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Yep the western world has a lot of wealth they need to share if they want to survive if true. But it seems they have survived at the top for a longtime. Survival of the fittest reapplied it seems.
The US alone has about 1/3rd of the world's wealth. Granted, Europe and Canada probably has another third. All of those nations combined don't equal 1 billion people.
The US? Who do you consider the US to be? Is it the 40something percent who cannot come up with $2000 cash without some kind of financing? Or is it the uber-wealthy who make 500 to 1000 times the average salary. It is not the so called middle or upper middle class in which the wealth is concentrated. Just as in China, Russia, and India, the wealth of the US is concentrated within the elite.
From the perspective of the other 6 Billion people on this Earth, the US and Canada are the 1%.
Those are really bizarre comments that aren't even remotely accurate or relevant. You might want to consider spending more time studying economics.
There's no Straw Man there. There is no such thing as "Income Inequality."
That's funny.
What issue? There is no issue, other than this...
...is all wrong.
Let's start with the “Reign of Terror” of Emperor Domitian. Emperor Vespasian was the father of Emperors Titus and Domitian (who probably poisoned Titus) and all three were at the siege of Jerusalem during the Jewish Wars 66 - 70 CE. Domitian was assassinated. His death led to 100 years of peace known as the Pax Romana under the rule of the so-called Five Good Emperors:
Nerva (96 - 98) increased the Senate’s authority as part of a “check and balance system.” He also created the alimenta – welfare for the poor and relief grants for farmers.
Trajan (98 - 117) subdued the Dacians establishing a Roman colony. He conquered Arabia, Armenia, and Parthia, and all three became Roman provinces.
Hadrian (117 - 138) established a civil service system, reformed the military introducing discipline and morals, granted Roman citizenship to the provinces, and expanded the education system. He traveled four years throughout the Empire holding “town meetings.”
Antoninus Pius (138 - 161) reformed slavery, established the principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” and further expanded the education system. He also set up the Puellae Faustinianae, a charity foundation for the daughters of the poorer people in Rome.
Marcus Aurelius (161 - 180) was a noted stoic philosopher and writer (mentioned in the film Silence of the Lambs). Unfortunately, he died at Sremska Mitrovica, and was succeeded by Commodus.The Roman Empire was at its greatest, about 3.5 Million square miles and an estimated population of 60 Million people.
Upon the death of Marcus Aurelius, we enter the period of the “Barracks Emperors.” There were 36 emperors over the next 90 years (and that doesn’t count pretenders) as the Roman Empire was embroiled in civil wars. Emperor Julianus bought the title of emperor at a public auction and ruled 66 days until assassinated. There were military revolts and mutinies. Some provinces rebelled (Gaul declared itself the Gallic Empire, Persia seceded and Palmyra revolted). The Barbarian Invasions begin and the Empire is besieged by the Capri, Franks (Cherusci and Chatti), Macromani, Juthungi (Jutes), Heruli, Alemanni, and Batavi to name a few. The period 180 - 270 CE was a total disaster for the Roman Empire.
Because of the 90 years of civil wars, the Roman economy collapsed and the Empire was broke. Administration and communication had broken down as the famed roads of Rome where choked with fleeing citizens and legions moving through the Empire to fight each other, or defend against the Barbarians. Tax collection was inefficient at best, and it is a fact that taxes were collected in grain, not money.
The Empire began paying legionnaires with land in lieu of money.
I've mentioned that before. The reason Romanian is half-Latin is due to the fact that retired Roman soldiers were granted land in Dacia. Even though the Roman Empire later moved its administrative offices and military units across the river to what is now Bulgaria, the Roman soldiers continued to live in Dacia with their wives and children, farming their land.
Civil servants were paid in grain when available; otherwise they too were given land. Toward the end of the civil wars, near-famine conditions existed in the empire. Archaeology shows that the constant conflicts resulted in a change of farming methods, causing decreased crop productivity.
The situation became so severe, that price controls in Rome (the city and adjacent prefects) had to be initiated by Emperor Aurelian in 271. Emperor Diocletian issues the empire-wide Edict of Maximum Prices in 284 fixing wages paid and the prices of goods and services. In 301, Diocletian adjusted the wages and prices set in the previous edict. Truly, “A quart of wheat will cost a day’s pay…”
Beginning in 262 and continuing for the next decade, the Asiatic Plague swept through the Empire killing millions. Emperor Claudius II Gothicus was a plague victim in 270 CE.
