As it declines into homicidal and fraticidal dementia, the US Corporatist Empire is still #1.

[ConsAreLiars]

In a few ways, if not many that we serfs would benefit from.

The only "goods" that get exported significantly more than imported is killing machinery.

In 2008, according to an authoritative report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), $55.2 billion in weapons deals were concluded worldwide. Of that total, the United States was responsible for $37.8 billion in weapons sales agreements, or 68.4% of the total “trade.” Some of these agreements were long-term ones and did not result in 2008 deliveries of weapons systems, but these latest figures are a good gauge of the global appetite for weapons. It doesn’t take a PhD in economics to recognize that, when one nation accounts for nearly 70% of weapons sales, the term “global arms trade” doesn’t quite cut it.

Consider the “competition” and reality comes into focus. Take a guess on which country is the number two weapons exporter on the planet: China? Russia? No, Italy, with a relatively paltry $3.7 billion in agreements with other countries or just 9% of the U.S. market share. Russia, that former Cold War superpower in the “trade,” was close behind Italy, with only $3.5 billion in arms agreements.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175207/tomgram:_frida_berrigan,_pimping_weapons_to_the_world/

The only jobs reliably hiring even felons are for those desperate enough to murder and be murdered for the overlords they don't even know exist.

A system based on terrorizing, slaughtering, and the accumulation of even greater wealth for the very few by means of increasing the poverty and butchering of the those the regard as their insignificant inferiors.

[Double T]

1. Yep. Still the #1 Debt and Deficit nation on earth.

Nothing like climbing and clawing our way to the bottom.