The Roman Empire is in some measure a stimulus story. It conquered. It grew. Each conquest brought more booty…gold, silver, land and slaves. And each led to more conquests, which brought forth more booty. But the stimulus of this booty stimulated only the need for more stimulus. It did not stimulate real prosperity. Instead, it undermined it. First, slaves bought by rich landowners destroyed the free labor market and ruined small farmers. And then, imported wheat from the provinces – paid as tribute – put the large-scale farmers out of business too. Italy was then dependent on foreigners for its food.

The first financial crisis of the imperial period came early. Caesar Augustus tried to solve it…with more stimulus. Neither paper money nor the printing press had yet been invented. So, Augustus increased the money supply in the only way he could; he ordered slaves in the silver mines in Spain and France to work around the clock! This extra money did not bring prosperity; it caused price inflation. In a period of about three decades, Rome’s consumer price index almost doubled. Then, when output from the mines could be increased no further, Augustus’s great nephew, Nero, found a new source of stimulus; he reduced the silver content of the coins. This source of stimulus proved ineffective, but enduring. By the time barbarians took over, the silver denarius contained almost no silver at all. Of course, Rome itself was played out too.

The Attack of the 1-Percenters

Here’s a truism: The wealthiest 1 percent have never had it so good.

According to government figures, 1-percenters’ share of America’s total income is the highest it’s been since 1929, and their tax rates are the lowest they’ve faced in two decades. Through bonuses, many 1-percenters will profit from the $23 trillion in bailout largesse the Treasury Department now says could be headed to financial firms. And, most of them benefit from IRS decisions to reduce millionaire audits and collect zero taxes from the majority of major corporations.

US on Verge of Closing Anthrax Probe After 8 Years

A year after government scientist Bruce Ivins killed himself while under investigation for the lethal anthrax letters of 2001, the Justice Department is on the verge of closing the long, costly and vexing case.

Skeptics — including prominent lawmakers — pointed to the bureau’s long, misguided pursuit of Hatfill, and noted there was no evidence suggesting Ivins was ever in New Jersey when the letters were mailed there.

Hmm, lets see. The government, investigating a government lab, about government-created weapons of mass destruction sent to…members of the government.

Uh huh. We’ll be getting the full story on that, you just wait. Uh huh.

Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide

Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.

One particularly striking set of images – selected from the 1,000 photographs released – includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free.

To see this in America?

Mob beats Chinese steel factory executive to death

Chinese state media confirmed Monday that a steel factory executive was beaten to death after thousands of workers gathered to protest the takeover of their company.

They dispersed later only after they were assured by authorities the sale would not go through.

Start this up in the US, and you might not have an executive left alive…

Miss Myra, this one is for you:

Gonzo Gastronomy: How the Food Industry Has Made Bacon a Weapon of Mass Destruction

Among my fondest childhood memories is savoring a strip of perfectly cooked bacon that had just been dragged through a puddle of maple syrup. It was an illicit pleasure; varnishing the fatty, salty, smoky bacon with sweet arboreal sap felt taboo. How could such simple ingredients produce such riotous flavors?

That was then. Today, you don’t need to tax yourself applying syrup to bacon — McDonald’s does it for you with the McGriddle. It conveniently takes an egg, American cheese and pork and nestles it between pancakelike biscuits suffused with genuine fake-maple-syrup flavor.

What would happen if three percent of American gun owners or maybe even three percent of the American public decided they were ready to take things to the next level with minor breaches of the law?

There Is No Reason for Us to Be in Afghanistan — Everyone Knows It, and It Spells Defeat

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted July 21, 2009.

Al-Qaida could not care less what we do in Afghanistan. We can bomb Afghan villages, hunt the Taliban in Helmand province, build a 100,000-strong client Afghan army, stand by passively as Afghan warlords execute hundreds, maybe thousands, of Taliban prisoners, build huge, elaborate military bases and send drones to drop bombs on Pakistan. It will make no difference. The war will not halt the attacks of Islamic radicals. Terrorist and insurgent groups are not conventional forces. They do not play by the rules of warfare our commanders have drilled into them in war colleges and service academies. And these underground groups are protean, changing shape and color as they drift from one failed state to the next, plan a terrorist attack and then fade back into the shadows. We are fighting with the wrong tools. We are fighting the wrong people. We are on the wrong side of history. And we will be defeated in Afghanistan as we will be in Iraq.

Kucinich Asks ‘Is the Fed Paying Banks NOT to Loan Money?’

WASHINGTON (JULY 21, 2009) – - Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who has led the effort challenging the use of TARP funds through two administrations, today questioned whether or not “banks are parking a historic amount of taxpayers’ money in the Federal Reserve while the businesses and consumers across America are starved for credit” and whether the Federal Reserve is “paying banks not to make loans.”

“If these reports are true, this raises significant questions about who the Fed is working for. There is record unemployment and businesses and consumers across American are starved for capital, if the Fed is paying higher interest rates on term deposits in order to induce banks to keep money at the Fed rather than lend, it would be an outrage,” Kucinich said.

As usual, Kucinich remains one of the few in Congress speaking sense.

Jackson Browne Defeats John McCain

Singer Jackson Browne has won his copyright battle against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), getting an apology and an undisclosed sum of money from the 2008 presidential nominee for a pro-McCain Web video that appropriated the artist’s hit song “Running On Empty.”

“We apologize that a portion of the Jackson Browne song ‘Running On Empty’ was used without permission. Although Senator McCain had no knowledge of, or involvement in, the creation or distribution of the Web campaign video, Senator McCain does not support or condone any actions taken by anyone involved in his 2008 presidential election campaign that were inconsistent with artists’ rights or the various legal protections afforded to intellectual property.”

Guess they’ll just have to content themselves with robbing our money, not our art.