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On the Pensioning of Roman Veterans
Part II of a multi-part series on the global rise of Farcism. Part I, "The Silver Curtain" can be viewed here.
As a profession, divining the intentions of third parties has a long and somewhat ignominious history. One need but train the dim spotlight of memory on the personages of Grigori Rasputin, Arthur Neville Chamberlain, the Iranian Desk at the Central Intelligence Agency in 1978 and those Jewish voters in the United States who cast their ballots for the current administration to come to the conclusion that such predictions can be dangerous- and for more than the just the prognosticators. Against this backdrop- or perhaps even despite it- it may well be constructive to project the potential consequences implied by a somewhat hyperventilating article by Marie Woolf and Jonathan Oliver that appeared on the Times Online website today, dramatically entitled "Labour Hid 'Scorched Earth' Debts With Billions." Sayth Woolf and Oliver:
Billions of pounds in public money was committed in the run-up to the [British] election campaign in a deliberate strategy to boost Labour’s chances at the ballot box and sabotage the next government.
One former Labour minister told The Sunday Times: “There was collusion between ministers and civil servants to get as many contracts signed off as possible before the election was called.”
One former adviser to the schools department said there was a deliberate policy of “scorched earth”. “The atmosphere was ‘pull up all the railways, burn the grain stores, leave nothing for the Tories’,” he added.
Putting aside for a moment the Churchillian tone of the Times' declarations, they outline some very interesting implications for the study of Farcism as a political strategy. One is tempted to invoke a quote often (and apparently erroneously) attributed to Alexander Tytler:1
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
As it turns out, this is hardly the worst of it. It would appear that a sort of "poison pill" for austerity can be planted by a departing party sufficiently dedicated to purchasing the good will of the electorate with a structured program of profligate spending on social programs. Properly laid, the financial satchel charges placed by professional political sappers may well assure that an incoming leadership with aspirations to fiscal responsibility will be greeted with, not just displeasure, but violent opposition. (See e.g., Greece). More concerning, there may literally be no way out of a dangerous fiscal path with a sufficiently tainted budget structure.
Even beginning from less than complete cynicism, as one examines these issues one begins to feel that a deeper stratagem may well underlie what I will call simple "largess leverage" (the buying of votes via federal spending). One further discovers that, far from being novel, the method itself goes back at least as far as (and actually, quite obviously much further than) 146 BC in the form of the "Land Act," cunningly (and, as it happens, fatally) dreamed up by the Roman Tribune-to-be Tiberius Gracchus.
The Land Act proposed to cap the amount of land an individual could own and give away wide swaths of the remainder, generally owned by the wealthiest and oldest families in Rome or (after the death of King Attalus III, who bequeathed his entire and rather extensive kingdom to "the Senate and the People of Rome,") the state, to a long list of veterans of the Roman Legions who found themselves now somewhat idle after the conclusion of the Fourth Macedonian and Third Punic wars.
Of course, permitting a large population of armed, well-trained men with a demonstrated propensity for violence to wander about aimlessly without financial security or some sort of concrete (and less than destructive) personal aspirations to pursue is never a good idea. (See: Iraqi Army). Add a sudden influx to the capital of idle workers formerly expanding the glory of Rome abroad and the consequent unemployment and the matter becomes critical. Even so, a deeper and more complex group of interrelated effects beyond mere unemployment mitigation can be sketched with a bit of gentle analysis.
Creating for one's self a new constituency, indebted to you from the start and, suddenly, newly empowered as landholders, is never a bad idea. To the extent one can give these new constituents a deeper, and more permanent voice in politics, one has created a near permanent power base that is likely to endure even beyond the government that created it.
The prospect of the Act so horrified the Roman aristocracy along with the older elements of the Senate (a Venn diagram of these two bodies would actually still overlap significantly in this time) that the Senators took up arms and killed Tiberius along with a few hundred of his followers in broad daylight in the middle of the forum.
Admittedly, Tiberius was not an entirely innocent victim here. His very public murder followed some rather dubious political maneuvering both personally and by his supporters, including the forcible abduction of a Tribune mid-speech from behind no less a pulpit than the Senate podium before he could utter the word that would have killed the Land Act (that word, of course, was "Veto"). He also stood, somewhat unprecedentedly at the time, for a second term as Tribune. The Senate was not amused.
Several scholars focused on this period in Roman history mark this abduction as the first act of violence that sparked the beginning of the fall of the Roman Republic and describe it as one link in the chain that eventually permitted Gaius Julius Caesar to assume power.
Interestingly, it was Caesar's acquisition of censorial powers that permitted him to pack the Senate with cronies and further dilute its power, before, when that was not quite enough, simply and overtly expanding the Senate's size to almost totally thin the influence of the aristocracy on the body. As with Tiberius, these acts so enraged certain elements of the Senate as to, once again, inspire a dramatically public and bloody assassination. One is almost reminded of the sorts of redistricting wars that occasionally dominate American politics, or the urge of the Executive Branch to control (as it now appears to) the Census. (Though, for good or for ill, knifings on the floor of the Senate are somewhat rarer today).
Without, for the moment, going so far as to assert any sort of deliberate scheme underlying these actions, it will be seen that these strategies (as they are clearly too long-term in their apparent effect to be relegated to the rank of "tactics") have aligned themselves into a keen symbiosis improbably well in recent years. The fact that the United States is now a mere three percentage points away from an electorate defined by a majority that pays no income tax at all is a remarkable development. Likewise, the literally massive expansion of employees on the federal payroll, along with the dramatic inflation of their salaries bears notice. Innumerable examples of similar measures will doubtless readily present themselves to the astute Zero Hedge reader.
Of course, one expects resistance from opposition parties to such overt power shifts in either direction. Blanket immunity and citizenship for immigrants in the United States illegally, for instance, consistently faces dramatic and spirited resistance when proposed. Republicans obviously fear the sudden enfranchisement of some 12 million new voters probably disposed to vote democratic. Efforts as direct as the appointment of Supreme Court Justices see significant scrutiny and attention (actually packing the court no longer seems as viable as it did in 1937). Occasionally, however, there comes along an issue that bears at least casually beneficial prospects for both parties. Enabling widespread home ownership, for example, may create a legion of grateful democrats, or it may create a new group of land owners with newly conservative leanings that might push them to vote republican. It will be noticed that, for more than fifteen years, no one in either party opposed the American Dream of Home Ownership™ with any sort of volume. These, of course, are the most dangerous of largess leverage programs. No one wants to vote against Roman Veterans, after all. There are, suddenly, strong incentives to use any means necessary, no matter how strange or absurd, to concoct any excuse, to weave any political web, to continue to spend, spend, spend and then spend. Farcism defined.
