During my 80+ years of life, I have always worked to understand the world around me as much as possible. A question that has bothered me recently is this: “How could the country that provided me such a good life descend into such a state of chaos, confusion and discord?” After much research I believe I have some answers.

The first thing to note is that it has happened before. While the precise mix of events leading to each crisis is different, Oxford researcher, Peter Turchin, says a common theme is what he calls “popular immiseration—when the economic fortunes of broad swaths of a population decline” and wealth gets concentrated in a few at the top. Thom Hartmann put it this way: The crisis is caused by “the rise of greedy oligarchs” whose obsession with wealth “blots out their ability t

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