Vae Victis

From Yahoo News:

The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking.
Here Are the Stats to Prove it

Posted Jul 15, 2010 02:25pm EDT by Michael Snyder in Recession

Editor's note: Michael Snyder is editor of theeconomiccollapseblog.com

The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.

So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.
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The Conservative solution?

More please!
More please!
More please!

The original Sackers of Rome had animal skins and swords:

"The sack of Rome (390 B.C.) was the worst recorded disaster in the history of the early Roman Republic, and saw a Gallic war band led by Brennus capture and sack most of the city, after winning an easy victory on the Allia.

"The speed with which the Gauls had approached the city seems to have caught the Romans by surprise. They were only able to raise a small army, which was easily defeated on the Allia. Most of the survivors took refuge in Veii, which was much better fortified than Rome. The rest escaped back to Rome, where they took refuge in the Citadel, the strongest defensive position in the city.
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"On the following day the Gauls made an unopposed entry into the city. Finding it empty they looted it, and then turned to the Citadel. A direct assault failed, and after that they settled down into a blockade, probably using Rome as a base for raiding Latium while conducting a fairly loose blockade of the Citadel. The Romans were able, with difficulty, to open communications with Veii and eventually a truce was arranged with the defenders, ending active fighting but not the blockade.

"Eventually the defenders of the Citadel ran out of food, and were forced to come to terms with the Gauls. A ransom of 1000lbs of gold was agreed. When the Romans complained about the Gaul's scales Brennus is said to have thrown his sword onto the scales with the words 'Woe to the vanquished' (vae victis). After this the Gauls probably left the city safely, taking their plunder with them."

Ours have Blackberrys and this guy.