Saw an interesting tweet from Jim Rickards last night on the present top-down nature of our government and its power center of Washington DC, which he compared to Rome during its Empire.
From there I clicked over to hear Jim's recent interview on the King World News broadcast, where he elaborates on this point. If you're a fan of economic history, or are simply interested in the parallels between modern America and the Roman Empire, I think you'll find this to be a very interesting discussion (see part 2 here).
One quick excerpt from Rickards' interview. Asked about the onerous taxation levied on citizens by Rome, Rickards noted that at one point during the barbarian invasion, "30% of all arable land was simply abandoned... in fact, farmers of the Roman empire actually welcomed the barbarian invaders with open arms, as this was an improvement to a central government that was taxing them to death." Surprising point to say the least! I'll be interested to research this further.
Tune in at the link above to hear all this and more, including Jim Rickards' overview on the difficulties facing increasingly complex societies and the patterns of societal collapse. Definitely some big picture thinking for you heading into this weekend.
