Britain explored the world on ships, which have been around for thousands of years, and a long time before them. We have to explore space on rocket ships, which have only been recently made and are still not nearly efficient enough to accomplish the task you described. Space travel is far from the next "thing." It is somewhere down the line, but it's definitely not the next. I would say alternative energy is the next thing, but it doesn't look like anyone is close to that either.

Montana - I never said we had to sail the stars. Just get far enough to start gathering solar energy, and HE3 mining on the moon (which is part of that 'alternative energy' thing you just stated). We've been there before. We do it now. Just not in the quantities we need.

It took thousands of years to develop the boats and manpower to project numbers of people across a great distance. But that doesn't mean that boats couldn't go fishing in the local area rather quickly. That is my argument for space travel: If we could extend our control just 1 million miles away from Earth, we could probably solve all of the major energy concerns and future crises.

^could we drill oil on Mars?

No, what made us great was small government that didn’t run out lives. We were called the “land of the free”, not the “land of cool shit you can’t get anywhere else”.

We have become Europe, and the more we get like Europe, the more we... well... sadly, get like Europe.

Commerce exploded in the US, because people had far more motivation to put forth the extra efforts knowing there was reward for it. Now, we are less rewarded, so less motivated.

This country was “the great experiment”, and it worked so well, that we decided to become like everyone else. Stupid thing to do if you ask me.

No, we weren't the land of the free. We were the land of opportunity. It's funny how we both have to correct each other. Ireland had the famine. No jobs, no food. People from the country came here in droves because we presented opportunity. They couldn't care less about free speech and freedom of religion. During the early years, the U.S. was a battleground of hate and oppression. People were killed just for being different. I am so sick of your "small government is everything BS." Stop it. If you want to preach that crap, don't preach it to me.

Look at history. The U.S. succeeded because of some major reasons:

-Resources not available in the rest of the world

-Cheap labor

-Mass immigration

-Large land mass and quick growing population

Commerce exploded in the U.S. because either you work for dirt in the U.S, or have no work in your home country. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, the world was a sad, sad place. And it still is, but to a much lesser degree. People could work for money in the U.S. because it was growing very fast, and there was always new jobs. Small government isn't the solution to our problems, an economy that works is. That's what we don't have. Our economic growth is flatlining because our economy has been growing artificially for a long time. People have been racking up debt to buy things that they can't actually afford (and so has the government), and now our economy is bigger than is actually sustainable. There are two solutions: Grow our economy even more by nothing short of a miracle, or let it shrink down to reasonable levels. Cut the crap about government, and if that's how you're going to argue this, I'm not even going to bother responding. It's the same old shtick over and over.

It’s the same thing over and over, because the problem is still the same. In 20 years, when I argue this, it will be the same argument.

Why did out economy outgrow itself? Government.

In every economy, there is going to be growth, and retraction. That’s an economy that works. In the US, before 1929, we have 4 depressions, and many smaller recessions. Government never stepped in to try and fix the problem. The reason is back them, when bad shit happened to you, no one even though to look to federal government to solve the problem. They were just a small group of people who managed relations with other countries, defined a universal currency, and managed federal laws (and there were not that many of them). Hell, we didn’t even have income tax until 1913 (and then it was 1-3%).

Now if anything happens, and I mean anything, we look to government to fix it. We have social security in case we get old and have not done what it takes to live past our usefulness. We have welfare in case we don’t want to work. We have healthcare in case we don’t have our own. The government manipulates every aspect of commerce to try and help the poor, and make sure the economy does not enter a recession.

Why do we put all the responsibility in the hands of government?

Cut the crap about it not being government, and if that's how you're going to argue this, I'm not even going to bother responding. It's the same old shtick over and over.

I don't think any of you quite realize the vast gap between our own capabilities and the capabilities of other nations. To take your idea of fragility to the logical extension, there is no-one who has the military-economic capability to take us out. Except Russia, i suppose, but i presume that some form of MAD is still in effect,

And given the current prevailing patterns, it will be a long time before any country, anywhere, can truly be destroyed. The strong incentive towards the global status quo is going to keep things on the current path

This is a complicated subject, but I think that after the economy starts recovering the big problem USA faces (and other countries, but especially USA) will be oil prices.

USA's infrastructure in most places relies on cheap oil which won't be available when economies start recovering. The most flagrant example being high usage of cars of course.

We already had a sneak peek of $150 oil and its consequences just before the financial crisis hit, and it wasn't pretty.

You can have a powerful military, but when the economy to support it relies on something that won't be available (cheap oil) that doesn't look sustainable to me.

There is one country that has the power to destroy the US, and that’s the US.

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide. - John Adams, Letter, April 15, 1814

This I believe too. While the economic growth won't be record high in the first couple of years after the recession, the oil prices probably will.

I can't put words on it, but I have a gut feeling there's some kind of dynamic in it, NJ5 u probably know if historical data supports the notion that oil price gets unproportunately high right after a recession going into a period of growth.
(I'd guess one of the reasons being that OPEC and oil oligarks want to make up for lost profits, then there's a lot of psychology built into it, investor & stock market optimism & behaviours etc)

At some point within 5 years I bet it will peak at $250.