Prophets of doom have always taken risks in terms of ridicule and humiliation. If you stand on a street corner holding up a sign that reads "The End Is Near," passersby will laugh and heckle. People will say you're like Chicken Little, running around telling people the sky is falling.

Yet after an economic crash like the subprime-induced one we're experiencing now, people always say, "Why didn't someone warn us?" or "What's the government doing to save us?"

Well, in May, the government will reward the kind of greed and ignorance that sparked the subprime mess with a $168 billion stimulus package. Instead of heeding the warnings of the markets, the incompetent and irresponsible get bonus checks. Small wonder the country has money problems.

Ignored Warning

As for "the end is near" proclamations, the Jan. 11, 2008, U.S. edition of the Financial Times published one of the biggest ones I've ever seen. Next to a photo of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the front-page headline read, "U.S.'s Triple-A Credit Rating Under Threat."

Unfortunately, not many people paid attention to it. I doubt that many people even know what it means, or what Moody's is, or why their warning is important. In overly simplified terms, Moody's was saying that the United States may soon become a subprime nation.

That is, the world markets will no longer recognize us as a financially responsible country, and we won't be able to maintain our financial and economic supremacy. In short, the end really is near -- from Moody's perspective, it's less than 10 years away.

The Empire in Decline

Worse, none of the leading presidential candidates even mentions this potential downgrading of credit worthiness as a problem. While I think it's noble that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaign for universal health care, I've never heard either of them mention the fact that we can't afford the health care we already have.

Do I think John McCain (or, in a long-shot, Mike Huckabee) would do a better job than the Democrats? No. I have no confidence in either party or the current processes of government to tackle this issue. The problems of health care and Social Security have grown too big and are clearly beyond our control.

All empires come to an end, and the American one is no exception. We've fought too many foreign wars, swept too many domestic problems under the rug, and paid for our greedy consumption with money borrowed from too many countries around the world. The end isn't just near, it's inevitable.

conitued on part 2