bread & circus magazine

t h e m a g a z i n e o f b r e a d & c i r c u s

BREAD&CIRCUS

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Rome in the f irst two centuries A.D. faced a yawning gulf between rich and poor. The mighty empire

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Rome in the f irst two centuries A.D. faced a yawning gulf between

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EDITA: Brands & Roses, S.L. · IMPRESION: Barcelona Digital · LEGAL DEPOSITY M42701-2012 · www.breadcircus.comDIRECTOR David Ortega - [email protected] · COPY Evelin Toledano - [email protected] DIRECTOR Benjamin James Barber - [email protected] · 3D David Galar - [email protected]

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Rome in the f irst two centuries A.D. faced a yawning gulf between rich and poor. The mighty empire built on tribute reached its geographic limits. Its economy created few exportable goods. Slaves acquired by conquest buiwlt most of its bridges, roads and aqueducts and took jobs in farming, mining and construction. As this cheaper labor replaced Roman citizens, idle, unem-ployed, hungry people f illed the capital. The Caesars created make-work and part-time jobs, subsidized housing and doled out grain. Even more, they found, was needed. “A people that yawns is ripe for revolt,” wrote Jerome Carcopino in “Daily Life in Ancient Rome.” Alice Schroeder is the author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.” Before becoming a full-time writer, she was a top-ranked insurance analyst on Wall Street. June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Alice Schroeder, a Bloomberg View columnist and author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life,” discusses her column comparing issues facing ancient Rome to the current U.S. economy. She speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Alice Schroeder is a Bloomberg View columnist.

The emperors added holidays until, eventually, the Romans spent half their days attending gladiator games, public executions and chariot races. Disgus-ted, the satirist Juvenal accused his fellow citizens of selling out for bribes of “bread and circuses.” The Romans did nothing to prove him wrong, until two centuries later the empire was divided forever and Rome was sacked by Visigoths. The complicated causes of Rome’s decline have long fascinated historians, and provide a lens through which to examine the vulnerability of other dominant cultures. Americans’ addiction to entertainment has been compared to the circuses of ancient Rome. We can, and do, spend much of our free time watching dreck on TV like “Half Pint Brawlers,” about a com-pany of self-styled “midget wrestlers” who attack each other with staple guns and broken bottles. In fact, in 2009, people over age 15 spent an average of 58 percent of their leisure time watching television, playing games and using the Internet -- an increase of 16 percent from 2003. When entertainment dominates a society, it changes more than the culture; it also reshapes the economy. You can see that circuses are where the money is from the rise of digital entertainment, which has steered enormous amounts of discretionary income toward digital content and the devices that run it: laptops, televi-sions, gaming consoles, smart phones. In the decade leading up to the 2008 f inancial crisis, the only major industry other than health care that consis-tently showed strong real growth was consumer electronics.

Although hit hard by the recession, spending on digital media has now begun to rebound. The question is who benef its. We produce a lot of content, yet most of the devices it comes on are not made in the U.S. Trade Imbalan-ces. This exemplif ies another problem that vexed the Romans and faces us today: Dominant economies tend to import more than they export, creating trade imbalances. The manufactured stuff of life, basic items such as food, clothing, cars, phones and furniture -- the bread, as opposed to the circuses -- costs less to buy if produced elsewhere than if made by a highly developed country’s own citizens. The result is a loss of jobs at home. The conquest-driven Romans stand out in history as an extreme example. They brought home their imports, including slave labor, as plunder. This made the “bread” as cheap as it could be, and put the Romans themselves out of work. We merely face a situation in which our labor costs, laws and regulations make U.S. business less competitive than that of other countries. In the 1990s, manufacturing workers went through a draconian loss.

Welcome to the newspaper


In the f irst two centuries A.D. faced a yawning gulf between rich and poor. The mighty empire built on tribute reached its geographic limits. Its economy created few exportable goods. Slaves acquired by conquest buiwlt most of its bridges, roads and aqueducts and took jobs in farming, mining and construction. As this cheaper labor replaced Roman citizens, idle, unemployed, hungry people f illed the capital. The Caesars created make-work and part-time jobs, subsidized housing and doled out grain.

