The Rise and Fall of America (w/ poll)

Rome grew from a small agricultural settlement on Italian hills to a world superpower through expansion, military conquest, economic dominance and political assimilation.  It lasted for over 1200 years and evolved from a city-state kingdom, to a democratic republic, to an autocratic empire. Rome's culture and self identity was molded and inspired by the older culture of Ancient Greece.

America has grown from small agricultural settlements along the North American eastern seaboard to a world superpower through expansion, military conquest, economic dominance and political assimilation.  It has lasted 400 years since the Virginia and Massachusetts colonies and has evolved into a vast continent-stretching republic.  America's culture and self identity has been molded and inspired by the older culture of Great Britain.

United States would strike many Romans as familiar terrain. America's mythologising of its past - its casting of founding fathers Washington and Jefferson as heroic titans, its folk-tale rendering of the Boston Tea Party and the war of independence - is very Roman. That empire, too, felt the need to create a mythic past, starred with heroes. For them it was Aeneas and the founding of Rome, but the urge was the same: to show that the great nation was no accident, but the fruit of manifest destiny.

And America shares Rome's conviction that it is on a mission sanctioned from on high. Augustus declared himself the son of a god, raising a statue to his adoptive father Julius Caesar on a podium alongside Mars and Venus. The US dollar bill bears the words "In God we trust" and US politicians always like to end their speeches with "God bless America."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/...

The United States of America is very much like Ancient Rome and may share its fate.  I fear that the tipping point has been reached and we are now watching the Fall.

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".

http://www.ft.com/...

We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families.

http://www.independent.co.uk/...

Stocks slumped on Friday after surprisingly weak earnings from General Electric Co and data showing consumer sentiment at a 26-year low fed fears the economy is in recession.

http://news.yahoo.com/...

Gas and diesel pump prices jumped to yet another record Friday, piling on the costs for motorists as well as consumers reliant on trucks, trains and ships that deliver goods to market.

http://news.yahoo.com/...

The end of the American dream?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/...