Like taking candy from small children, once installed these entitlements are neigh impossible to revoke. The tantrums likely to confront Britain and the United States may not reach Greek proportions, but one finds it difficult to imagine that the next party to navigate the fiscal event horizon of the federal budget will not be violently sucked in. Consider what it might be like facing the sort of numbers outlined in Edmund Conway's review of the IMF's recent cross-country Fiscal Monitor report:
...note how the US needs a 12pc of GDP chunk chopped out of its structural deficit (ie adjusted for the economic cycle). That’s $1.7 trillion. Wow – that’s not far off Britain’s total annual economic output.
Now imagine that the prior administration systematically concealed large expenditures in byzantine accounting mazes, and as the newly coronated opposition party leverages the well developed human tendency for envy to call for "fairness" and "income equality." "Farcism" almost leaps to the lips.
One of the more elegant critiques to "Starve the Beast" fiscal theory2 is that a reduction in taxes without immediate spending reductions actually makes existing programs and social spending cheaper to the current tax base- which is now paying less to get the same government services. In effect, this is an increase in the degree to which these programs are subsidized for existing taxpayers. This, in turn, makes it actually more difficult to remove or cut these programs politically. This may explain why William Niskanen finds that tax cuts without simultaneous spending cuts generally result in spending increases in the next year.3
Combine with this the fact that highly progressive tax structures, such as that in the United States, tend to reduce the political backlash caused by tax raises, given that these hikes falls predominantly on a small and unsympathetic fraction of the electorate, and it becomes exceedingly difficult to imagine how even the best intentioned, fiscally conservative administration could lower taxes or reduce federal spending. This effect is significantly augmented by increases in the size and scope of federal programs- and the cheaper these are the more impact they have.
Highly progressive tax structures also exacerbate the volatility of tax receipts in times of economic downturn. This has the perverse effect of encouraging tax hikes, which disproportionately impact the small population on the far right side of the income curve, to smooth the volatility. The potential feedback loop boggles the mind.
Taking in the picture of what seems to be an almost politically suicidal path towards spending increases by Congress and the present administration and laying it aside these structural elements of the Federal budget it is just possible to imagine that even the retirement of several prominent democratic legislators and sweep of both houses of Congress by some fictitious fiscally responsible party will have little real effect on the fiscal death spiral that now threatens to grip the United States.
Even a casual exploration of the similarities between the later years of the Roman Republic and the political machinations that destroyed it and led, eventually, to decay and collapse, gives one cause to wonder: Are Farcism's contemporary practitioners simply acting out an inevitable progression of democracies or republics, or are they shrewd students of ancient history?
- 1. The earliest usage appears to date back only to 1951 in a letter to the editor printed in the Daily Oklahoman which attributes it to "...a somewhat obscure Scotsman named Tytler...."
- 2. The prospect that significant tax cuts will force a bloated federal government to shrink in proportion to reduced tax receipts. The term appears to originate with a Wall Street Journal article from 1985.
- 3. Niskanen, W. A., and Van Doren, P. (2004) “Some Intriguing Findings about Federal Spending.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Public Choice Society, Baltimore, March 11–14.
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i've got to know your take on why jews who voted for obama are an example of the ignominious history of the attempt to divine the intentions of third parties. i can offer some guesses but i'd prefer some direction from you before i reply further. thank you.
Do you know any of those formerly loud pundits who were dead certain of it 18 months ago that continue to labor under the fiction that this administration is a friend of Israel?
Marla, check the spelling of 'farcisim', think you meant 'fascism'.
Uh, not exactly.
Would you please clarify then, because F.A.R.C.-ism doesn't exactly make sense to me given the context(?).
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/silver-curtain
I think the coinage is clever.
She defined "farcism" in part one:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/silver-curtain
Thank you both for refreshing my (at times) sieve-like memory.
Sincere, and genuine apology in advance: Plus a disclaimer; I am happily (sorta) married, and get it that I would stand not a chance. It's not about that for real. I love you because of your artful, amazing, insightful, brilliant, rebelious, and fucking sexually screaming because of it self.
You may very well be 50+ and in a wheel chair, but still hot as any attraction (for me) has ever been.
Thank you Marla for sharing your fire and I miss you posting on ZH. Wish you did it more, but based on the lack of respect shown by some, I respect that you might just say fuck it and no longer waste yourself on cretins.
Hope to meet you in heaven.
Yes, I am a bit drunk. But I mean what I say.
The world would be so much better with more people as honest as Marla.
Fucking pisses me off.
yeah fuck you. i don't believe in heaven but i am sure i will recognize you in H E L L, you bastard.
your full of fucking crap, i have no idea what you are doing, really. plus, i am pretty sure you guys all want to suck and blow each other, all the time. not sure what blowing really does, tell me. i know about blowing glass does, elongates, and it works. but not sure about blowing the ugly thing, what does that do? and i mean it, what does blowing really do?
plus lemons have greatly deteriorated in america. this fruit is all skin and all seeds any more. sad. who, who notices, will. they GMOed them so poorly. you get about one teaspoon of juice per lemon, organic or regular. what does zerohedge think about this?
Every presidental candidate is a friend of Israel. What led those loud pundits to expect this was anything different?
On that topic I am trying to remember anything Israel has ever done to demonstrate genuine friendship for the US?
And no, I am not expressing anti-semitism. I have no religious convictions and don't give a shit about anyone else's. This is about the relationship between two sovereign states, nothing more or less.
.....the relationship between two relatively free, mostly enlightenment enspired, prosperous, representative democracies, who are allied against tyranny and for trade and commerce.
There, fixed it for you.
The difference between us? In my fantasy world, I'm surrounded by gorgeous naked women.
hey guess what? since israel has failed to sign onto the nuclear nonproliferation treaty every dime of the over $1 trillion of u.s. taxpayer cash the govt. has so kindly handed over has been an illegal transfer. think we can get a refund?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symington_Amendment
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html
an example of a society flourishing as a result of severely curtailing the activities of its jewish citizens, not coming soon to a history book near you:
http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/history/zionism/news.php?q=12623...
60 million dead christians, where's the holocaust reparations for them?
http://www.rense.com/general86/realholo.htm
their playbook demands that they harm the followers of christ. they truly are of their father the devil, a synagogue of satan.
http://www.talmudunmasked.com/chapter8.htm
http://www.thesynagogueofsatan.com/
http://www.thewatcherfiles.com/jewish_sacrifice.htm
why they voted for obongo:
http://www.realzionistnews.com/?p=407
Dear Marla,
First, thank you for a fabulous article. Second, for the record, almost all of the Jewish voters I know who voted for the Obummer did so with great trepidation and with significant doubts about his commitment to Israel. Very few of those voters have been surprised by his actions since becoming president.