Even more, they found, was needed. “A people that yawns is ripe for revolt,” wrote Jerome Carcopino in “Daily Life in Ancient Rome.” Alice Schroeder is the author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.” Before becoming a full-time writer, she was a top-ranked insurance analyst on Wall Street. June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Alice Schroeder, a Bloomberg View columnist and author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life,” discusses her column comparing issues facing ancient Rome to the current U.S. economy. She speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Alice Schroeder is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

The heavy emperors added holidays until, eventually, the Romans spent half their days attending gladiator games, public executions and chariot races. Disgusted, the satirist Juvenal accused his fellow citizens of selling out for bribes of “bread and circuses.” The Romans did nothing to prove him wrong, until two centuries later the empire was divided forever and Rome was sacked by Visigoths. The complicated causes of Rome’s decline have long fascinated historians, and provide a lens through which to examine the vulnerability of other dominant cultures. Americans’ addiction to entertainment has been compared to the circuses of ancient Rome. We can, and do, spend much of our free time watching dreck on TV like “Half Pint Brawlers,” about a company of self-styled “midget

wrestlers” who attack each other with staple guns and broken bottles. In fact, in 2009, people over age 15 spent an average of 58 percent of their leisure time watching television, playing games and using the Internet -- an increase of 16 percent from 2003. When entertainment dominates a society, it changes more than the culture; it also reshapes the economy. You can see that circuses are where the money is from the rise of digital entertainment, which has steered enormous amounts of discretio-nary income toward digital content and the devices that run it: laptops, televisions, gaming consoles, smart phones. In the decade leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, the only major industry other than health care that consistently showed strong real growth was consumer electronics.

Although bold hit hard by the recession, spending on digital media has now begun to rebound. The question is who benefits. We produ-ce a lot of content, yet most of the devices it comes on are not made in the U.S. Trade Imbalances. This exemplif ies another problem that vexed the Romans and faces us today: Dominant economies tend to import more than they export, creating trade imbalances. The manufactured stuff of life, basic items such as food, clothing, cars, phones and furniture -- the bread, as opposed to the circuses -- costs less to buy if produced elsewhere than if made by a highly developed country’s own citizens. The result is a loss of jobs at home. The conquest-driven Romans stand out in history as an extreme example. They brought home their imports, inclu-ding slave labor, as plunder. This made the “bread” as cheap as it could be, and put the Romans them-selves out of work. We merely face a situation in which our labor costs, laws and regulations make U.S. business less competitive than that of other countries. In the 1990s, manufacturing workers went through a draconian loss of employment as work was sent offshore. The very thing that drove the jobs overseas made the bread cheap. During the

high-growth bubble decade that culminated in 2008, the sales growth rates of basic consumer goods such as apparel, cars and sporting goods averaged less than 2 percent, so low as to be deflationary in real terms. Service Economy’ Offsetting the loss of manufacturing work, the leverage- happy bubble era created so many jobs for bankers, hairstylists, airline ticket agents and home health aides that we began to describe ourselves as a “service economy.” But service businesses are vulnerable to the very same forces that drove the fat out of manufactu-ring. Take retailing. Since the 1990s, businesses that helped make the bread cheaper, such as superstores and warehouse clubs, were the only major category of retailers to show strong growth. Now these businesses, too, are severely pressured by more eff icient online sellers, which are growing twice as fast as their off line counterparts. The proportion of our total population that is currently working has fallen to 58.4 percent, the level it was in 1983, when far fewer women were in the job market.

It ’s true that this percentage should improve as the economy moves past the lingering effects of the f inancial crisis, but recovery won’t alter the fundamental trend. Structural forces are creating some very serious employment headwinds, faced especially by younger, less educated men.

simply put // What has been good for American consumers hasn’t been good for workers. Look at the big picture, and you also see how, unlike Rome, whose armies looted the lands they conquered, the underemployed U.S. must borrow money to pay for our bread and circuses. Rome was so rich that it took hundreds of years for the empire to crumble. We’re broke, which accelerates the day of reckoning. Reform of U.S. entitlement spending would buy us time, but wouldn’t f ix the employment situation. On a positive note, this bread-and-circu-ses economy does offer new opportunities. People who can help make things cheaper will do well. They

mercedes huelvasNew York

The Football is part of the playfulness , the problem is when that entertainment becomes a smokescreen for powerful stun consciences people

