Many Americans have resisted the notion that their country is an imperial power.
The idea seems to contradict the values of the Republic and its Founding Fathers.
But in Empire of Debt, prominent financial analysts Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin
argue passionately that not only is the United States an empire, but it is also one
whose end is coming soon. Bonner and Wiggin are the brains behind
www.dailyreckoning.com, an iconoclastic and irreverent market advisory service that
has long raised concerns about American indebtedness and warned of a looming dollar
crisis. In Empire of Debt, a sequel to their earlier doom-and-gloom book Financial
Reckoning Day, they elaborate on their argument that the U.S. economy is about to
implode.

Bonner and Wiggin enumerate a long list of chronic ailments that imperil the
American financial system--a massive trade deficit, soaring personal and government
debt, a housing bubble, runaway military expenditures. These problems "hardly disturb
the sleep of the imperial race," the authors write. "[But] all empires must pass away."
Bonner and Wiggin argue that American imperial delusions are similar to the fantasies
that fueled the dot-com market mania. They recommend readers buy gold as insurance in
the event of a financial crisis. Empire of Debt flounders when discussing how America
indebted itself; the authors blame the Federal Reserve Board's low interest rates but
gloss over the fact that rates were slashed because the U.S. teetered on the brink of
deflation in 2002 and 2003 (a topic they give more attention to in Financial Reckoning
Day). As hardcore free-marketeers, Bonner and Wiggin also seem to long for the pre-
welfare days of the 1920s but forget how that period's policies led to the Great
Depression. That said, Empire of Debt contains many revelations that will open eyes.

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