[paulpauper]

This is why all of these people who are always predicting collapse or crisis keep getting it wrong...the collapse if and when it happens, will not hit the US first...it is other countries instead like the UK, Lebanon, TUrkey, etc. Yes, the US has problems, but we see over and over that elsewhere has worse problems. Even the UK (inflation), Germany (inflation, dependence on Russian nat. gas), Japan (a recent assassination, bad demographics). The US dollar hit yet another high yesterday.

[badpun]

Yep, exactly. The US is nowadays Rome, and the Western world is its modern Roman empire. When the actual (Western) Roman empire fell into decline, Rome (the city) was hit last in terms of decline in standards of living. It's the peripheries which got cut off first.