The continent will be there but what we currently call the United States as defined by the US Constitution will soon be bankrupt and sold off or taken over by some new regime.
Considering the US debt is $20 trillion with over $100 trillion in unfunded laibilities. The interest on that debt is soon climbing from the 6th largest to the 5th largest spending item close behind welfare and soon to be more than military spending, there is not much the US can do. And they have to borrow money to pay the interest.
When your country's revenue is mainly going to pay the interest on the loans for things you paid for in the past, no amount of shuffling the chairs or budget proposals or tax changes can put you back on the right track.
What happens when the interest on the debt is 90% of the budget? Are people still going to squabble about how much money should go toward food stamps?
Considering the US debt is $20 trillion with over $100 trillion in unfunded laibilities. The interest on that debt is soon climbing from the 6th largest to the 5th largest spending item close behind welfare and soon to be more than military spending, there is not much the US can do. And they have to borrow money to pay the interest.
When your country's revenue is mainly going to pay the interest on the loans for things you paid for in the past, no amount of shuffling the chairs or budget proposals or tax changes can put you back on the right track.
What happens when the interest on the debt is 90% of the budget? Are people still going to squabble about how much money should go toward food stamps?
Money can always be adjusted, printed, re-financed.
Infrastructure makes the nation as it stands today. I'm not saying that the United States won't go through a dramatic transformation but I wouldn't be surprised if the empire outlives you and I. If by some long-shot the country known as "The United States" came to an end, it will be assuredly replaced with a coalition of nearly identical nation-states utilizing existing infrastructure across the same territory. We can give Missouri to China or something though.