"History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done." —Sydney J. Harris Inflation, the U.S. dollar’s volatility, unemployment, and an increase in the U.S. money supply... In spite of the concerns we have when we watch the morning news, we Americans tend to believe that our long-term outlook is good because, as we interpret our relatively brief history, we're Americans and we always come out on top. But the history of the world has many examples of great empires and nations whose leaders felt the same way, but turned out to be wrong. We can look, for instance, to the Roman Empire which enjoyed 200 years of prosperity until it collapsed over the course of the next 300 years. But the machinery of the collapse didn’t begin during the final 300 years of the Empire. It started long before with sometimes short-sighted economic and monetary policies and practices. Then, incrementally, th eir excesses, the border in