Over a dozen posts just went by without a single person pointing out that your medicine is a hundred times worse than the disease. We've just entered 'phase 7', but it looks like we're already barreling towards phase 8: ______ An 18th century historian laid out the basic blueprint: "The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence 1. From bondage to spiritual faith; 2. From spiritual faith to great courage; 3. From courage to liberty; 4. From liberty to abundance; 5. From abundance to complacency; 6. From complacency to apathy; 7. From apathy to dependence; 8. From dependence back into bondage "
But the Romans tried that already, bar the actual shooting, due to lack of guns. Didn't work then, how is this different? A straight forward recipe for anarchy and total disintegration is what you are actually proposing.
Romans tried a balanced budget and slashing entitlements? Or was it protecting their borders that didn't work? I'm not a scholar on ancient Roman history but I was thinking their INABILITY to protect themselves from invasion, much of which caused by decay from within, helped lead to the fall of the Roman empire. Decay from within like what is happening to us now.
RM you're an ET trading legend. I wish I were half as successful as you. But our biggest problems and their solutions don't revolve around legalizing your favorite opiates.
-------------------------- Septimus Severus, Black Ruler of Rome I'll skip any links, for those interested you can research this on your own and draw your own conclusions.
Thanks, and I respect you on a personal level as well. The main irony in your proposals is that on one hand you seem to share my complete lack of faith in politicians & gov't officials to do the right thing, yet you think they should somehow be replaced with <i>other</i> gov't officials & politicians with carte blanche authority to stack corpse-piles to the sky? History has proven repeatedly that your brand of ruthless populist-fascism brings only one possible result: Power corrupts. It wouldn't be long before they go from stacking the 'right' corpses, to adding the bodies of your friends and family to the rotting pile. You must know this on some level.
This is actually becoming a fear of mine. Someone who knows I trade called me a "money changer". Having political savvy from campaigning for Clinton/Gore, and remembering the contract on America, I told him that I blew up, and was stupid for thinking that I could complete with those Wall Street assholes. He seemed satified, and was chummy with me thereafter. Populism is very dangerous, and I have fear that a populist President may not be able to control the beast that brought him to power.