Hartmann doesn't read history very well.

It started with the Military Industrial complex under Ike.

That's where the playbook would be written and refined for the other industries.

If Americans were on top of it, they'd understand:

1. $36 trillion in debt.
2. Borrowing $1 trillion every 100 days.
3. 45,000 people short in the military.
4. Cities are full of crime.
5. Arresting in kangaroo courts political lawyers and candidates.
6. China has an agenda to emasculate the United States.
7. China is building nuclear weapons and ships faster than we are.
8. China has nearly five times the population of the United States."

That would be a realistic assessment, but that's not what Americans say.

Instead, they say "We're the United States, wealthiest in the world, we aren't as bad as everybody else, the debt doesn't matter, our values are better than everyone else."

The decline will be self inflicted, and it will be terminal.