HISTORY IS REPEATING ITSELF!

Classic Greece faded away, the Roman Empire collapsed eventually, and now "The Old Industrialized Countries" are sliding down the same slippery slope after 600 years of unbroken progress!

A SPECIFIC MECHANISM CAUSED THESE 3 HISTORIC DEVELOPMENTS!

The Classic Greek city-states flourished on the basis of production of goods and seaborne trade. The success was so great that the next natural step in the expansion of their activities was the establishment of colonial towns out in their markets in southern Italy, northern Greece and the Black Sea region. The consequence of this development was that the satellite cities / colonies gradually established their own production of goods to trade in their home markets and in even more distant regions.
In the beginning the people of the Classic Greek city-states were closely linked to the people of their colonies and everything was still ok.

As a result of the colonies development of their own production they gradually bought fewer goods from their Classic Greek city-states and also became more and more independent. Due to this development the Classic Greek city-states thus lost the economic surplus that was a precondition for their high cultural and societal level and subsequently went into decline.

The success of the colonies resulted in the continuation of a wide spread (less sophisticated but very vigorous) Hellenistic culture. The peak of this development came after the conquests of Alexander the Great and the subsequent stable Hellenistic state formations.

In the Mediterranean region new powers developed. The Phoenicians had success with maritime commerce, and Rome gradually incorporated the communities on the Italian peninsula in their economic and political sphere. With the coastal areas on the Italian peninsula already colonized the Roman expansion strategies became for a long time land oriented.

In order to develop dynamically a society must have a political system that reflects the economic forces and their fluctuations. As the Roman expansion strategies on the Italian peninsular included full economic and political integration of the annexed communities that were on the same developmental level as Rome, the republic continued to thrive.

The subsequent expansion of the Roman Empire outside the Italian peninsular however was equivalent to the Classic Greek city-states colonial expansions. The novel element being that Rome continued to exert economic and military power over the colonies / provinces.

The provincial governors were de facto local dictators who were not held accountable for the development of their provinces but only for delivering taxes to Rome and maintaining the military grip over their province.

The unique quality of the commercial dynamics is that everyone involved has a direct personal (and political) interest in cooperation and development, while an economy driven by tax collection and military power just motivates those involved to rake-off society.

The consequence of the shift to tax collection and looting was that the commercial interests on the Italian peninsular became of less and less importance thereby changing the political balance in Rome from democracy to dictatorship / imperial rule.

Gradually Rome itself was reduced to being the administrative center without real economic and political significance. The military ruler, the emperor who controlled taxes and loot were in possession of the real power.

Although the empire expanded it became more and more obvious that the societal dynamics had been lost and that a gradual societal decline of Rome had begun.

Long before the final collapse of the Roman Empire, the dissolution trends were evident, and at the end the ruling emperors did not even trouble themselves with manifesting their power in Rome. Rome itself had by then lost even its symbolic value!

 The mechanism leading to the decline of the classic Greek city states, that production and trade moved away, was thus also the cause of the decline and final collapse of the Roman Empire.

Just as the decisive shift of the development in the Greek city states and of the Roman Empire took place long before their economies showed any sign of crisis, the crucial shift for “the Old Industrialized Countries” took place several decades ago.

In the U.S.A. the internationalization started after World War II, but it did not really make an impact before the 1960s. From the 1970ties and onwards it has been evident that the standard of living for the middle class American had stagnated, and that a gradual economic polarization were taking place.
A polarization that resembles that of the Roman Empire. The super rich get richer and the income of the majority of the population stagnates.
In Europe that development started later, in Denmark the shift occurred after 1984, where the foreign exchange restrictions were lifted and it thereafter became "an official national project" to move production and companies abroad! Initially this new development was slow, but gradually as more and more companies had success with that strategy, the development accelerated. The Danes reasoned (and unfortunately still believe) that what is good for the companies are good for the national economy. By now it has been independently documented that it is only those company activities that are situated in a country that are beneficial to the country.

Because of the lack of understanding of the above described economic and developmental mechanism, the international success of national companies were taken as proof of national success, and great was the surprise when the bubble burst! 

Just as the expansion policies of the Classic Greek city states and of Rome looked like huge successes, but in actual fact were the beginning of the decline, the internationalization successes of “the Old Industrialized Countries” are actually the beginning of the end to their 600 years long economic and societal flowering. A more detailed description of the mechanism can be seen in:
 http://unifiedscience2.blogspot.com/2011/02/deeper-causes-of-downturn.html

The belief that globalization would result in increased national economic growth has unfortunately proved to be unfounded. The internationalized companies naturally place their activities where it is most profitable and will rather employ cheaper foreign labor and experts than expensive “Old Industrial Countries” labor and experts.

It is still "The Old Industrialized Countries” national task to maintain a well-functioning society, education, infrastructure, hospitals and other welfare services and defense, but the production and economy needed to meet all these economic demands are with increasing speed fleeing the “Old Industrialized Countries”.

Due to the prevailing economic understanding expansionist economic policies were unfortunately used leading to the financial bubble.
 What looked like economic progress was in fact growing recession in Denmark and in the other "Old Industrialized Countries" too. 
  As stated above, this is not primarily an economic crisis, it is " The Old Industrialized Countries” production crisis, that have had and will continue to have growing economic consequences.

In fact the present economic policies are a continuation of the bubble, but now it is being financed by the FED and the ECB!

This is not a business community crisis it is the crisis of the “Old Industrialized national states”!