The United States empire is in tatters and the debt is so high that it will end the empire completely if Trump doesn't do more damage first and accelerate the plunge further.

In EVs and battery technology the United States has fallen way behind. We seem to be convinced - by the billionaire nerd class - that AI will be our savior, and have dumped TRILLIONS of dollars into the effort. The truth is we won't 'win' there either. We have sacrificed the American spirit for pseudo-everything. Pseudo-machismo, Pseudo-toughness, Pseudo-intellectuals, Pseudo-journalism... all of it in service of an 80-year old embarrassment of a human being (term applied VERY loosely).

The videos and exposes detailing life in parts of China look like well made propaganda for sure. And there are massive human rights abuses there (as there are hear with ICE and Trump run amok), but on balance, the 21st century is clearly the decline and fall of the American Empire, we will never again attain such heights or power and simultaneously, the ascendency of China into the power vacuum we are leaving behind.

Reagan cut taxes and raised spending to make up for it.

“W" took the “Clinton Surplus” (which mostly was going to build up the Social Security Trust Fund for when the “Boomers” retired) but was projected to pay off the debt by 2012 and gave half of it away in tax cuts.

“W” implied that Social Security was in the hole, and used that supposed mismanagement of Social Security to justify cutting the income to save Social Security. Then, he took us into 2 simultaneous wars (not entirely his fault) but did not let the expense of those wars stand in the way of his tax cuts (entirely his fault.)

His father (in large part) lost his bid for reelection because he was more fiscally responsible than Reagan (he famously failed to keep his pledge, “Read my lips. No new taxes.”) “W.” ignored that, and acted like the problem was that his father had chosen not to invade Baghdad during “The Gulf War.". During the 2000 campaign “W” told people he wanted to go to war with Iraq, and, somehow, when al-Qaeda attacked us, he looked for revenge in Iraq.

The Orange Faced Man in the White House gave away even more money in tax cuts in his first term, and is now following it up with more.

Boosted by rising interest rates, in fiscal year 2025 ≥ 1.2 Trillion Dollars went to “interest Expense” on the National Debt.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/interest-expense-avg-interest-rates/

Where did we get the money from? Essentially, we borrowed it. (“Compound interest” is a bitch when it’s going against you.)

Where did it go to? People who purchase “Treasury Securities.” Who purchases “Treasury Securities?” Well, I can tell you this much, it’s not the poor.

So, the rich are paying less in taxes, allowing them to invest more in “Treasury Securities,” essentially loaning the federal government money they should have paid to the federal government. (Nice racket.)

...under construction. They have more coal power plants than the next 20 nations combined.

Electricity is a thermodynamically degraded form of energy. A Rankine coal plant has roughly a 33% energy efficiency, dependent on ambient temperatures.

Anyone cheering for electrification in China is cheering for additional driving of the ongoing collapse of the planetary atmosphere. In fact they are cheering for coal.

Electrolytic hydrogen which also gets cheering here in reference to China induces a further thermodyamic penalty, as does charging a battery.

My son spent a summer in China and saw more electrical vehicles than anywhere else. However they are dirty vehicles.

China, according to the Electricity Map has a 12 month carbon intensity for its electricity of 485 grams of CO₂/kWh as of this writing.

This is even worse than that of Germany's 343 grams of CO₂/kWh to speak of another coal dependent hell.

France, with a carbon intensity of 31 grams of CO₂ could conceivably "electrify everything" cleanly. China can't and shouldn't unless they can build more than 1000 nuclear plants and do what France did and eliminate coal based power. They are building nuclear plants faster than anyone on Earth, but still not as fast as they are building coal plants.

In China from first concrete to grid connection a nuclear plant is taking about five years and they recently announced they have infrastructure to build 50 at a time. That still puts them 25 years away from clean electricity by eliminating coal. It is, however not enough and thus, in China, for now, "electrify everything" is premature and a recipe for furthering the climate disaster now clearly underway.

Just because the collapse of the United States has made them the world's remaining super power, does not mean we are required to applaud. Super powers, as we know from our own history, if we look in the mirror, easily can make mistakes that the rest of the world can ill afford.

A new coal plant would be slightly more efficient than a legacy nuclear plant. (It’s not the efficiency that’s the problem, it’s the emissions.)

IEA - World Energy Outlook 2025 - China