Decline And Fall Of The American Empire

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Empire
Definition: an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress.

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Going by the strict definition, the USA has never been an empire. In fact, it was founded as part of a revolution against an existing empire. Namely, the British Empire.The USA is a powerful country and we'd all be lying if we said it didn't flex its muscle from time to time to get what it wants. But that is a far cry from conquering and subjugating other states/countries. Not to mention we have a democracy which means there isn't any Emperor or Empress running things. Although Trump may disagree. Incidentally, even when empires 'fall', it doesn't necessarily mean they wink out of existence. The Roman empire fell. Yet Italy still exists. The Macedonian Empire under Alexander the Great fell. Yet Greece still exists. Britain, Spain, France, Turkey, Mongolian. All had empires. Yet all the core countries are still intact and for the most part, are still prosperous.

True. An empire 'falling' can lead to a decreased standard of living. But it rarely actually results in a complete collapse.There are exceptions. The Aztec and Mayan empires seemed to have had severe collapses associated with them. The former was the result of the Spanish conquest but the latter occurred on its own and is still somewhat disputed with regards to the cause. Although my guess is if your TGIF involves cutting out people's hearts and kicking their severed heads down your pyramid steps, that will likely not bode well for your long term future.

Social Security will be 'solvent' per se. However, the system will not be able to pay expected benefits downstream due to the large number of boomers who will draw down on the current surplus.As a Gen Xer, I've been told that when I am at the age of retirement, I will likely be getting 75-80% of what my expected benefits were supposed to be. This stems from the fact that social security is paid to the previous generation by the current generation. Being that population demographics will shift towards being older as the boomers retire, that will mean insufficient income from taxes to compensate for the larger number of retired people.To note, I have always planned my retirement under the notion that I will not have any social security. That is a worst case scenario. But as an engineer, I've always believed in the old adage that it is better to hope for the best but plan for the worst.This brief article from CNN talks about this a little:Will Social Security still exist when I retire? - Ultimate Guide to Retirement

You'll get no argument form me. I am an immigrant to the USA.The whole anti-immigration stance by some on the far right is just a giant red herring. The USA has been built on immigration and some of the best and brightest of our citizens have roots from other countries. Although note that most of the anti-immigration stances seem to be relegated to those of Hispanic or Arab descent. Right-wingers don't seem to have too many problems with white immigrants from Europe.As you said, there does need to be a job here. How the labor market will look like in 30-40 years is anyone's guess. The bigger issue is how automation is going to change what types of jobs are available. That was the big lie told to those in the rust belt by the likes of Trump. That their jobs were taken over by immigrants or shipped over seas. While some of that has occurred, something like 80% of the jobs that disappeared were due to automation.By the way, for you sci fi buffs, the TV show The Expanse has this a plot point. In the future, Earth is over-populated (30 billion or so) and the majority of people don't work. They are on some form of government assistance. And the main culprit was automation.

True. However, the Republicans are pretty intransigent in that regard. Anytime raising taxes is on the table, the idea is thoroughly rebuffed. And we have a population that doesn't seem to understand the concept of positive cash flow. They are continuously parroting 'trickle down economics' and other nonsense that has been touted for years. They want all their benefits but they don't want a raise in taxes. It is a disconnect of logic and unfortunately, my guess is it will be too little too late for an adequate fix to occur.To be fair, while we are sounding somewhat 'doom and gloom', as others have alluded to, other countries are in far more dire straights than the USA. Germany and Japan have much larger shifts in age demographics over the next few decades. And that is nothing to say of China. They have been on the one child policy for decades and have only undone that recently. But that sort of mandate pretty much guarantees that they will have a huge burden of an aged and aging population relative to the younger population. Not to mention they are not exactly a sought after location for migration.