What is MUN?
What is MUN? Go to 4-5 conferences every year. We are looking to become more of a discussion-based group about international studies and international policies.
Professor Moore: Is the United States in Decline?
This recession only just eclipsed the last, 1980-1983.
Events: September 11th, Iraq and Afghanistan
Housing market bubble burst in 2009
No generation since the 1930s has had to deal with this: The job or the career path in the United States may not be better than it was for previous generations. That being true, this is also the most internationalized generation.
Since 1973, we have had wage stagnation. The top five percent of wage earners has gotten richer and richer, and everybody else has stagnated or gotten worse.
One issue is healthcare. Other developed international democracies have developed competent healthcare systems, which lowers costs. Cheaper to make autos in Canada because of the established health care system.
Despite a large amount of work, we haven’t been investing in it, which is a problem. Today, the U.S. is dead last in developed countries for income mobility. If you are poor, it is easier to increase your income in France or Germany or Canada than here. Mobility is decreasing. Risk is sociopolitical deadlock. We are seeing backlashes against immigrants.
The number of legal immigrants is no greater today than 1980, accounting for population growth. Backlash in the U.S. is in Atlanta, places that are not used to melting pots.
Illegal immigration is a positive because we’re growing. Germany isn’t growing. Italy isn’t growing. The U.S. is growing. We have higher education. Optimists point to those areas.
Caveat is that the decline started in 1970s. We’ve been in combat for a long time. Korea, etc. Iraq cost $800 billion.
In 1948, Mr. X wrote an article in Foreign Affairs saying that the U.S. should contain the Soviet Union in important areas. One of the arguments for the decline of American power is that we’ve been involved in wars that didn’t benefit us. Mr. X believed that we should only contain the Soviet Union in areas where it was important. Places like Canada and our borders. That piece got lost.
How other countries view the U.S. had decline precipitously. The closer we are to other countries, the less they like us. Thus, the weaker our soft power gets. Example: Turkey. Was a strong ally, sent units to Korea. Today, opinion has declined across classes.
China’s backyard is not like ours. The U.S. could run around Latin America and do whatever it wanted, but China has Japan and the tigers.
Bush administration charted a very clear path for U.S. power. Wanted the U.S. to be the indispensable power.
China, Brazil, and India
China is trying to grow its influence, notably in Africa. Paying for natural resources.
American Dream
The U.S. is no longer the ideal destination. People in India willing to stay put. H1B Visas – harming legal immigrants by taxing them to secure Mexican border.
Americans don’t believe that we should have to make sacrifices. Don’t want to pay taxes, but do want education and law enforcement and we aren’t adapting – repetitive histories in auto manufacturing. Oil embargo lead to small cars, then the ’90s gave us the SUV, then the oil industry went thru another collapse, etc.
American unemployment has previously been fluid. Now it is getting locked into a particular demographic: low income, minority, urban. Not going in and out of jobs, just staying out of jobs.
Need to fix education. Payout from college education has doubled in the last forty years.
Lack of information. Not seeing data that shows a pattern. Lots of volatility.
