- House prices become impossible for plebians.
- Workers are overly indebted to finance and a land-grabbing aristocracy.*
- Social division is apparent and internal collapse is imminent.
- Financial depression occurs.
- “That emerging nation has become too powerful. It threatens us!”
- Trade wars commence.
- War between two major powers is seen to be a convenient response to problems at home and abroad. (“We need a good war!”)
The bells are ringing.
*The private rent seeking from which we’ve proven unable to extract ourselves has occasioned repetitive human disasters.
Taxes on incomes and purchases are deeply pathological. So, the health of nations is determined by whether they prove able to capture the rent of their land and natural resources publicly.
*The aristocracy and its supporters have always resisted this salubrious outcome. They prefer war.