(2010-12-20) Orlov Guest Peak Empire

Dmitry Orlov's guest Gary aims to predict the timing of the Collapse of the US Empire (Peak Oil leading to Peak Empire). As the recently deceased analyst Chalmers Johnson explained, the US is an “empire of bases”, not an empire of colonies... Looking at US military spending below, it has continued to rise, despite the recent decline in acreage under management. This is entirely consistent with JosephTainter’s theory of declining marginal utility to expanding empires, as imperial overstretch becomes more and more expensive, and returns to expenditures begins to decline, and even become negative. It would be entirely consistent for the expenditures to continue to rise as the empire attempts to hold onto its existing level of military acreage, until interest on the debt causes a default, and then expenditures also collapse.