Because of the civil wars, famine, Asiatic plague and barbarian raids, many of the villages and towns were depopulated and abandoned. The historical and archaeological record proves the Empire lost about 25% of its population. As with all species, including humans, environmental stress results in a significantly lower birth rate, if the species even reproduces at all. The population loss was permanent to the extent that the Roman Empire was re-populated by invading tribes.
There were, for lack of a better word, quad-emperors at the time. Diocletian split up the Empire’s provinces in order to stem the rebellions and revolts – the new provinces are called Dioceses and there are six in the East (Orient, Pontus, Asia, Thrace, Moesia, and Pannonia), and six in the West (Britania, Gaul, Vienne, Italia, Hispania Tarraconensis, and Africa). There were two co-emperors for the East, and two for the West. Diocletian and Maximian retired leaving Galerius (western) and Constantius Chlorus (eastern) as emperors. Galerius issues the Edict of Toleration in 311 CE just before he dies.
We are now in the year 306 CE and a major revolution (a huge earthquake) is about to take place. Constantine was commanding the Augusta II Legion in York (Britain) when his father (Emperor Constantius Chlorus) dies in 306 and he is named emperor by the Gallic legions. He marches on Rome and defeats Emperor Maxentius at MilvianBridge, then later defeats Emperor Licinius at Chalchedon in 323 to become sole emperor of the Empire.
The Battle of Hadrianople in 378 CE (also Adrianople – Erdine in European Turkey) was a watershed event. Roman legions had been defeated before, in the frontier areas outside of the Empire (see the Battle of Teutoburg Forest when 3 legions are routed and destroyed); however this was the first time a Roman legion had ever been defeated by a foreign power inside the boundaries of the Empire. That, was a shocking event that struck Roman citizens with fear (when soldiers in the US 1st Cavalry Division threw down their weapons and ran panic stricken from advancing Chinese – imagine if that had happened inside the United States instead of Korea).
The legion group wasn’t just defeated, it was annihilated (16 of the 20 cohorts were killed to a man and the remaining four cohorts were badly mauled and fled). Emperor Valens was killed. Emperor Gratian (the western emperor) moves to save the remnants of Valens’ fleeing army, but his fear of the Goths is so great the battle never takes place. Theodosius the Great (replacing Valens in the east) signs a treaty in 382 with the Goths.
As most historians put it, this was the most terrible and unrecoverable defeat in Roman history and it went down hill from there.
Galatia, Pisidia, and Bithynia were invaded in 399 (Ostrogoths); the southern peninsula of what is now Italy in 400 (Visigoths); Noricum and Raetia (Austria and Barvaria) in 401 (the Vandals); Gaul in 406 (Vandals and Visigoths); and Spain in 409 (the Vandals, Suevi and Alans). The Goths practiced “scorched earth,” burning orchards, vineyards and crop fields. They also planted stones in crop fields to make it near impossible to plant anything until the stones are removed.
I’m sure this makes no sense, but then few people think the way I do (which is probably fortunate for you all).
We’re talking about a clan of the Goth sub-tribe(s) led by a chieftain, anywhere from 8,000 to 40,000 Goths, and whatever prisoners they had plus the villagers at sword-point who are “planting” the stones over a one to three day period.
Then the Goths move on and there are maybe 80 to 120 villagers (52% women and 48% men between 3 months and 80 years of age) to remove the thousands of stones planted by several thousand people over a period of days – yeah it was a gargantuan undertaking that took up to a year or more to clear all the fields in the village, during which time the villagers had no food to eat or trade. The various Goth tribes practiced this on a limited scale earlier during their punitive raids, and this was the primary reason for the depopulation of towns and villages (Asiatic Plague was the secondary reason) leading to rampant animal attacks in the prior century. Historians, such as Gibbon and Wells, give a detailed account of this (archaeologists occasionally stumble on rock piles from cleared fields).
Then come hordes of Vandals, a sub-tribe of the Goths, or I suppose more correctly, a tribe of the Goth supra-tribe (oder feiliechtuber-Tribe would be more appropriate). The Vandals came down from snowy white Scandinavia to the Pannonian Plain before moving west. Upon reaching Spain, the Vandals put on their naval uniforms and began looting and pirating Roman merchant vessels. Then the Vandals moved to Mauritania Tingis, then into Mauritania Ceasaria, and on to the ancient city of Carthage which they captured and rebuilt in 439 CE. The Vandals attacked and destroyed all Roman shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea, culminating in the total destruction of Emperor Majorian’s Roman Navy in 460 at the Battle of Cartagena.