Third, the more important question which remains unasked and unanswered by pundits or anyone else is not whether the Obummer is a friend of Israel, but rather whether he is a friend of the United States.
+ 1
You lost me... Has the war in the middle ended ?. Have we pulled our troops out of Iraq and the kingdom of SaudI Arabia ?.. Have we made nice with the Persians ?. Have we stopped our foreign aid to Israel ?. Have placed them in the axis of evil list for espionage ?. Does Obunghole ignore AIPAC ?. Are people of the Jewish faith no longer disproportionaly represented in the top spots of the administration and fed agencies ?. Is a second Jewish person headed to the SCOTUS ?. Where is the evidence that Obunghole doesn't love the Jewish people or Israel more than any other ?. We're still killing Muslims by the handful every day, aren't we ?.... What is the percentage of Anerican Jewish soldiers dying every day over there ?.
Sorry, not falling for your distraction from the truth.
Bernanke, Orzag, Summers, Rahm, Shapiro, Bair, Kagan, Gensler.... Any Chinese Americans or people named Smith in the administration ?.
Holy shit, Marla... when did all these fucking pundits became a reliable gauge of any kind?! Well, except imbecility, of course...
Here's my take:
I honestly don't believe humans are capable of having a true democracy, period. Democracy is hard... it requires a shitload of work to stay informed, educated, critical thinking, active participation in the affairs of the society... etc. In other words, to work, just like communism, ir requires a type of human that simply doesn't exist. Our Average Joe doesn't have what it takes, sorry. Joe needs breaks,tweets, burgers, beer, football and porn. He doesn't follow C-Span. He doesn't want to know ... as long as he gets his paycheck he'll march along. Joe's a follower and a passive participant, Marla. You can try to glue his eyelids open all you want to make him see the light... it won't work because Joe's retina has a low damage threshold. Looking at our history, isn't it telling that the Dark Ages lasted longer than any democracy? We're ill equiped cowards, Marla... that's all. Perhaps a long time from now we'll do better... but until then... that's who we are. To have democracy, we're forced to work against our own DNA. For now, we're just better suited for Farcism than Democracy.
So, you are giving up? That position simply lacks the testicular fortitude we demand from our space monkeys.
Thanks Marla.
I'm smelling a whiff of defeatism among the comments here and on other threads.
For ten thousand posts advocating audit or abolishment of the Federal Reserve, I don't recall a well argued proposal for real financial reform.
But perhaps I missed it, in which case would you please direct me towards it?
TIA.
No Gromit... it's not about defeatism. It's about knowing who you fight against. The small fight is indeed for financial reform.... but the big one is for a sane society... and this cannot happen without J6P's help.
<sarcasm> We should have democracy. But first we need civil war so we can separate the country into brown parts and white parts, so the brown people don't take all of the white peoples property when they eventually outnumber them and have more votes. Maybe a Republic would be a better form of government. That way there would be a way to avoid the tyranny of the masses. I wish someone had thought of that 230 years ago.</sarcasm>
It just so happens that those who view that less representation "control" given to the masses over the individual in government (authority taken from the will of the people and given to the elected power) call themselves 'Republicans.'
Those who wish to give more power to the will of the majority over the individual refer to themselves as 'Democrats.'
It is not obvious to everyone that less representation for the individual in government is equivalent to more protection from the masses, and should be understood as a bigger step in the 'Republican' direction, with the ultimate step being the Autocrat who has ultimate control over the masses... The other extreme would be a true democracy, each measure voted on by every voter, with each vote equal.
When TSHF, the Republicans will gladly give their money to the tyrant to protect them from the masses.
"When TSHF, the Republicans will gladly give their money to the tyrant to protect them from the masses."
I should rather think that the Republicans' first priority would be to protect themselves from the present ruling elites.
A small mopping up operation, I should guess, once the fat lady sings!
Good luck to all the liberals who think they can mobilize the huge masses of low IQ welfare recipients to protect them, and at the same time use their white skins to hide from the "Republicans". Does anyone think that there is an insufficient number of Madam DeFarges out there taking notes?
Indeed, Republians resorting to Fascism to protect the Republic. It's a old story.
Quite the opposite.... I just wanted to point out that we should buckle up for the long run. Think about Project Mayhem as the war on drugs... just not as futile, more rewarding and definitely more fun.
Marla:
balls for space monkeys!
is that a cloning algorithm or a bovine scatology extrapolation??
"So, you are giving up?"
Okay, good, fine, testicular fortitude should be no contest, I think...
Marla, you should have used the term Zionist, not ethnic Jewish. One Chumba A. Wumba always makes the distinction between Jews and Zionists. Some of the most strident Zionists are evangelicals, rapturists, etc.
The real question is why the statement even needed to be made. To stir up the space monkeys? Ad hits? I just don't get it really.
TPTB thrive on divide and conquer strategy, the lowest version being along racial/ethnic/reliuous lines.
The battle is between conscious humans and the unthinking, not along any other lines.
excellent point. to yours about strident (non-jewish) zionists (see dick cheney, donald rumsfeld and george w. bush) i would note the many anti-israeli settlement/palestinian policy jews (glenn greenwald, noam chomsky, naomi klein and tony judt) as well as formal jewish anti-zionist organizations like neturei karta and satmar.
as far as marla's original point re: jewish voters supporting obama, according to the 2010 survey of american jewish opinion (taken march 2-23, 2010) 55% support obama's policy toward israel and 37% oppose it. her reply to my original question above jumped from jewish voters to loud-mouthed pundits (or similar formation), a harder group to nail down without further definition. who would be the (presumably jewish) pundits who supported obama, with special place given to his policy toward israel, that do not support him now? i'm not the best observer since i see little msm opinion.
imo obama is a captive of the jewish organizations (aipac, etc.) which are far more "likudnic" than the jews as a whole in either the u.s. or israel. certainly the anti-jewish websites like zsidozas count obama as a total tool of the jewish conspiracy (his chief of staff is, after all, not just jewish like w's josh bolton, but a veteran of the actual israeli army).
obama's minor tiff with bibi n., again imo, looked like talk not walk for domestic consumption. he has proposed yet more money for some anti-missile shield for israel (simultaneously with the release of more doubts of the technical efficacy of the concept generally). imo he is not as tough on israel as w's daddy was, not to mention ike (whom i like more as time passes).
There was recently a good article (gasp and horror) in the NYT of how zionism/israel is now a debate amongst jews, where once it was something to be blindly supported.
I love how people think any group can be described as monolithic.
