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sign of civilisation collapse - shrinking food / energy for peasants

1. shrinking energy for peasants

http://www.bnd.com/sports/columnists/story/654250.html

Average worker paychecks are worth less now than in 1973, but CEOs and other rich Americans not only make much more, they pay less in taxes.
Click here to find out more!

Average full-time workers made $41,198 in 1973 and $37,606 in 2008, adjusted for inflation.

CEOs made 45 times as much as workers in 1973 and more than 300 times as much as workers now. The top tax rate was 70 percent in 1973 and just 35 percent now; taxpayers pay the top rate on the portion of taxable income that falls within the highest bracket and pay lower rates on income below that. The top rate for capital gains on the sale of stock and other assets was 36.5 percent in 1973 and 15 percent now.

Irrational pay and tax cuts have generated a massive redistribution of income and wealth from workers to CEOs, hedge fund managers and others in the richest 1 percent.

By 2006, the richest 1 percent had increased their share of the nation's income to the second-highest level on record. The only year higher was 1928 - on the eve of the Great Depression.

2. consider the mayan's

from Tainter's the collapse of complex socities page 174 - "By about A.D. 1 marked stature differences had developed at Tikal between tomb (higher status) and non-tomb (lower status) segments of the population. By the Early Classic tomb populations averaged seven centimeters taller, suggesting preferential access by the elites to nutritional resources during the childhood growth years. Yet during the Late Classic both groups were affected by the stresses of the time."

3. in light Joseph Tainter laws - how does this relate to collapse?

from Tainter's the collapse of complex socities page 175:

Ever increasing investments in warfare, complexity, monumental construction, and agricultural intensification yielded no proportionately increasing returns in the health and nutritional status of the populace.

...as the demands on the support population increased the benefits accruing to that population actually declined.

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