EU - US relations: The US and the Roman empire - by Jeremy Grant
The Financial Times most popular story of the year reported a warning that the US is on a "burning platform" of unsustainable policies and practices. It came in an August report from David Walker, head of the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress. In an Financial Times interview, he drew parallels with the end of the Roman empire. There were "striking similarities", he said, between the US's current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including "declining moral values and political civility at home, an overconfident and overextended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government". He condemned current US policies on education, energy, the environment and immigration as "unsustainable".
"Wall Street is a metaphor for the Colosseum where Romans fought not just individual duels, but fought a much deeper battle for the heart and soul of the republic - and lost. The Colosseum was symbolic of their obsession with wealth and material excesses, destroying its values and exposing its vulnerability, until eventually Rome was overrun by outsiders."
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