The US is in the late stage of the same decline that ended the British Empire, which is bad news for anyone assuming American dominance is permanent.

• Britain's turn as the world's top power ran from 1846, when it dropped its grain tariffs and embraced free trade, to 1931.
• What killed it was de-industrialization: factories closed and manufacturing moved abroad, and global leadership passed to the US.
• The US started down the same road in 1971, when it moved away from a hard-money system.
• Empires tend to financialize — building stock markets and financial products instead of making things — and that shift creates the incentives that end them.

Outlook: If the pattern holds, the US keeps drifting from making things toward trading paper, and another country inherits the top spot.