The ridiculous thing is that there's no reason America has to be in decline right now except hubris. The idea that military superiority is the end-all-be-all of power, the idea that every American deserves to be richer than than the average Chinese, etc. We still have amazing natural resources and an amazing entrepreneurial can-do cultural attitude.

The problem is too many resources devoted to skimming the cream at the top of the economy, decade after decade of ill-advised military waste, too much easy money in finance, too gullible of a pacified electorate ready and willing to vote against their interests at the siren song of two parties who claim to represent their values, but spend 95% of their time fundraising and earning it from the private interests who expect their ear.

If as a country we got back to the basics of hard work and innovation and spent less time hand-wringing over our safety and global dominance, and making sure that the GDP is growing at all costs, then I think we'd be well positioned for the coming centuries of increased parity between countries. Insistence that we have to maintain the post-WWII imbalance that America enjoyed due entirely to a accidental confluence of events is foolhardy and will lead to bad decisions.