As for AIPAC, Obama is captive, as he is for any other politically potent PAC. One thing that people forget is that jews have a VERY high voter participation rate, so their influence is greater then their numbers suggest. However, I don't think that is part of some vast conspiracy, maybe if other people in this country participated we would not be in such a general mess. Senior citizens also have a VERY high voter participation rate, and hence their entitlements (medicare/healthcare) are disproportionately protected. Is there a vast senior citizen conspiracy?
Scapegoating is the easiest way to conquer and divide and I truly hope I don't see that happening in this country. I know the coming depression in Europe is going to create massive friction with the Muslim minorities, many of whom have not assimilated (euro societies aren't so great with that, and many muslims just don't want to). The recent minaret ban in Switzerland (use zoning laws instead!!!) and the Burka bans in France and Belgium are the first signs of this. I think 3 or 4 people in either of those countries wore burkas, but it was politically popular to ban them for "not complying with european traditions of feminism." What useless grandstanding. At least do something constructive, like draw a picture of mohammed in the spirit of free speech. Which, btw, does not exist in europe.
Inept politicians will point the anger of the simple minded to any group that will take the pressure off themselves. "Don't blame me, the X caused all this."
everyone must resist the divide and conquer strategy, it stifles all honest discourse.
Jeff,
It's simple, tradition. Jewish voters have traditionally been voting for democrats. The same way majority of other voters are sticking to the loyalties of their parents or their social niche.
There is only one party, political trust - oligopoly. And it is time to "break down that wall" and increase competition when it comes to politics.
Think.
We deserve better than just two bad choices.
Stop.
P.S. it does not have to be a dictatorship if we wake up in time. A hundred years back or so it was the progressive movement, and it was them who allowed us to avoid European radicalism of those times and steer to the century of prosperity. If it has been done before, it could be done again.
also excellent points. thank you.
Jeff-
It is not the case that all Jews are for Israel, especially the current iteration.
certainly, as i noted above to serf.
** Paging Mako to the white courtesy phone. **
The conceit of every generation is that their experiences are unique. The cycle of life, whether bacteria or complex societies, repeat not in ryhme, but in exact sequence:
All governments/societies fail - it is simply a matter of time. Historians investigate the causes, but outside blackswan events such as the sudden appearance of superior exterior forces (Spain->Atecs/Incas, GB/US->Native tribes), they all follow the pattern listed above.
So we know for a fact that the present US federal government is going to fail, and we know the primary reasons. The only questions remaining are when & what happens afterward?
And this time humans, as technocrats, are going to successfully engineer/manage social evolution -- well, maybe there will be some winners and losers, and a "little bit" of hardship. Have you been assigned your position in the new and improved 21st century ant-hill?
Those humans sure are crafty little critters. I'm still long humans, for now.
the when is now and the what happens afterwards can be answered by any of the 99er who are about to see their unemployment benefits come to a halt. (maybe they will be extended). same thing, " this sucker is going down" , 'mini bush'.
When talking about patterns and cycles, you must keep in mind... scale.
All people die. That is the cycle. Yet, we don't focus on what to do after we die.
Maybe you didn't mean to say the "only questions remaining..." and I'm focusing too much on the strength of your words?
When you die you are worm food, if you believe otherwise you are delusional. This form of delusional thinking is, unfortunately, quite common.
Simply from a devil's advocate contrary point of view and not religious, could you please inform me how you can state categorically that "When you die you are worm food, if you believe otherwise you are delusional."
While this might be the current consensus opinion, I can point to quite a few consensus opinions over the last 3,000 or 4,000 years that have since been proven incorrect. Are you saying that we have reached the pinnacle of human understanding and thus there is no way you could possibly be wrong?
It is hardy the current consensus opinion.
There is no evidence that the ego/soul even exists. I don't have to show that it remains after death. If you posit the existence of something it is up to you to show that it exists.
B
deliberate actors
I believe most social programs & policies were initiated in good faith. Expanded enfranchisement, welfare as originally conceived for widows & orphans, universal education, progressive taxation, robust regulatory environment, etc.
It is only after the under-the-waterline effects become obvious to those who understand trends that we begin to see the emergence of gaming by deliberate actors. Now that the looting is out in the open, the wild orgy will reach even higher levels of orgiastic ecstasy before the whole shebang collapses.
There's a rich tradition where ship's discipline is rigorously maintained even under the most dire circumstances. However, when the end conclusion is foregone, the captain acknowledges this by giving the OK to break-open the ship's stores. Thereafter, everyone gets blindingly drunk as they sink beneath the roiling seas.
We know this baby is going down. I'm just waiting for the tell that gives the OK for general society to proceed into chaos.
Ben Franklin noted that Captains on long sea voyages would always have the crew busy working, cleaning etc even when the going was easy. They had firsthand knowledge how dangerous idle hands are.
For the ZH book of the week club, I recommned the book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. Or his other book the Pulitzer Prize winning "Guns, Germs and Steel."
Tangetnially, Nassim Taleb was on WSJ w/ Maria Bartiromo today and in his short time said invest in what you know, something tangible - Maria B. mentioned precious metals before Mr. Taleb. could.
Regarding the tax structure, 3 states have internet tax laws, the "Amazon" tax, and as an example of how the comedy of errors continues, Amazon has cancelled contracts for companies that must pay in-state tax; so as I understand it, NY businesses that would be taxed for an online sale now cannot sell via Amazon, and therefore also can no longer be taxed on what would have been a sale (via Amazon that is). So the purpose of the tax in this case fails, and the "potential" associated revenue and tax from a company in the state is now reduced immensely or gone if they leave the state. If I am mistaken about this please correct me.
Also regarding tax and the IRS as the enforcement arm for health care; as long as someone owes the govt a little of money the IRS cannot enfore "mandatory" health care because it cannot withhold reimbursement if there is none from the tax payer. So those that don't pay tax and those that owe nothing or little can basically get their health care for free while being "charged" the non-payment penalty without ever paying it. Here is an article explaining better but again correct me if I misunderstand:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/insurance/2010-04-29-healthirs28_CV_...
To me that sounds similar to the underwater mortgage owners trying to refinance yet cannot because they are current in their payments forcing them to not pay essentially just so they can refinance.
'I recommned the book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. Or his other book the Pulitzer Prize winning "Guns, Germs and Steel."'
Oh, puuuuhlease, Diamond is such a typical Pulitzer-prize-political-recipient; the guy's a complete jackhole.
What you should be recommending is Joseph A. Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies."
Also, take a quick read of this brilliant essay of his, absolutely first-class.
http://dieoff.org/page134.htm
Tainter's scholarship, long before Jared's paltry attempts at poli correctness, clearly put him to shame....
I don't necessarily agree with Obama's not being a friend to Israel -- you might wish to take a closer look at ALL of his political appointments, Elena Kagan being the latest, of course (and Rahm, and Mona, etc.).
