094 integration problems: DO THEM!) while there they teach methods and strategies to solve way more difficult problems. That is why when you look up American Mathematical Olympiad teams (the top students in math) the majority of them are either immigrants or 2nd generation immigrants.

As for the higher education system reason "We have students all around come here to study." One reason that you might be overlooking is because schools in the above mentioned countries are VERY difficult to get into. Take the India Institute of Technology who had 198,000 applicants in 2005 and a little over 3,000 got in (less than 2%!). Compare that to say, idk, Harvard with an acceptance rate of 10.3% for 2007 (the LOWEST of any Ivy League school). So naturally those that don't get accepted come to the US to study where admittance is a lot less competitive.

Wait... Romania has us beat? Holy shit. If those damn gypsy ass people are beating us then that should speak for itself...

[impala454]

watch out the romanian K-12s are gonna take over america!

[False Dude]

rome fell because of "catholicism" and Charles V

so watch out for those 'razy habsburgs, america

-testm0

[pysex]

i'm assuming most of your morons came from crappy schools, which is why you are arguing that our educational system sucks.
i received most of my education from an amazing school district... and then i moved to texas during my senior year; it was like going back to eighth grade. go figure.

texas gets poor performance ratings because of all the goddamn illegals and lazy motherfuckers that don't complete high school

we dropped to 25th place in the smart state rankings...

the states with highest hispanic populations were ranked some of the worst in the united states

[False Dude]

my school sucked and it had nothing to do with anything other than just sucking. my schools in Minnesota and Connecticut where of almost the exact same makeup and where much better. I would guess Texas's current lack of good schools may have to do with its current rate of growth. Building 5 new high schools in a city ever year doesn't lend itself to excellence.

(testm0- i went to great schools here in TX. i had quite a few people from my class go to great universities and ivy league schools. and that had little to do with parents money and more with the kind of schooling they received because of the people i can think of that went to Princeton, Harvard, MIT, CAL Tech their families had less money than mine and more kids)

[chook]

rome fell because of "catholicism" and Charles V

so watch out for those 'razy habsburgs, america

-testm0

Rome got sacked many times before. It actually fell the final time because Rome was greedy and wouldn't make the Vandals citizens.

[GOB]

texas gets poor performance ratings because of all the goddamn illegals and lazy motherfuckers that don't complete high school

we dropped to 25th place in the smart state rankings...

the states with highest hispanic populations were ranked some of the worst in the united states

we were dumped in a private school down here. it was ridiculously easy, so i guess the parents were just paying for the grades. i stuck it out for the whole year (because the girls were also ridiculously easy), but my brother ended up going to a public school after a semester. he said the "regular" classes were the same way.

25th actually seems pretty high. i would have guessed in the upper 30's at best.

but i do see what you're saying. dallas public schools are hilariously bad. they have entire schools that are literally just a bunch of trailers surrounding a cafeteria and gym, and it's because of all the mexicans.

[Divergent Realit...]

we were dumped in a private school down here. it was ridiculously easy, so i guess the parents were just paying for the grades. i stuck it out for the whole year (because the girls were also ridiculously easy), but my brother ended up going to a public school after a semester. he said the "regular" classes were the same way.

25th actually seems pretty high. i would have guessed in the upper 30's at best.

but i do see what you're saying. dallas public schools are hilariously bad. they have entire schools that are literally just a bunch of trailers surrounding a cafeteria and gym, and it's because of all the mexicans.

yeeeeeep.

everyone loves the portable buildings.

overcrowding for the win.

[Inferia]

Education is a complicated business. Personally, I do believe there can be improvements made in US public schools. My high school was pretty good, but I don't think it prepared me for college. However, I don't believe giving kids more homework and harder problems is the key to better education. Though amount of knowledge taught in the US maybe be lacking as compared to many other places, but the US do encourage independent thinking and problem solving, which I believe is just as important as knowing how to do a billion different differential equations. I think there should be some common ground found on more difficult curriculum and creative problem solving.

[dauss]

well i guess what i don't really connect is, how is not being in the top 20 nations K-12 going to bring the downfall of our country?

You said:

people come here from all over the world to get their education. what's wrong with our education policy?

I've heard it here, I've heard it at school and that was people bitching that their teacher couldn't speak English. In all reality, when they get their degree are they staying here or going back to their home country?

Education may be good enough to prep kids for college, but it's so damn expensive that a lot of students have debt up to their eyeballs.

i don't agree on healthcare, i think our healthcare system is fine. i don't want government subsidized healthcare, nor do i believe that not having it will bring the downfall of our country.

We spend more on health care than any other country and we are the fattest country. We're also paying significantly more and getting worse health care than other first world countries. So all these obese people are going to have a shitload of problems which will clog up our health care system, along with all the baby boomers who are now hitting their retirement age.

how would not using ethanol or any other energy issue end up being the downfall of our country?

