
Call this a recession? It isn’t the Dark Ages - icey
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4b44d88e-ef39-11de-86c4-00144feab49a.html
======
arethuza
It's not like the Romans were exactly welcomed in all parts of Britain:

"We, the last men on earth, the last of the free, have been shielded till
today by the very remoteness and the seclusion for which we are famed. We have
enjoyed the impressiveness of the unknown. But today the boundary of Britain
is exposed; beyond us lies no nation, nothing but waves and rocks and the
Romans, more deadly still than they, for you find in them an arrogance which
no reasonable submission can elude. Brigands of the world, they have exhausted
the land by their indiscriminate plunder and now they ransack the sea. The
wealth of an enemy excites their cupidity, his poverty their lust of power.
East and West have failed to glut their maw. They are unique in being as
violently tempted to attack the poor as the wealthy. Robbery, butchery,
rapine, with false names they call Empire; and they make a wilderness and call
it peace."

Part of what Calgacus is supposed to have said before the battle of Mons
Graupius in North East Scotland.

~~~
DrJokepu
I can't help but think about the "What did the Romans ever do for us?" scene
from Life of Brian when reading this.

~~~
arethuza
Well, they certainly provided a much needed stimulus to the local wall
building industry.

~~~
Quarrelsome
Methinks the walls were built by teh foreign armies of Rome.

------
pg
I read (most of) his book on the fall of Rome. It has a lot of hard data about
what happened. But the most noticeable thing about the book is how partisan it
seems. He writes as if he were writing about a present day political
controversy. You don't usually see that in books on ancient history.

What he's a partisan _of_ is the idea that the western empire really fell
hard. There is a continuum of opinion on that. From what I know so far I tend
to be on his side, but he's so heavy handed about it that I find it makes me
skeptical about everything he says.

------
petewarden
The archaeological picture is actually a lot more complex than this article
suggests, with strong evidence of large 'factories' around Europe, even in
Britain, feeding extensive trading networks. No coins for 300 years? Sutton
Hoo (early 7th century) contained coins from 37 different Frankish mints!

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo>

I recommend Barbarians to Angels for a good archaeology-based look at the Dark
Ages, even if it does strain a little too far to paint a sunny picture:

<http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780393060751-2>

~~~
billswift
It's rather dated, but Asimov's book, "The Dark Ages" is fairly readable, and
gives a decent overview.

------
akkartik
It's science fiction, but (the better) half of Stephen Baxter's Coalescent
([http://www.amazon.com/Coalescent-Stephen-
Baxter/dp/034545785...](http://www.amazon.com/Coalescent-Stephen-
Baxter/dp/0345457854)) is set in 4th c. Britain. Nothing else has given me
that sense of being there when the wavefront of the empire receded.

------
jderick
So it's no longer "not as bad as the great depression?" Now we are going back
to the dark ages?

~~~
codexon
It is quite annoying to have people come up with excuses to feel good about
the situation. You can always make up an excuse which begins a race to the
bottom:

Hungry? At least you aren't in Africa!

Poor? Well you probably aren't living like a caveman.

Lost an arm? Well you aren't a quadrapelegic!

These types of articles and arguments are quite counterproductive.

------
joe_the_user
Usually I hate meta-commenting but I'm sick of items behind paywalls being
posted here. Please stop.

~~~
hga
The last time I checked the _Financial Times_ (from memory) lets you read 3
articles a month without registration, 17 articles if you register, and you
have to pay if you want to read more for any one month period.

Quite reasonable, especially given the quality of a lot of their copy; the
only problem I had was once hitting the 17 article limit ... and now I only
follow a link to them if I _really_ want to read the item.

------
augustus
It may not be the dark ages but people losing their homes and having to deal
with a bad credit rating for seven years is pretty bad.

Maybe in the dark ages, a second chance was a lot easier.

Today all our mistakes (finances, internet posts,errors of youth) will plague
us for the rest of our lives (seems like).

~~~
yummyfajitas
There are really not very many people losing their homes.

However, many people are choosing not to exercise out-of-the-money home
purchase options. But this is more a problem for banks than for people, since
the banks expected most of those options to be exercised.

The language "people losing their homes" is simply a propaganda term designed
to encourage politicians to take money from renters and owners and give it to
option (aka mortgage) holders.

~~~
nostrademons
"It's a recession when someone you know loses their job. It's a depression
when you lose yours."

I know people, personally, that are losing their homes. I'm kinda wondering
how large your social circles are if you don't know anyone in that situation.

Now, the people I know in foreclosure probably _should_ be in foreclosure -
they got that way through bad financial decisions in 2006 and 2007, and they
were certainly warned at the time. House prices can't stay overvalued forever,
and maybe this'll give those of us who were more prudent with our money an
actual chance to own a home. But "propaganda term"? Really? These are real
people with real homes. And they're not as uncommon as you'd think.

~~~
yummyfajitas
A person in foreclosure is, by the definition of foreclosure, not losing
_their_ home. They never owned a home, all they owned is a call option on a
home.

~~~
nostrademons
They are losing _the home they live in_ , which in practical terms is as bad
or worse.

Average people don't care about call options or rates of return, they care
that they have a roof over their head.

~~~
yummyfajitas
You can't lose something you never had to begin with.

Lets follow your logic. My lease runs out on Jan 31. Am I "losing my home"? If
I'm not, what distinguishes my repo agreement/lease from other peoples call
option/mortgage?

~~~
lionhearted
> Am I "losing my home"? If I'm not, what distinguishes my repo
> agreement/lease from other peoples call option/mortgage?

I actually agree with your basic sentiment, but there is an answer to this.
Losing a mortgaged home hurts more than an apartment because people tend to
have greater levels of endowment effects -

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect>

> In behavioral economics, the endowment effect (also known as divestiture
> aversion) is a hypothesis that people value a good or service more once
> their property right to it has been established. In other words, people
> place a higher value on objects they own than objects that they do not.

Endowment effects is looking pretty robust at this point, it's been shown on a
lot of unrelated types of goods and services. People have a much greater
attachment to a "home" than an "apartment" - I mean you can even think of the
difference in connotation and prestige between being a "homeowner" and
"renter" - this probably isn't a good thing by the way, but it's definitely
real.

