An irritated American living in London.

Americans are often frustrated when they live abroad they have to deal with sniping foreigners who too often like to take what America offers in terms of products and would love to live there but spend inordinate amounts of time criticising it.

We are all instinctively jealous of the largest and most successful and part of us always would like to see them brought down a peg or two. This becomes tiring for those who find they are continually defending it and feel much of the criticism is unfair and unbalanced. If you come from Greenland this is not a problem you have to suffer, however, you also don’t get the joy of watching your Olympic team win a multitude of golds. Undoubtedly as Europeans we have much to be grateful for from the USA, following the UK experience in many ways some of its greatest atrocities and meddling have been on its own doorstep.

Sniping about the USA or defending its direction seems to ignore fundamentals. We are always full of hyperbole and at the moment there is more than enough of it. The Economist this week had a wonderful picture, focusing on the colour red which made me smile saying that the world is on the edge. Well let’s be clear, life may be rare in this universe but it has endured for millions of years and will endure so the world is not on the edge.

This economic crisis may lead to something worse but at the moment life is continuing in many parts of the world. The greatest risk to this planet and life on it is the continuing expansion of the human population and the demands it places on our ecosystem and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

People who criticise end of world theories or espouse seem to ignore truisms. The world will ultimately end and humans will probably follow the way of other creatures and become extinct. As far as I can see it one of greatest advantages we have is being long lived. This is a massive advantage for so many obvious reasons, primarily all based around stored knowledge and skills development, however, there may come a time when this is not such a distinct advantage. Perhaps following nuclear war a shorter life cycle may prove advantageous when a premium is put on rapid evolution.

In fact most life is predictable if we extend the time frames enough. The trick in life is knowing when things will change, they have a habit of not happening when we expect them. House prices will ultimately drop and fall again, it is true, predicting when is the trick. The world will ultimately end but we need to move away from talking about humans to talk about something deeper to really understand what is happening around us.

So the greatest danger to this world is nuclear weapons and the impact they could have on the planet and history shows us is that technology once developed is ultimately used, and if it has been used once or twice it will be used again. We should not forget this when we look at our short term issues.

So back to my point which is lets look deeper at the USA and what are its advantages based on and are they likely to disappear any time soon?

It has had an expanding population which over the last 200 years has been an advantage as it has meant low cost labour and increased consumption and a continual supply of motivated people working hard to further their lives. Is this likely to change, I really don’t know but this is what we should be looking at.

It has an abundance of key resources as far as I can see which are food, minerals and coal. Are they likely to disappear soon? Will global warming impact them?

It has space lowering the cost of land and the price of building and buying homes, factories and distribution centres.

It dominates its region enabling it to make key decisions secure in its relative geographic isolation.

It has an advanced educational system delivering a large number of educated people ready for a modern economy.

When we discuss the political and social side we should not forget the other fundamentals on which its strength has been based and often shifts in power can be traced to more fundamental underlying shifts when advantages change to disadvantages. It has ever been so on the human, social and animal level that our greatest strengths are often our greatest weaknesses depending on the situation.

Now regarding its political structure even though a democracy is much more lovable and likable than other systems rising in different parts of the world it shouldn’t stop us from stepping back and looking at the failings and asking whether its system will be successful moving forward. What are its limitations? Short-termism driven by the political cycle, the power and sometimes beauty of the mob.

My personal view is this system I love so much is fundamentally based on bribery. I will make you richer, vote for me and allow me to make a few tough decisions, you will though get richer and so will your children. The financial crisis happened because of collective greed and it was leading to ever increased consumption which people liked but was driven by debt. No one dared tell the people you cannot have it all and always have more. So in a world where continual economic growth and consumption might not be possible may mean the mass bribery which has fuelled the system I love and allows me to read, write like this may be unsustainable.

So talk of bailouts is short term, interest rate cuts, short term, fundamentally people are going to have to spend less, consume less, save more. Life is going to be tougher will you vote for me? That is the truth but it doesn’t get votes.

One final point Malthus or some of Malthus analysis was undoubtedly right he just succumbed to the Marx failing of prediction. Fundamentally if population expands quicker than food production or the resource exploitation that people expect then there will be potentially be mass starvation riots, civil disorder etc. We may delay this for centuries with invention but the risk is always there, and at some stage in history perhaps not on a mass scale globally the point will be reached. We have seen it so terribly inflict a number of societies last century.

And finally, yes finally Americans should stop comparing themselves to the old Western European world so much of the future is going East and here you go a prediction after I have talked of so many failures in that area, the great power will be Russia. I could be wrong, and I am basing it on one article about the fact it has become a food exporter. Large land mass, stable population and abundance of vast resources in practically every area and a number of other advantages. I think its time will really come in the next one hundred years.