There is a Bear in the Woods mah frenz...

And it eats republics and empires for breakfast sans demure.
Thriving nations descend into poverty and insignificance for a lot of different reasons. Pride, stupidity, willful primitivism a host of reasons really.
Many times the same elites, the same oligarchs the same leaders are continually returned to power to pursue the same policies on the patently insane expectation of a different outcome.
The Romans had this problem; they handed over the tatters of their republic to the twitchy descendents of Julius Caesar until at long last Nero decided he was the Goddess of Revelsm gowns and all, he brought down the army on himself and the House of Augustus.
We've got the same problem here in America right now, the same gang that got us into this mess are the same ones backing John McCain to the hilt. Somehow more tax cuts and less regulation and more lobbyists making the laws is supposed to bring prosperity back to the USA soonest. Well....in an objective sense we've already seen where that notion leads us, recession...therefore more of the same will lead to a depression doesn't that make common sense?

***
We can all start out in the middle class and still end up living in refridgerator boxes. All it takes is enough guys at the top with no sense of consequence and a great deal of greed.

Sick
Demented
Typical...