Completely agree Sarg, both Tainter's book and work is first rate. Once you read his analysis you'll smack your hand on your head, it's all so obvious. The elegance lies in its simplicity.
+10000 ....
Also read Erich Fromm and the psychopathological study in which he has linked Love with Social status. It will answer most of the questions you need to know and show you the primal motives which lay hidden beneath accumulation of capital and resources trough a lens of debating the topic of individual improvement for the goal of acceptance and interdependence.
Now that is not true. Love is the answer, love will conquer all.
Just kidding "love" is the release of a few hormones, a few firing synapses that evolved to enable the survival of human beings. Love in order to procreate, to create a mini me whom will love you in the way that you do not love yourself. Love in order to secure material goods, food and shelter. Love in order to move up the social hierarchy.
Love happens, but it is the people who blindly accept these feelings as real, as beyond reason, to be taken as the truth on faith alone that are the problem.
Elena Kagan is no friend of Israel or America.
So she is a good judge. Excellent.
You, Temporalist, clearly have a mighty poor comprehension of both finance and economics: what this health insurance legislation does is to privatize taxation, and Obama, as every president before him, starting back with Richard Nixon, is continuing the march to the "privatization of everything" (especially public education, high on their agenda).
Also, you should be paying closer attention to an economy (the American economy, that is) which exists solely to support all those debt-financed billionaires, your take on both the subprime meltdown as well as health insurance legislation is pathetic and pitiful.
I don't know where to begin with your wild assumptions about me other than to say I mentioned nothing about the sub-prime meltdown, except for one specific govt. reaction to "refinancing" mortgages and the health insurance comment was about the IRS and their ability or inability to enforce their "laws" or rules.
As far as the Jared Diamond book, I would/will read something someone recommends as I cannot have read everything.
But since you are passing on your moronic assumptions and generalizations I'll act in kind and glean from your stupid comments you are a complete douchebag...based more in educated guess than wild interpretation.
Bravo, Marla, Bravo and well played.
Farcism, indeed.
Meanwhile, decisions continue to be made blindly (blandly?) following the failed political philosophies and flawed economics of the 20th and 19th centuries.
While the sun still comes up every morning and likely, the sky will not fall, the death spiral continues it's herky, jerky pace.
We live in interesting times. (paraphase of the old Chinese curse)
Again, embrace entropy.
Cossack:
You beat me to it.
In my spare time, I am writing a book with a working title of "Now- Discover Entropy !" as to why ALL of our institutions ...from Government to Business to Education, don't work, what we can do about it, and how we can profit from it!
If there is sufficient interest, I will forward "working selections" to Marla to see if they can be posted as a reader contribution.
The first few chapters cover the disintegration of our financial system...
Stay Tuned.
KrvtKpt laughing swordfish
DKM Trading Division
Part II of Marla's magnum opus suitable for framing.
Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble
Ancient footprints are everywhere
I left Rome and landed in Brussels
Newspapermen eating candy
Had to be held down by big police
Someday, everything is gonna be diff’rent
When I paint my masterpiece
- some has-been
All roads lead to fiddling and marshmallows.
Democracy has only had a few attempts in our collective histories. The average span of 200 years includes Kingdoms , Religious orders and tyrannical oligarchies, and if we look at history the attempts of Democracy where the people actually has a voice that collectively assumes power be that in a Democracy or Republic are few and far between. The 200 years number is mis leading.
As for you’re take on the Romans in the Punic War era , it should be told that those Romans of that age literally fought wars their entire lives in order to protect the only real civilized Law abiding civilization of it’s day... The Roman Republic.
After the Punic war 500,000 slaves came into the Republic as a default for victory over the forces of slavery and usury. Roman had been from the beginning a society of farmers who doubled as Militia who payed out of there own hard earned capital for their weapons to defend their families , farms and Republic. These where not warriors who needed to be tamed or bribed but rather the real owners of whatever could become Rome. The Land Reforms were designed to control the vast hoarding of land to be put under the toil of countless slaves. It’s failure lead to even the public lands being turned into slave labor , the Roman citizen farmer -Soldier could not compete for market share. Rome as they defended her was being destroyed by greed. You must remember Rome in the main , was a strong Republic with a Senate that had always placed the final word with a powerful true Roman a man who everyone felt would make choices in the best interest of Rome/ and the citizen. Latter the senate attempted to assume for themselves in organized greed the power invested in the highest office. In the Roman Pecking order , a person could not gain power unless they had shown bravery in battle , risking their life for Rome . Proving themselves a deserving of Honor and leadership ability. Thus we saw many grand spectacles for Rome generals.
What you use as an example of corruptness was not so corrupt you might want to consider the corruptness of the modern system that attempts to use western history as a tool and never compares the greatness of what was accomplished in Rome with the age upon age of savage backwards progress of humanity as a collective. In today’s modern world it is Roman Law , Roman examples of organization that is the back bone of what every other regions or tribe of humanity today’s seek to attain.
Idealism and usury are as they have always been , the seeds of destruction wherever genuine progress in human organization manifest itself.
It's not a trivial effort to follow your line of argument, though my best attempt works something like this:
1. Rome was near unique as a democracy. (Despite its use of slaves and the fact that "Romans of that age literally fought wars their entire lives...")
1a. Plus, there wasn't anything better around anyhow.
2. Rome should therefore be excused from the political machinations used to build power bases and collectivize private property wholesale.
3. And anyhow, given the lack of upward mobility its not surprising that things headed that way.
4. Greed is bad.
5. ?
Color me unimpressed.
You’re interpretation of my point’s is based solely on you’re ideas of what should be moral and just. In those days the world was struggling with those grand ideas. Rome was the center of the world. The center of civilization. The center of progress and with that huge responsibility came the need for the sword and plow. As you stated ; ‘ There wasn’t anything better around anyhow” ......Well that’s true , and that is true only because Roman, was , even if only be a small degree , had an innate ability to build and organize, this in a small number of people, at the time of the Punic Wars numbering less than 1 million throughout the Republic. Do you know why Rome conquered? Because it’s was conquer or be conquered. Did you know that the Greeks at that time, sold 10,000 person a day into bondage on Islands set up as slave trading post. That the Northern Hive when invading Macedonia in pay of Persian Gold literally eat the children of the Greeks and burned there cities to the grown. Did you know, That the Carthaginians, whom Rome had fought for 40 years without end in this Punic War, was a rich oligarchy and powerful City one built with slave labor a city empire that had child sacrifice in great public displays, placing children in the hands of a gigantic bronze image of Moloch whose hands let the children slip into a huge fire pit? , but none of this from the Free farmer citizen soldier of Rome and it’s God’s of War, love and nature. Do you know what you dis like? In you’re article you use the number of 200 years for a democracy to have existed , but just imagine that by the time of the Punic Wars... Rome was already over 500 years old. Yes... Rome did use slaves , did become a brutal place but most of this was after the end of the Republic at Actium. The history of Rome is not black and white it is a colorful human drama unfolded over time century after century. Don’t flatter you’re self with ‘ color me unimpressed. I wasn’t trying to impress you. Although I must say I do like you’re music. Now...Go study history as it really was , and then realize that it is ‘you’ and those like you, that are an extension , so to speak, , for what great civilization builders like the Romans had tried to accomplish.
