Success is a poor teacher, said Bill Gates. Predict the end of the world and every headline news item makes you look like a swami. Chris Martenson predicted the 2008 crash. He was not alone, of course. I was working as a security guard in a mortgage bank. Our duties included distributing _American Banker_ to the executives when it arrived on the doorstep at 2:00 AM. We knew.

"... intelligent people like you ..." Hey! That's me!! He must be right.

"The Cure for a Failing Empire" was not my idea. I found it. (http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2011/...) However, this guy (Chris Martenson, Ph. D.) is wrong when he says "this has never happened before." It happens all the time -- and the world goes on...

Martenson is just another doom and gloom hoaxter. "How long does it take to get out of control?" This was a well used problem in Junior High Science from the 1960s. "A lilly pond has a flower that doubles in size each day... " Or if you like camouflage: "Three cats take 29 hours to catch three mice. How long do five cats need?" Blah... blah... blah...

According to Martenson, wealth cannot continue to increase exponentially. In the classical era a rower on a galley was paid about the same as a solider in the field or a citizen at assembly, about a drachmon a day, about 3.5 grams of silver. That value today - 1/10 ounce of silver or $2 - would buy more than the rower could imagine. How much is your light bill - any time day or night at the flip of a switch, not just to see in your one-room home (oh! you have more than one room??), but to power your computer! Computer? How much is that worth? Say, about a year of a trireme rower's wage? Think about what that means. He would go without food for a year! Impossible!! And yet, you have a computer.

I could go on all day. This "Accelerated Course" is just ignorant spam.