This dangerous trend, now in its fifth decade, has been accelerating in the 1990s. In its wake, a once proud nation of producers and entrepreneurs is being transformed into a country of gamblers and dimwits, as the Wall Street bankers and brokers are wagging the tails of the nation's business principals and shareholders. It has all happened before. Many times, in fact, in the history of Homo Sapiens, who rarely seems to learn from history or from his past mistakes.
Corrupt rulers try to govern by corrupting the hearts and minds of their subjects.
Until eventually the bread ran out, and the games turned into rebellions which destroyed their pot-bellied empire. The same trends are at work in modern-day America. The Wall Street casino is the Coliseum stage. But there is one 20th century innovation. In modern-day America, it is the gladiators who are mostly funding the games.