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Although bold hit hard by the recession, spending on digital media has now begun to rebound. The question is who benefits. We produ-ce a lot of content, yet most of the devices it comes on are not made in the U.S. Trade Imbalances. This exemplif ies another problem that vexed the Romans and faces us today: Dominant economies tend to import more than they export, creating trade imbalances. The manufactured stuff of life, basic items such as food, clothing, cars, phones and furniture -- the bread, as opposed to the circuses -- costs less to buy if produced elsewhere than if made by a highly developed country’s own citizens. The result is a loss of jobs at home. The conquest-driven Romans stand out in history as an extreme example. They brought home their imports, inclu-ding slave labor, as plunder. This made the “bread” as cheap as it could be, and put the Romans them-selves out of work. We merely face a situation in which our labor costs, laws and regulations make U.S. business less competitive than that of other countries. In the 1990s, manufacturing workers went through a draconian loss of employment as work was sent offshore. The very thing that drove the jobs overseas made the bread cheap. During the high-growth bubble decade that culminated in 2008, the sales growth rates of basic consumer goods such as apparel, cars and sporting goods averaged less than 2 percent, so low as to be deflationary in real terms. Service Economy’ Offsetting the loss of manufacturing work, the leverage- happy bubble era created so many jobs for bankers, hairstylists, airline ticket agents and home health aides that we began to describe ourselves as a “service economy.” But service businesses are vulnerable to the very same forces that drove the fat out of manufactu-ring. Take retailing. Since the 1990s, businesses that helped make the bread cheaper, such as superstores and warehouse clubs, were the only major category of retailers to show strong growth. Now these businesses, too, are severely pressured by more eff icient online sellers, which are growing twice as fast as their off line counterparts. The proportion of our total population that is currently working has fallen to 58.4 percent, the level it was in 1983, when far fewer women were in the job market.

It ’s true that this percentage should improve as the economy moves past the lingering effects of the f inancial crisis, but recovery won’t alter the fundamental trend. Structural forces are creating some very serious employment headwinds, faced especially by younger, less educated men.

simply put // What has been good for American consumers hasn’t been good for workers. Look at the big picture, and you also see how, unlike Rome, whose armies looted the lands they conquered, the underemployed U.S. must borrow money to pay for our bread and circuses. Rome was so rich that it took hundreds of years for the empire to crumble. We’re broke, which accelerates the day of recko-ning. Reform of U.S. entitlement spending would buy us time, but wouldn’t f ix the employment si-tuation. On a positive note, this bread-and-circuses economy does offer new opportunities. People who

can use digital technology to build businesses of truly global scale. Lastly, anyone who can satisfy the public’s lust for mind-rotting drivel has a viable ca-reer ahead in a growth industry. Drowning a coun-try in vicarious debauchery may be a lousy way to sustain a civilization. Still, there is something to be said for “Half Pint Brawlers” and its ilk. TV-watching keeps people at home, instead of marching in the streets. (Alice Schroeder, author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” and a former managing director at Morgan Stanley, is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.) For all the talk of tax increases and debt-cutting, President Barack Obama’s biggest and most- revealing decision this year may be which can-didate he chooses to be his new secretary of state. It will tell us whether the president allows comfort to trump qualif ication.The two candidates are Susan Rice, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, and Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee. Both would be impressive, though they bring different strengths. Jonathan Alter was a senior editor, media critic and columnist for Newsweek, where he worked for 28 years and covered five administrations and seven presidential campaigns. More about Jonathan Alter.

Rice’s advantage is that she has a closer personal relationship with the president, making her better integrated in the administration’s policy-making apparatus. Kerry’s edge is that he’s a heavyweight who would be more effective representing the U.S. around the world. Rice has the inside track for now, and she got an unintentional boost last week from Senator John McCain, who was shoo-ting from the hip, as usual. McCain, who is Kerry’s old friend and fellow Vietnam veteran, hounded Rice mercilessly over the tragedy in Benghazi, Libya. Her only sin was that on the Sunday shows in September she conveyed exactly what she was told by the Central Intelligence Agency about the attack on the U.S. consulate. Just before his f irst post-election news conference, the presi-dent heard that McCain and his Sancho Panza,