Both of you write beautifully and I have truly enjoyed reading both of your thoughts, please never stop writing…
Having said that… I must note that the Greeks have once again poisoned the Civilized World. How many civilization’s will the Greeks destroy before we understand that they are far worse than any short lived Nazi push?
The Greeks are the Devil, or wait? Was it the Romans who stole the Greek Civilization? The Romans that the Greeks then undermined? And then ultimately the last word was had by the Greeks when the Romans where all poisoned at JonesTown texas in 1978.
The point being the Greeks need to be stopped at all costs, no really is a Trillion enough? Or?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_poison
Hellas delenda est
Well, I only have two examples of your writing to go on, but- even based on these alone- I think you are in over your head. Either way, twisting the example of the latter Roman Republic as an advertisement for collectivism and Chavez style land appropriation is a intellectual misstep so severe that you might want to check for fractures or lacerations.
Did you know where you're going to?
Did you like the things that life was showing you?
When are you going to?
Did you know...?
You are not thinking "Readership!"... get back on course.
You could engage, and even educate while... for the broader benefit of all, but you choose! YOU! Marla! Choose to bash in his fucking skull?
You are to busy doing what? what is it that causes you to be "O" so brief?
Can't keep it up for lack of interest? Hmmmmmmm?!
You are a contradiction, a Woman... to be sure.
I was going to expand on some of these thoughts but following in your footsteps Marla I thought better of it...
Good post.
Historically, many nations (and the US) had "unwritten" expectations that key elected positions similarly had miltary background and/or understanding. Of course, that's fallen away -- today's elected officials typically don't have background nor understanding.
Of course, today's political figures are merely modern versions of royalty -- no interest in public "service", but rather, self-aggrandizement, power, and greed. (They are typically character-failed narcissists.)
I like the old tradition when retiring from the Roman Senate that the official was put on trial for decisions during his term -- the result was either graceful dismissal to retirement, or the death penalty.
From the article:
That would certainly "up" the public interest in the political process, similar to how it works with public interest in Hockey games (e.g., the "key highlights of the day").
So politicians are guilty until proven innocent? Maybe if they knew that going in they'd be more cautious.
The trial was required. The conclusion was "pass/fail".
Yes, absolutely, IMHO many politicians would behave differently under such rules. In present times, all elected officials are given a "get out of jail free" card -- the worst that can happen is the official would "step down" if they were caught in something so egregious that they couldn't spin out of it.
And even if they mess everything up they and their families still collect pensions and have life long health care.
Perhaps as a side motivation having the ability to retract those benefits would also work.
+1 True dat!
Literally, winning elected office at the US Federal level is superior in cash and benefits to winning the state lottery -- you're literally "set for life" no matter what you do.
Unfortunately, that means "life's losers" are the ones that run -- they aren't good for anything else (burned out lawyers, people failed at other career paths, etc.)
With a few exceptions, elected officials are losers and burn-outs that have no other career path. That's why it's so easy for them to sell their souls to get into office.
Oh, don't worry! The "retraction" will far worse than losing said "benefits"!
"History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes."
Samuel Clemens
fiasco has a saying: the future is going to be wonderful, only one problem-a, you no in it.
fascism is closer to life, it based on-a notion that groups have power, not individuals or a herd/state.
it is what you may call a green, environmental notion of politics because it's close to the earth.
fascism is the green politics of the future.
suck it up you guys. you success is indebted to a group, directly or indirectly. the founding fathers, they come together.
coming together is the symbol of fascism. but everybody coming together...that's stupido.
marla, stop talking bad about fascism and stop this effeminate endearment of man.
mithra is going to return and you no in the future.
Very well written, Marla.
Regarding pensions and the military. In my research on West German history, I discovered that the politics of the post-War (following the withdrawal of most Allied forces) were primarily driven by the pensioners. The veterans of the Wehrmacht threatened to overthrow the government on many occasions until they received adequate pensions from the nascent government.
They used that threat to ensure continued support from the US.
I'm apolitical, but I would strongly advise that care (and appropriate bribery) for veterans be a top priority. The government will fail at providing that, so we'll have to organize private charity to accomplish that.
Everyone else can fend for themselves. The veterans can wreck havoc everywhere. They must be kept isolated from one another, cared for, and induced to seek peaceful work. If they refuse help, then keep them in liquor and away guns. A solitary soldier is rarely a threat to anyone. When they're in groups, they become dangerous.
Regarding Israel and the US... I think this is really a matter of the settlers and the religious wing of Israeli politics. Cutting subsidies to Israel would force the theocrats out of power. The settlers and ultra-orthodox would not longer be permitted to continue to incite violence and play rope-a-dope with the rational Israelis who simply want to, you know, settle down, do some fucking business, have a reasonable number of babies, and not have to worry about what the crazies want.
Fighter jets or no, I would never cross an IDF man or woman - the Arab forces have nothing on them, and in any case, Israel has a nuclear deterrent. During my stay in Israel a while back, I was hosted by a bomb-disposal veteran of the conflict in Beirut and his wife.
When I think about Israel, I think about them and their children.
Jerusalem, as far as I'm concerned (forgive me if this upsets people) can be well-kept by the various souvenir hucksters and museum operators, just fine.
There's more to Israel than endless fighting. Israelis have been some of my best friends in life.
The US Federal government has never been a friend to Jews. Ever. Federal immigration policies kept Jews in the camps until it was too late. The United Kingdom operated Jew-hunting boats in the Mediterranean and kept concentration camps on Cyprus.
Saudi Arabia will topple in a split-second if ARAMCO's engineers need to pull out. The fact that so many sheikhs have sent their addled children to be "educated" in American universities means nothing. In fact, it probably ensures that these regimes will fall over without a fight.
In fact, if there are any ARAMCO engineers reading this, I suggest you get thee back to the US post-haste.
Stand up - you're safer than you think. You're stronger than you believe yourself to be.
"The US Federal government has never been a friend to Jews. Ever."
Geez, are you ever full of it!!
Try a little bit of historical accuracy for a change, and I have friends who were on the USS Liberty, you douchebag!
