US Economics and Theory of Collapse

Note: Italics comments by another
 Unless they (US) fall hopelessly behind in tech, they are ‘built’ to perpetually retain a competitive shot.

I think you have not looked at the grim economic statistics

Off the top of my head

Debt: 30+ Trillion
Interest on Debt: Trillion
Budget Deficit: 1.8 Trillion (2024)
Trade Deficit: 140.5 billion (Too much imported)
Defense Budget: 1 Trillion

Moody just downgraded US debt from to Aa1 from Aaa.

They had to, could not ignore as USA sovereign CDS (Credit Default Swaps) were trading wider than China and Greece. i.e. US debt default more likely than China and Greece

I wouldn’t go that far. USA has inherent geographic advantages that almost assure competitiveness. Energy, food, water independence are non-trivial advantages._

A big YES and agreed

However, the US has dug itself a huge economic hole among other debilitating factors.
However, to get out of the hole they need

a) Austerity (reduce imports and pay down debt)
b) Reduce defense Budget
c) Invest in Manufacture and Self Sufficiency

To do above needs a complete system change and political suicide in the current system.

A little bit of theory from Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph A. Tainter

Tainter logically builds his case that the “Law Of Diminishing Returns” is the root cause of collapse since this law grows more and more impactful as societies increase in complexity to support growing populations. Eventually this cost burden becomes so great and the returns so small that the society collapses. I totally agree with the case he makes that as civilizations are driven toward ever more complexity to support an ever growing population the law of diminishing returns rears its ugly head ever more higher. Even maintenance of existing infrastructure eventually succumbs to this law.

Examples from reviews in Good Reads
Similar to economic law of marginal product and average product–
eventually, increased investment into sociopolitical complexity
becomes costly and unprofitable.

Main concepts are: 
1) human societies are problem­ solving organizations, 
2) sociopolitical systems need energy to maintain themselves, 
3) increased complexity →increased costs per capita, 
4) investment in sociopolitical complexity as problem­ solving response often reaches point of declining marginal returns.

Example Information processing

Declining returns into investment in R&D, with patent applications per capita and per technical worker in USA falling fast from 1870 to 1950, because of

a) declining productivity of inventing,
b) decline in proportion of patentable inventions,
c) decline in propensity to patent.

More technical workers, patents about constant per year, 
spending on R&D up from 0.1% of GDP in 1900 to 2.6% in 1960. Medicine: 1930, 3.3%
on health for 59.7 years; 1982, 10.5% for 74.5, today, 16% for 78.

Between 1870 and 1960, proportion of 18­21 year olds in US in higher education 1.7% → 33.5%; from 0.26% of GDP in 1900 to 1.23% in 1960; #of students per faculty from 12.8 in 1900 to 9.5 in 1958, longer and more specialized courses – but “learning that occurs yields decreased general benefits for greater costs” (most learning is during infancy).

(PS. Korotayev insight that key is 4 years and literacy – makes industrial workforce). Decreasing average and marginal returns as those now educated are closer to center of IQ bell curve.

Explaining declining marginal rates in Science
“Planck's Principle of Increasing Effort” ­ “with every advance [in science] the difficulty of the task is increased”, can no longer make discoveries by peering into homemade microscopes of flying a kite in a thunderstorm. (PS. AI, IT, cellular automata). 
“
Exponential growth in size and costliness of science, in fact, is necessary simply to maintain a constant rate of progress”. Rescher: “In natural science we are involved in a technological arms race: with every 'victory over nature' the difficulty of achieving the breakthroughs which lie ahead is increased


Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph A. Tainter
https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X/