I dont see how you get 900 years. They were pretty dominate till mid 4th century, but after the 5 good emporers they went into decline. If you include the Eastern half, then yes they were the dominate power till Manzikert.
The Empire didn't die - it moved its capital from Rome to Byzantium, where it continued its domination as the Roman Empire until the mid-11th century. There is no "if" - the "eastern half" WAS the Roman Empire. Any distinction made is strictly a recent, modern one. Driven, primarily, by a Western bias. To anybody living at the time, the Empire was the Empire.
Maybe we should form an agricultural cartel with Canada, Brazil and Argentina. We could subsidize grain and meat prices for our populations, but jack the price up for Asia and the Middle East. We could make up reasons for the price increases such as "peak corn".
guess you guys didn't know this "China's agricultural output is the LARGEST in the world, only about 15% of its total land area can be cultivated. China's arable land, which represents 10% of the total arable land in the world, supports over 20% of the world's population." "Agriculture is an important economic sector of China, employing over 300 million farmers. China ranks first in worldwide farm output, primarily producing rice, wheat, potatoes, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, cotton, oilseed, pork, and fish." "The Chinese also innovated the square-pallet chain pump by the 1st century AD, powered by a waterwheel or an oxen pulling on a system of mechanical wheels.[5] Although the chain pump found use in public works of providing water for urban and palatial pipe systems,[6] it was used largely to lift water from a lower to higher elevation in filling irrigation canals and channels for farmland.[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_China
China produces 20% of the worlds food, which is great because they contain 19.2% of the worlds population. They are barely producing enough to feed their own people. On the flip side is the USA. They produce about 9% of the worlds food yet only make up about 4.5% of the worlds population. This is way they are so fat and can still afford to export food.
When I am fabulously wealthy, I am going on safari around the world just to look at the contraptions ingenious rural folk create to get through their day. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Jiangxia-peanuts-9702.JPG
I agree, but I will also take a greater more macro view: The Romans considered themselves the inheritors of Alexander the Great's empire. This could be seen in many of the statues of the earlier emperors - the Julio-Claudians. Many imitated the busts of Alexander the Great, and in doing so, reached back to an older era to legitimize their rule and power. And in many ways, Rome and Greece were far more similar than the rest of the world. When Constantine moved the capital to Byzantium, later Constantinople, there were two co-existing parts of the Roman Empire. Eventually Byzantium became the largest and wealthiest empire at the time as Rome fell. Even the Greeks/Byzantines during the Byzantium era referred to themselves as Romaioi(Romans). After Byzantium fell, Eastern Europe went into a dark age, while Western Europe began it's Renaissance. The Italian city-states, Rome, international trade and banking by Florence, Milan, Venice... another century or so later the Spaniards ascended with their phenomenal gold finds in the Americas, to be replaced by Britain in power... Then of course Anglo-Franco Napoleonic wars, replaced by Franco-Prussian-Wars, all the while Europeans continued colonizing Africa, the Middle East, South America, Australia, and Asia. Then WWII knocked down the last Euro power - Great Britain to be replaced by the last Western Empire (IMHO) the USA. Thus, since Alexander the Great to current times, about two and a half millenia, the West dominated the East more often than the other way around. That era is now over. I hate to say this, but the US is the last Western Global power. What's next? Either cooperation, with the East having a greater say in international affairs and greater access to resources, or war. We are now witnessing, real time, an accelerated and tremendous shift of wealth and power from East to West. This is historic and on a scale never before witnessed in human history.
This is only partly true. The US has enjoyed many periods of prosperity pre-Fed. The colonies flourished before the Bank of England took away their power to create their own money and force them to go into debt to create money. You also have to realize that the Industrial and Technological Revolutions have played a large part in the prosperity of this nation. Would that have happened without the Fed? That's a hard question to answer.
From the Revolution to the establishment of the (current) Fed, life expectancy increased ~20%. From the establishment of the (current) Fed through today, life expectancy nearly doubled. Etc. There is no coherent argument against the basic fact that quality and length of life in the US massively improved during the Fed's tenure. Is this because the Fed is damn good at what it's supposed to do, or is it because what they do is only a small factor in a really big picture?
The Fed does have a lot of power and influence - not just in the US but around the world. Makes sense, because if you could print money, you'd have a lot of influence too. The question has come up before - who owns the Fed? Don't think it was ever answered completely. But I guess that, since the Fed has assets on it's books - if the gov't were to close the Fed tomorrow - who would be the owners of those assets? Would they all revert to the U.S. Treasury? I guess whoever owns those assets, owns the Fed....