> http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Issues/2008/DR050708.html#essay
> The Daily Reckoning
> London, England
> Wednesday, May 7, 2008
>
> The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: No modern government policy is so stupid
> that the Romans didn't think of it first. Inspired by his recent trip to
> Rome, Bill takes us through Rome's trash pile of history to try to learn
> something from it. Read on...
>
> ETERNAL CITY, CHRONIC TROUBLE
> by Bill Bonner
>
> A visitor to the Eternal City, even if he has been many times before,
> feels his jaw drop and his pulse rise. The city is still a magnificent
> ruin...a vast memento mori recalling every absurdity and corruption known
> to man. Here we begin ab ovo, as the Romans used to say - with the egg.
> ...

> "Sir Frederick" fuzzysys.com> wrote in message
>
> news:4ud924l0ehei9dmkeqgtbn7h4tjlu3ct05@4ax.com...
>
>
>
>
>

>>http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Issues/2008/DR050708.html#essay
>> The Daily Reckoning
>> London, England
>> Wednesday, May 7, 2008

>

>> The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: No modern government policy is so stupid
>> that the Romans didn't think of it first. Inspired by his recent trip to
>> Rome, Bill takes us through Rome's trash pile of history to try to learn
>> something from it. Read on...

>

>> ETERNAL CITY, CHRONIC TROUBLE ...

> Analysis of aristocratic skeletons shows lead. But most of it came from
> the "garum", a fish sauce that sat on every table, its high acid leading
> the metal from the lead bottle it was sold in. It was also upscale to quit
> using pottery and cook with lead pots.
>
> With the lower classes, the problem was monoculture. They got bread, but
> did not get a balanced diet. No trace minerals for maximal mental
> development.
>
> Gibbon noted that all the emperors who grew up in Rome, Caligula, Nero, &
> Commodus come to mind, were diasters, and all the competent administrators
> of the empire, Trajan, Diocletian, Hadrian, Justinian, grew up on farms
> out in the boonies. Where they all ate wild foods...

>
> "Day Brown" hughes.net> wrote in message
> news:a%%9Vj.17$yP7.5@newsfe18.lga...

>> Analysis of aristocratic skeletons shows lead. But most of it came from
>> the "garum", a fish sauce that sat on every table, its high acid leading
>> the metal from the lead bottle it was sold in. It was also upscale to
>> quit using pottery and cook with lead pots.
>>
>> With the lower classes, the problem was monoculture. They got bread, but
>> did not get a balanced diet. No trace minerals for maximal mental
>> development.
>>
>> Gibbon noted that all the emperors who grew up in Rome, Caligula, Nero, &
>> Commodus come to mind, were diasters, and all the competent
>> administrators of the empire, Trajan, Diocletian, Hadrian, Justinian,
>> grew up on farms out in the boonies. Where they all ate wild foods and
>> home grown veggies in what we'd call 'organic' soils and thereby received
>> the trace minerals and micro-nutrient in the plants that maximized mental ...

> Analysis of aristocratic skeletons shows lead. But most of it came from
> the "garum", a fish sauce that sat on every table, its high acid leading
> the metal from the lead bottle it was sold in. It was also upscale to quit
> using pottery and cook with lead pots.
>
> With the lower classes, the problem was monoculture. They got bread, but
> did not get a balanced diet. No trace minerals for maximal mental
> development.

>
> Gibbon noted that all the emperors who grew up in Rome, Caligula, Nero, &
> Commodus come to mind, were diasters, and all the competent administrators
> of the empire, Trajan, Diocletian, Hadrian...

> modern man too; even when the traps are as obvious as bailouts and
> Baghdad, they sashay right in.