If you read Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon (or Outline of History by H G Wells), you find that every battle Attila and his Hun army fought was on a river. He would trap Roman legions in the bend of a river (meaning the legion is surrounded on three sides by the river), where the only escape was to cross the river (a difficult task wearing armor and being shot from behind with flaming arrows), or he would initiate a slow withdraw, luring the legions across the river. When a third of the legions had crossed over, he would turn and attack with overwhelming force (effectively leaving the legion combat ineffective). His tactics are still taught at war colleges around the world (the Russians and Americans use corps artillery and multiple crossing points to spread an opponent out and minimize the effect of Attila’s tactics). For those who don’t like to look like village idiots, the accent is on the first syllable. It’s (AT-tila), not (uh-TIL-uh) like most Ahmuricans pronounce it.
In 476 the Ostrogoth Odoacer made his way to the city of Rome and sacked it, killing or exiling government officials and the elite. The light of civilization went out and one-third of the Roman Empire, the western European part, was plunged into total darkness (and that is in a very real and literal sense), hence "the Dark Ages."
That's what happened, and it has nothing to do "Income Inequality" which is unreal and does not exist.
Historically...
Mircea
Congratulations, you have managed to bore the rest of the forum to tears while evading the subject completely. You have all the skills necessary to be a public school teacher.
The fall of Rome had nothing to do with a military battle, it had everything to do with the weakness of the Roman military due to the deterioration of the economy which was a direct result of the income inequality. The same income inequality you claim does not exist, but was also the direct cause of the French revolution, and the 'Russian revolution.
Quite a number of accomplishments for an imaginary entity that does not exist.
The fall of Rome had nothing to do with a military battle, it had everything to do with the weakness of the Roman military due to the deterioration of the economy which was a direct result of the income inequality.
No the entire United States is not the elite class. The 1% who posses 50% of the entire wealth are the elite class.
In addition the collapse has already begun in case you have not been paying attention. That is why the government is scared sh*tless and is spying on everyone and labeling anyone who does not agree with their policies as a terrorist.
The elite control the government and it always acts in the elites interest.
The changes I am going to make in my lifestyle are to continue to prepare for the collapse of society because the greed of the elite will continue to override their better judgement.
That's generous of you....as it implies that they're capable of same. They are clearly not....and therein lies the problem.
That's generous of you....as it implies that they're capable of same. They are clearly not....and therein lies the problem.
That is an interesting question. Do the psychopathic elite have the capability to be rationally greedy as opposed to irrationally greedy?
Henry Ford understood that he would ultimately obtain greater prosperity by the working class sharing in prosperity, but I am not so sure that is the case with most of the elite.
Perhaps the addiction the elite feel to exploit others is even stronger that the instinct for irrational greed in which they engage.
Congratulations, you have managed to bore the rest of the forum to tears while evading the subject completely. You have all the skills necessary to be a public school teacher.
The fall of Rome had nothing to do with a military battle, it had everything to do with the weakness of the Roman military due to the deterioration of the economy which was a direct result of the income inequality. The same income inequality you claim does not exist, but was also the direct cause of the French revolution, and the 'Russian revolution.
Quite a number of accomplishments for an imaginary entity that does not exist.
It was not.
Go look up "bread and circuses".
Rome continually expanded the welfare state and kept giving away more to the people in order to keep their approval and stay in power.
Of course there was "income inequality" because people stopped working. They stopped working because the Roman government handed out free food and kept them entertained.
They created a dependent class which eventually swallowed them.
And there will continue to be what Obama calls Income Inequality until the Dependent class learns how to get off Welfare of the state and start earning an independent living.
The best way to prevent Income Inequality is for the low end to actually work for a living.
Go look up "bread and circuses".
Rome continually expanded the welfare state and kept giving away more to the people in order to keep their approval and stay in power.
Of course there was "income inequality" because people stopped working. They stopped working because the Roman government handed out free food and kept them entertained.
They created a dependent class which eventually swallowed them.
The citizens of Rome stopped working because they had slaves to do the work for them.
The slaves in time became the majority and an underclass not unlike the working classes today.
Bread and circuses was used then as it is today to bribe the people to stay out of politics and to not protest the wars for profit. All of this served to undermine the real economy, just as it is doing so today.
That is an interesting question. Do the psychopathic elite have the capability to be rationally greedy as opposed to irrationally greedy?
Henry Ford understood that he would ultimately obtain greater prosperity by the working class sharing in prosperity, but I am not so sure that is the case with most of the elite.
Perhaps the addiction the elite feel to exploit others is even stronger that the instinct for irrational greed in which they engage.
I would very much agree with that likelihood. I have long called them sociopaths as they pillage as they do with no regard for the damage done to others. But, as you suggest, perhaps it goes beyond just not caring. Perhaps the exploitation is the real "juice" for them.
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