Well you have gotta to pay somehow for consuming and producing nothing.

You have to sell something until you have nothing and have to go back to work. Kind of reversible mortgage. Then it is death or start doing something again.
Again it is all economics. For example rising fuel costs make it more expensive to transport things. This lead to about 10% increase in manufacturing of steel in North America and reduction of imports. I guess it is not that big hit for Chinese as their domestic market growth can consume whatever they could not export, but definitely means inflationary pressures here. Economy is a complex thing. We are in process of smoothening out differences in economic wealth between regions.
As for the empires they rise and fall. I think the US has been going wrong way especially in the last 8 years and moving away from its founding principles which made the country successful and admired in the entire world. It is also good to remember that once you give away one of the freedoms and rights yo ur are not likely to see it back. I believe it is wrong to sacrifice these fundamental basics for the sake of handling temporary problems.