Is the Sky Falling?

[marmar]

from truthdig:


Is the Sky Falling?

Posted on Jun 20, 2013
By Richard Reeves


LOS ANGELES—If you walk into a Barnes & Noble store—yes, there are actual bookstores here—you are more or less surrounded by tables and shelves marked “Beach Reading.” But if you’re not going to the beach anytime soon, there are three very good books farther in the back. The titles are enough to make your head hurt:

—“The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America” by George Packer.

—“The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die” by Niall Ferguson.

—“The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being in Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be” by Moises Naim.

Heavy stuff. Three heavyweight writers concluding that America is in slow and inevitable decline. Or, at least they explain why someone like Edward Snowden can have more power than the director of the Central Intelligence Agency or the president of Brazil, or why a 12-year-old named James Black Jr. from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn can defeat many of the best chess players in the world. And no, it isn’t just the Internet. Technology is just a tool to these guys, and they see deep and powerful tides changing people and, therefore, changing the world. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_the_sky_falling_20130620/

[Warpy]

1. It's only sagging a bit

It won't fall completely until the derivatives casino finally implodes.

[marmar]

2. True that.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. I jus thave to add Morris Berman to the short list of books, above.

Chris Hedge quotes Berman often.

(2000). The Twilight of American Culture.

(2006). Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire.

(2011). Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline.

[GeorgeGist]

4. Ferguson is a phuckturd.

[pscot]

5. Link, please