Comments on Répondent

And both, as an expression of the body politic, have faults and limitations imposed by human fraility.

however you want to slice it, they both need to die...

i actually followed that.

it's not nice to wank in public, charles.

Charles,

Please ignore @4 - hater.

not to worry, cwm@5, charles is quite adept at ignoring his detractors. i kind of grudgingly admire that about him.

I hope there are oil fields in heaven.

When comparing the decline of the American empire with emerging markets one can think of it in terms of classical economic theory.

Means of production in the classical economic theory are:

Capital (characterized by return on investment)
Labor (characterized by wages and pension)
Technology (characterized by technology lifecycle and R&D expenditure)

For an economy at the early stages of capitalism, cost of capital is wildly high. That is why, in most emerging markets, real interest rate (interest rate - inflation) is typically high. At the same time, return to labor, characterized by wages, is typically much lower than developed markets. Technology, on the other hand, is most of the time "stolen", in the sense that an outdated, labor-intensive and cheaper technology is employed and almost no technological breakthrough happens.

In contrast, for an economy in the late stages of advanced capitalism, cost of capital is low thanks to the abundant capital stock accumulated over the earlier stages of capitalism. Wages are typically high thanks to automation and lack of slack in the labor market. Technology, shielded by intellectual property laws, is constantly improved and adapted.

It is worth to note that in a hypotethical economy where real interest rate (the return to capital) is zero, communism prevails. In such an economy, you can only create value by "consuming labor" or "producing technology". Capital is definitely necessary but the marginal utility of capital is zero.

Anyway...

The marginal utility of Cheney is rapidly approaching zero.