COMMENT: A reader has submitted this which is typical of each financial decline.
The cash seize by cities that are determined for taxes is escalating, regulation enforcement is not about defending however producing income. The confiscation of property obtained by means of unlawful means seems affordable, but given that is civil forfeiture, no proof is required. Homes, vehicles and different property that are suspected to be anyway linked with prison exercise are being seized with out having to show something, offering an extra income for regulation enforcement companies. Vehicles are confiscated as a result of an workplace “smells” one thing. The price of preventing the confiscation is usually greater than the worth of the property or is greater than the sufferer can afford.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman?currentPage=all
http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.html
ANSWER: The rationale historical past repeats is reasonably easy. Human nature by no means adjustments. When you learn Edward Gibbon, who wrote in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” NOT for the historic occasion however for the actions, you will note the identical patterns in human nature. It is sort of a Shakespeare play that’s carried out for hundreds of years. The story and plot stay the identical. Solely the actors change like Phantom of the Opera on Broadway for 25 years. New folks step into the position however the songs are at all times the identical.
Gibbon wrote in regards to the paperwork: “Suspicious princes usually promote the final of mankind, from a useless persuasion, that those that don’t have any dependence, besides on their favor, can have no attachment, besides to the particular person of their benefactor.”
Edward Gibbon wrote of Commodus: Every
“distinction of each variety quickly turned prison. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; inflexible advantage implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; essential providers implied a harmful superiority of advantage; and the friendship of the daddy at all times insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equal to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a substantial senator was attended with the loss of life of all who would possibly lament or revenge his destiny; and when Commodus had as soon as tasted human blood, he turned incapable of pity or regret”
(Ebook 1, Chapter 4).
If we quick ahead to Maximinus I (235-238AD), Gibbons wrote that “The cruelty of Maximin was derived from a unique supply, the concern of contempt.” He used conspiracy as does the US at the moment the place the crime requires no proof of doing one thing, it’s merely an settlement to do one thing. You undergo the identical destiny as in the event you did the crime, and there are tons of crimes that everybody violates day-after-day, as identified within the ebook Three Felonies A Day.
Gibbon wrote: “The darkish and sanguinary soul of the tyrant was open to each suspicion in opposition to these amongst his topics who have been essentially the most distinguished by their delivery or advantage. At any time when he was alarmed with the sound of treason, his cruelty was unbounded and unrelenting. A conspiracy in opposition to his life was both found or imagined, and Magnus, a consular senator, was named because the principal creator of it. And not using a witness, and not using a trial, and with out a possibility of defence, Magnus, with 4 thousand of his supposed accomplices, was put to loss of life. Italy and the entire empire have been infested with innumerable spies and informers. On the slightest accusation, the primary of the Roman nobles, who had ruled provinces, commanded armies, and been adorned with the consular and triumphal ornaments, have been chained on the general public carriages, and hurried away to the emperor’s presence. Confiscation, exile, or easy loss of life, have been esteemed unusual situations of his lenity. Among the unlucky victims he ordered to be sewed up within the hides of slaughtered animals, others to be uncovered to wild beasts, others once more to be overwhelmed to loss of life with golf equipment. Through the three years of his reign, he disdained to go to both Rome or Italy. His camp, sometimes faraway from the banks of the Rhine to these of the Danube, was the seat of his stern despotism, which trampled on each precept of regulation and justice, and was supported by the avowed energy of the sword. No man of noble delivery, elegant accomplishments, or data of civil enterprise, was suffered close to his particular person; and the court docket of a Roman emperor revived the concept of these historic chiefs of slaves and gladiators, whose savage energy had left a deep impression of terror and detestation.” (Ebook VII)
That is the person who merely declared all wealth belonged to the state. This impressed the collapse within the velocity of cash because it went into hiding. Hoards of cash buried from this time interval are nonetheless being discovered to this present day. That is what destroyed Rome. It was not hyperinflation however deflation because the economic system merely imploded. That is what occurs when authorities hunts down its personal folks for cash.