Well, there's certainly reason for change now: Rubin, Greenspan, Greenberg (Maurice), Sommers, Geithner (?), Blankfein, Levitt, Gramm, etc., etc., etc.
Not that I'm suggesting they should be the cause for anti-semitism, but they sure don't helpt the matter any.....
+1
How could Rubin and Greenspan be considered friendly to Jews, who are just people like anyone else?
This may shock you, but "Jews" are not a monolithic entity. If anything, those guys have done way more harm than good to everyone. There are many, many people from the Jewish culture that want to end the crazy wars and the American entanglements. The younger generation (minus fruitcakes who go on Birthright and get brainwashed) are less vulnerable to propaganda than their elders.
And yeah, I know all about the USS Liberty. I learned about it by reading James Bamford's work. I'm sorry for your loss.
As an areligious person, I think that settling Israel was a mistake - but understandable considering the historical conditions of the time. Now there are people living there. They can fend for themselves.
We have our modern day Shakespeare, inventing words even.
(cheers to you, Marla)
"..highly progressive tax structures, such as that in the United States.."
You've gotta be joking, Marla? Right???
The last time the US had a progressive tax structure was back in Abraham Lincoln's day, to pay for the Civil War, after that it was almost immediately compromised beginning in 1914.
And again I highly recommend the scholar, Joseph A. Tainter's take on Roman Empire economics:
http://dieoff.org/page134.htm
"OOOOOOOO" you are being far to logical and level headed to put readers in the seats... But Tainter was interesting, seems on the money... may I offer something a lil easier for the less than, something that most can wrapp thier head around...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYuLjGQQ-jg&feature=PlayList&p=C1B06538A32767DF&playnext_from=PL&index=132
Peak Affordable Oil? Naaaaaaa? sweet light what? Sour or heavy prodcution capacity in the U.S.? none? vs. China? all of China none of U.S.? really? seriously?
LMFAO!
Thnaks JW.
Should be required viewing before...for...ah, I don't want to say it.
Enlightening, harrowing and, well I don't know how to express my concerns for my kids as well as us all.
Our present society is completely unprepared, for a multitude of reasons that don't matter.
If'n you don't mind, care sharing any thoughts on how to prepare financially for this?
Thanx
I find myself repeatedly asking this very same question, as well as another, as I pass through this life.
Marla, your piece was really, really good. And such excellent comments from the ZH herd.
I donate money to veteran's charities. Make it easier to donate to ZeroHedge, and I will.
Haven't seen more reasonable, viable and well written warning about times to come in a while.
p.s.
There is another example of democracy working backwards - populism in the Latin America of the last century. They did exactly the same, gave away benefits to their supporters as the result they faced a decline in wealth and political unrest that often ended up breeding dictatorships.
Marla,
Great post, thanks.
We're already doomed.
Vote as far left and as pro-big government as you can, every chance you get and the inevitable end will come that much sooner. It can never work, let's get the collapse over with sooner rather than later.
Something has to come after and I think when it does you want at least some people walking around who can remember what it was like before total state dependence became an inescapable fact of life.
Vote as far left and as pro-big government as you can, every chance you get and the inevitable end will come that much sooner.
I haven't seen either political party (supposedly representing "left" or "right") NOT increase the size of government.
And, what says you as to where anarchists fall in the political spectrum?
True, but the Left is much more commited to it. As bad as Bush II was in this regard he can't hold a candle to Obama who will have you filling out forms to breathe by the time gets through with his "progress."
The anarchists' big chance comes just after the inevitable collapse but that's untenable too. Anarchy = vacuum as far as other organized and interested parties are concerned.
merc, baby bush was at the end of his term and enacted tarp. if it was at the begining of his term you think his approach would have been materially different? perhaps to less a degree, but not much.
So if a dictatorship is the outcome of the financial collapse a person could defend the republic or join the beast. Do you keep your dignity and stick up for your beliefs or do you heed history and join the army?
Arthur Neville Chamberlain is a convenient scapegoat; but his actual record of devining intentions of 3rd parties was far better than Marla suggests. It was Chamberlain, not Churchill, who ordered the production of the Spitfires and Hurricanes that won the Battle of Britain. It was Chamberlain who listened to Hugh Dowding; Churchill took Bomber Harris' side.
But, but... Churchill talked really tough, he was macho!
We cannot adjust our historical accountings (for truth) lest it cause people's brains to explode...
I think not the end of America, but rather we stand at the middle of May 1914 awaiting the guns of August, guns which took down Edwardian Great Britain/Imperial Europe and gave birth to the neo-progressive project to remake man and civilization. What comes next, who will be assassinated on June 28th, we don't know, but it'll probably be as tormented a coming decade as man has ever seen as this neo-progressive civilization is swept away by the Great Debt.
The Great Debt will wash away all our sins and leave a virgin world for our grandchildren. Grab onto something firm, the world is about to get very strange to those of us who've lived in it this past century.
The next franz ferdinand event will be pissed off, unemployed europeans drawing pictures of mohammed.
Great thought piece. I think you will find that the "corn laws" were more pervasive as the cause of the fall of Rome, coupled with the need to satisfy the mob and the rather obscure fact that, that most Romans receiving their water were being slowly driven insane by the lead they used in their plumbing!
I read the first reference to "farcism" as a typo, then got the pun. Very good. I then (because I was on my third drink) went to "fart-ism"!
There are two tenets I think deserve constructive critcism. One is that the parallel with the legions paints them as some kind of indefeatible heroes. They were organised thugs who killed and enslaved millions. There is nothing heroic about that. Their weapons technology, discipline and leadership (towards barbarity) was superior to most barring the Parthians, who kicked their asses in the East on many, many occasions and the odd defeats by slave uprisings and a fine young Hannibal.
I realise this rather cuts to the US national psyche in that the entire system is based on emulating and copying what is believed to be a succesful historic model. Point is, the surviving history was written by a minority, who had double O triple O fuck all blank interest in anyone in Rome.
I challenge the need for the US military in its current form. Since the second world war, conflicts have been choices that America has made as the aggressor, not as the defender. America has had more than enough technology and expertise to defeat another nation or take the whole planet down to a level of "the earth dies screaming".
I challenge also that the adjustment should be couched in terms of percentage of current GDP. Current GDP would not exist if the nation lived within its means. Tytler, Smith, Keynes et al simply did not grasp this point at all, rather assuming like most of us, that current GDP is a truth that must be preserved (GDP must always be positive and no other solution can be conidered that results in "rightsizing" GDP) rather than a continous test of validity and succesful past and current policy.