Enjoying your $4/gallon milk? That E85 is going to be the biggest disaster. To ween ourself off of foreign oil, we'll need farmland the size of TX dedicated to producing biofuels, and that's assuming that we're using the same percentage of small cars like they do in Brazil. Even that would be over 100% of the current corn crop. Then you have to water the plants, which consume an emormous amount of water, and everyone is fighting over water rights.

[impala454]

You said:

I've heard it here, I've heard it at school and that was people bitching that their teacher couldn't speak English. In all reality, when they get their degree are they staying here or going back to their home country?

staying here. but the point is, how does this lead to the downfall of america?

Education may be good enough to prep kids for college, but it's so damn expensive that a lot of students have debt up to their eyeballs.

yeah but they're making more money than people in other countries. and, how does joe bob smith's $5k credit card bill or $200/mo 3% interest student loan payments bring about the downfall of america?

We spend more on health care than any other country and we are the fattest country. We're also paying significantly more and getting worse health care than other first world countries. So all these obese people are going to have a shitload of problems which will clog up our health care system, along with all the baby boomers who are now hitting their retirement age.

there is so much complete made up bullshit in this paragraph its hard to know where to start. we do not spend more on healthcare than anyone else. you know why? because we don't pay 50% of our wages in taxes to the government for shitty government subsidized healthcare. we're not the 'fattest' country. in fact, the men's health magazine I just received showed that we eat healthier and exercise enough to be in the top 10 health wise. our healthcare is some of the best int he world. why the hell do you think people from all over the world are coming here to have major medical procedures?? why the hell do you think people from all over the world come here to be doctors??

none of that even matters though. lets say you're right and it's really as bad as you think it is. how does this bring about the downfall of america? much less "compared to rome"???

Enjoying your $4/gallon milk? That E85 is going to be the biggest disaster. To ween ourself off of foreign oil, we'll need farmland the size of TX dedicated to producing biofuels, and that's assuming that we're using the same percentage of small cars like they do in Brazil. Even that would be over 100% of the current corn crop. Then you have to water the plants, which consume an emormous amount of water, and everyone is fighting over water rights.

so which major country on the planet doesn't have this problem and will take over because of our supposed downfall. it's also pretty hilarious that you bring this up in a thread where you're comparing us to rome. did the romans start running out of gas to run their SUVs too?

[rabble]

The roman empire fell because it had too much land to cover from hostile nations constantly attacking in on it. And the fact that the governmental power was pretty much disjointed after the move of the capital to constantinopel (again, largely a distance problem of governming).

The military being "over-confident and over-extended" in roman times is completely different from the current condition. Over extended in roman times means that they couldn't muster a military force to suppress the outer regions of its borders based on trained army per amount of land needed to protect... while our "over-extended" is the UNWILLINGNESS to muster forces large enough to SUPRESS another country to our will (making a draft, mandatory service, or population willing to join in herds). Much like pre-WWII, we aren't willing to commit mass people into military service... doesn't mean we couldn't.

As for "over-confident", im not even sure what that means. Because rummy thought the force that could invade iraq could also maintain stability was wrong does that mean our MILITARY was over-confident? Considering that any modern war is predetermined to have america as the superior force, its hard to say they are "over-confident"... maybe ill-prepared for PERFECT survival rates of the soldiers, but that doesn't seem like our military is in any threat of failure anytime in the near future.

Honestly the domestic side seems like a more obvious "downfall" of america (such as economy crashing), but that happened to japan and they are still around... Rome isn't around anymore because their cities were sacked and they fell completely apart... i don't see that as much of a threat in the U.S.

God im tired, hoped that reads like i said in my head... heh

Holy shit dude way to prove the fucking overconfident point. You basically said "we aren't overconfident even though our military can never loose...ever...never ever in a million years, we are always going to win...always"
Secondly, did you know the romans trained and armed the gauls? (the people who first sacked rome) DOESN'T THAT SOUND FAMILIAR TO THE CURRENT SITUATION!?!?

About education, I think massive school reform is required, instead of treating it as a fucking government sponsored daycare we need to pump money into making it a situation where students can explore their options and learn what they want to. (after all that basic math/English/science/etc is out of the way) That way the stupid fucking kids will drop out a die a horrible death while the smart kids succeed (don't give me that everyone needs an equal chance bullshit, if you don't want to go to school then drop out and get a job) But I think if the school system starts offering a wide range of options to students then the dropout rates will decline and we will start having on average more learned people in their chosen subjects, thus increasing our production and whatnot.

[GOB]

DOESN'T THAT SOUND FAMILIAR TO THE CURRENT SITUATION!?!?

nope. the only familiarity is the fact that the entire middle east is probably just now caught up to ancient rome in terms of education and technology.

[Dogmeat]

as long as it's required that illegal immagrants serve 6 years in the army upon arrival I'm all for letting them come over, I'll put it that way.

earn your keep assholes.