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, legislation enforcement is now not about defending however producing income. The confiscation of property obtained by unlawful means seems cheap, but given that is civil forfeiture, no proof is required. Homes, automobiles and different property that are suspected to be anyway related with legal exercise are being seized with out having to show something, offering a further income for legislation 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 quite easy. Human nature by no means modifications. In the event 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 function however the songs are all the time the identical.
Gibbon wrote in regards to the forms: “Suspicious princes typically promote the final of mankind, from a useless persuasion, that those that don’t have any dependence, besides on their favor, may have no attachment, besides to the individual of their benefactor.”
Edward Gibbon wrote of Commodus: Every
“distinction of each variety quickly turned legal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; inflexible advantage implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; essential companies implied a harmful superiority of benefit; and the friendship of the daddy all the time insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equal to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a substantial senator was attended with the dying 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”
(E book 1, Chapter 4).
If we quick ahead to Maximinus I (235-238AD), Gibbons wrote that “The cruelty of Maximin was derived from a distinct supply, the concern of contempt.” He used conspiracy as does the USA right this 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 when you did the crime, and there are tons of crimes that everybody violates every single day, as identified within the e book 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 had been essentially the most distinguished by their start or benefit. Every time 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. With no witness, and not using a trial, and with out a possibility of defence, Magnus, with 4 thousand of his supposed accomplices, was put to dying. Italy and the entire empire had 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, had been chained on the general public carriages, and hurried away to the emperor’s presence. Confiscation, exile, or easy dying, had been esteemed unusual cases of his lenity. A few of 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 crushed to dying with golf equipment. Through the three years of his reign, he disdained to go to both Rome or Italy. His camp, often 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 legislation and justice, and was supported by the avowed energy of the sword. No man of noble start, elegant accomplishments, or data of civil enterprise, was suffered close to his individual; and the courtroom of a Roman emperor revived the thought of these historical chiefs of slaves and gladiators, whose savage energy had left a deep impression of terror and detestation.” (E book 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 financial system merely imploded. That is what occurs when authorities hunts down its personal folks for cash.