The challenge I make is that Federal and local taxation is a privilege, not a right. The ability to issue debt is not a measure of wealth. The level of spending that cannot be easily and willingly raised from citizens is profligate and disallows the peaceful progression towards higher living standards and full employment. I think there is an implicit assumption in the article that its shit or bust, not "what is the right answer and how do we get there?".
Anyway, now on my fourth drink (neat JD, no ice) so forgive me if this comes over as more bleat than substance. :)
Oh and replying to a past poster means you get a simpler maths question. I put that down to behavioral finance wining over Brownian motion/efficient markets!
“What normally gets wound up, cleaned up [...] in ordinary markets through bankruptcy courts and the like, we don’t have that at the international level,” Mr. Clark said. “Countries find that these things never get resolved.”
He added that one of the biggest changes in thinking over the last three months had centred on the idea that the IMF could participate in the creation of a new world currency. This would be done through its system of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), which are credits allocated by the lending body to its members. However, it was uncertain whether sovereign nations were willing to allow the IMF such power.
He said discussions were also being held on how SDRs should be distributed ?? whether on the basis of population, economic weight, or level of financial contributions to the institution. Today, most SDRs are allotted to the wealthiest nations. The IMF must develop mechanisms for spending SDRs, explaining that African debtor nations could, in theory, use SDRs to pay off debts.
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2009/090507_Financial_Crisis.doc.htm
the SDR is no more credible than its component currencies unless perhaps SDR's rank ahead of Government debt issued by local governments?
http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/sdr.htm
Once more unto the breach dear friends or fill the walls with our English dead.
Henry V.
Or to put it another way:
Once more into the trough dear friends or fill the vaults with our sovereign debt.
Dear Marla,
Your articles make my soul float and my brain tingle. Thank you for all that you do.
Sincerely....
Marla
Thanks, I needed this today.
Marla, I look forward to when you finally finish, and get your first novel published. I am going to sandwich it between Chomsky's Failed States, and Klein's The Shock Doctrine. Muahahaha. :)
Good piece with some very interesting observations... as usual Marla.
While many futurists are looking for a "technological singularity" the limits of Democracy indicate we may be about to face a "political singularity" instead.
Medicare Part D.
TARP.
Your conclusions seem to suggest the Neocons did a great job of torpedoing the next administration before they left. It should be surprising to nobody that the American Fascists are trying to invoke fascism.
Neat article, food for thought. The area under Pax Romana also shrank because it was being hammered by successful native uprisings - there's no so much of that likely nowadays. Rome couldn't afford to feed it's army, that's not something the US has to worry about - unless this Oil spill gets hectic. ..but I come not to praise Caeser. The threat to the US empire is not immediately the entitlement inequality, because the State can always, whilst backed by sustainable superior military force, remain: the US rightly assumes that an economy as large and advanced as it is, will eventually be able to have price-setting power. But here's my spin: empires collapsed because they were overrun by invading hordes, without the defeat of the state military forces the government itself has to undergo the sweeping effect on it's institutions from within, sooner or later; there's no question that revolutionary forces exist within the Democracies, it's really up to the massive groupthink under the blogs to filter informed changes through to our institutions. Maybe.
Marla,
You say that history tells us that we can't put Humpty Dumpty back together.
Most of the responses are even more pessimistic.
I think that post-Novembers 2010 & 2012, you will all be surprised, pleasantly for most.
The Fed won't be abolished, just as all pressure groups only get part of their desired outcome, but progress will be made.
p.s. Terminology is important. Avoid referring to "progressive" taxation rates, a statist euphemism for "soak the middle class".
Posting with your avatar on your sleeve, eh?
I welcome good news, as I'm sure anyone here would. Please, expand on your thoughts that we'll all be pleasantly surprised after, ahem, elections.
(Now poised attentively at the edge of my seat, during my first week at clown college...)
We already crossed the Rubicon decades ago, with the death of the Republic coming with FDR (our first Imperator). That would probably make Nixon a Nero and Clinton a Caligula, and I would hold out that Claudius could be either of the Bush's.
But on a more serious note, the more relevant example of Rome comes from the third century AD and beyond. There you had rampant immigration to supply the cheap labor that would do the jobs that good Romans would not do, which included a lot of the soldiering that needed to be done to keep the empire going (ever look at the composition of the US Military these days). One also saw a dramatic increase in the size and fiscal burden of the bureaucracy, which had a dramatic effect on the value of money (it was debased), and as the tax burden grew to oppressive levels that led many to abandon their lands to escape virtual enslavement, laws were passed binding the people to their lands so they could work them to support the public classes, ushering in a millenium of feudalism in western europe.
When the barbarians finally came, they were welcomed in many corners of the empire as liberators, usually by their first or second cousins who had recently become the citizens and populace of Rome.
History rhymes, but it also often sings a sickening refrain.
While many complain about illegals coming to pick our veggies, the TeaPotDomeExpress never seems to bat an eye when they join our armed forces as a path to citizenship.
Highly progressive tax structures also exacerbate the volatility of tax receipts in times of economic downturn.
I fail to see how this follows since it's usually the unwashed masses on the left end of the histo chart that suffer first during recessions, not the top 1-3% on the right.
SALES taxes (those that are affected by the unemployment of Wal-Marteers)...now there's some volatility.
Jared Diamond is a conceited dilettante. Cause and effect are usually glued together with unsupported speculation.
For him, nothing good in the ascent of man could be attributed to the poor Caucasian. The white man's burden- carrying around bags of crap generated by Jared Diamond.
If I had known a simple comment about a book would lead to so many negative comments and detract from the topic post I would never have made it. It was not serious either as some may guess there is no weekly book club...
Absolutely wonderful. One small bit of observation---- most that read you may be in over their head. That is a built in problem with being bright. Not everyone is on the same page, but lead on. We will attempt to follow.
Nothing more need be said..........
Rome fell because it over-extended. It could not sustain its expansion: nothing/no populace can. Eventually the price to be paid for obtaining more and more resources (from outside the empire's domain) becomes too great for peaceful trade and war is the order of the day. Left vs. Right, yadda, yadda, yadda... it's all meaningless as the outcome for ANY growth-oriented society is guaranteed to degenerate.
Thanks for playing...
Coming very late but the Land Act was an attempt to restore one Roman Ponzi scheme.
At the start, legio veterans (or more exactly, groups of legio veterans) were rewarded for their service by land taken to the enemy. It only worked in case of land expansion as it could not be self maintained.
An interesting event as you can observe the evolution of it, soldiers fighting for personal enrichment (land grabbing), later limited through merit (less land injected) then fighting to protect the property of others (less motivating) and finally fighting to acquire citizenship (even less motivating for people born with it)
One of the many Roman ponzi schemes which helped the expansionist trend.
WTF?