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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;medoraman, post: 1182393, member: 26302&quot;]Industrial base is a concern, but not too much since our &quot;industrial base&quot; is more technology and entertainment nowadays.</p><p><br /></p><p>What really scares me is our spending. You want to get really scared? Read about the fall of the western Roman Empire. What you had happening was increased military spending, yes. What really killed the empire was their social spending. &quot;Bread and circuses&quot; to keep the population happy drained the empire of funds, and because Romans started more and more refusing to work because they had free money, and refusing to serve in the military, domestic production declined along with tax revenues, and foreign soldiers had to be brought in. When the taxes started dropping, tax rates went up across the board. The poor paid no taxes, the rich literally hired mercenaries to keep tax collectors away, (read modern tax lawyers), and the middle class was taxed so heavily they literally vanished as a class. At the end of the western Roman Empire, you had rich non-tax paying patricians, hordes of unwilling to work poor in the cities, and barren, unplowed land everywhere since the middle class farmers had been taxed out of existence. The Germans and Huns came in, not because of their overwhelming strength, but because the Romans had collapsed from within.</p><p><br /></p><p>That is the lesson from history that scares the heck out of me.</p><p><br /></p><p>Chris</p><p><br /></p><p>Edit: Btw, the Romans had a gold standard too. If you tie your currency to gold, and not rein in spending, all it leads to is accelerated appropriation of gold from citizens. To me, it is always about spending and the negative social consequences of welfare. The source of the currency is irrelevant if the government insists on spending too much of it, and taking it from the middle class that is the backbone of society.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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