Eerily similar or way off base, what do you think ?

Yes, I have seen that before, we are somewhere between 7 and 8. The average life span of great Republics or Empires is between 200 to 300 years. You do the math.

This isn't a farmer society and most revenue comes from the cities while welfare goes out to the country-side. The welfare is mostly an urban problem is just urban myth, the reality is that the biggest sinks of federal money are the least populated states such as Alaska. He gives no data to back up his proposition and it seems like he is just making stuff up to support his conclusions.

I'm not saying that Democracies don't eventually collapse, but the causes of such collapse are more complicated then people realize. For example, environmental issues as well as the adaption of military technology were also major causes of the collapse of the Roman empire.

Usually, Democracies become dictatorships because dictatorships are quicker to respond to immediate military problems such as terrorist attacks for example. If anyone was pushing us in the direction of a dictatorship, it would be Bush and the Republicans.

I think we loop from 4 to 7 fairly often. Because of the cyclical nature of wars we build up the Industrial military complex fairly often. That does spill a certain amount of money into the economy though more and more that cash is sat on by the rich now.

Scary to say the least.