REIVINDICATIONIt is time that the

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such as apparel, cars and sporting goods averaged less than 2 percent, so low as to be deflationary in real terms. Service Economy’ Offsetting the loss of manufacturing work, the leverage- happy bubble era created so many jobs for bankers, hairstylists, airline ticket agents and home health aides that we began to describe ourselves as a “service economy.” But service businesses are vulnerable to the very same forces that drove the fat out of manufactu-ring. Take retailing. Since the 1990s, businesses that helped make the bread cheaper, such as superstores and warehouse clubs, were the only major category of retailers to show strong growth. Now these businesses, too, are severely pressured by more eff icient online sellers, which are growing twice as fast as their off line counterparts. The proportion of our total population that is currently working has fallen to 58.4 percent, the level it was in 1983, when far fewer women were in the job market. It ’s true that this percentage should improve as the economy moves past the lingering effects of the f inancial crisis, but recovery won’t alter the fundamental trend. Structural forces are creating some very serious employment headwinds, faced especially by younger, less educated men.

simply put // What has been good for American consumers hasn’t been good for workers. Look at the big picture, and you also see how, unlike Rome, whose armies looted the lands they conquered, the underemployed U.S. must borrow money to pay for our bread and circuses. Rome was so rich that it took hundreds of years for the empire to crumble. We’re broke, which accelerates the day of recko-ning. Reform of U.S. entitlement spending would buy us time, but wouldn’t f ix the employment si-tuation. On a positive note, this bread-and-circuses economy does offer new opportunities. People who can help make things cheaper will do well. They


Even more, they found, was needed. “A people that yawns is ripe for revolt,” wrote Jerome Carcopino in “Daily Life in Ancient Rome.” Alice Schroeder is the author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.” Before becoming a full-time writer, she was a top-ranked insurance analyst on Wall Street. June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Alice Schroeder, a Bloomberg View columnist and author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life,” discusses her column comparing issues facing ancient Rome to the current U.S. economy. She speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In


Even more, they found, was needed. “A people that yawns is ripe for revolt,” wrote Jerome Carcopino in “Daily Life in Ancient Rome.” Alice Schroeder is the author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.” Before becoming a full-time writer, she was a top-ranked insurance analyst on Wall Street. June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Alice Schroeder, a Bloomberg View columnist and author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life,” discusses her column comparing issues facing ancient Rome to the current U.S. economy. She speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Alice Schroeder is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

The heavy emperors added holidays until, eventually, the Romans spent half their days attending gladiator games, public executions and chariot races. Disgusted, the satirist Juvenal accused his fellow citizens of selling out for bribes of “bread and circuses.” The Romans did nothing to prove him wrong, until two centuries later the empire was divided forever and Rome was sacked by Visigoths. The complicated causes of Rome’s decline have long fascinated historians, and provide a lens through which to examine the vulnerability of other dominant cultures. Americans’ addiction to entertainment has been compared to the circuses of ancient Rome. We can, and do, spend much of our free time watching dreck on TV like “Half Pint Brawlers,” about a company of self-styled “midget


Although bold hit hard by the recession, spending on digital media has now begun to rebound. The question is who benefits. We produ-ce a lot of content, yet most of the devices it comes on are not made in the U.S. Trade Imbalances. This exemplif ies another problem that vexed the Romans and faces us today: Dominant economies tend to import more than they export, creating trade imbalances. The manufactured stuff of life, basic items such as food, clothing, cars, phones and furniture -- the bread, as opposed to the circuses -- costs less to buy if produced elsewhere than if made by a highly developed country’s own citizens. The result is a loss of jobs at home. The conquest-driven Romans stand out in history as an extreme example. They brought home their imports, inclu-ding slave labor, as plunder. This made the “bread” as cheap as it could be, and put the Romans them-selves out of work. We merely face a situation in which our labor costs, laws and regulations make

U.S. business less competitive than that of other countries. In the 1990s, manufacturing workers went through a draconian loss of employment as work was sent offshore. The very thing that drove the jobs overseas made the bread cheap. During the high-growth bubble decade that culminated in 2008, the sales growth rates of basic consumer goods






the Loop.” (Alice Schroeder is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

The heavy emperors added holidays until, eventually, the Romans spent half their days attending gladiator games, public executions and chariot races. Disgusted, the satirist Juvenal accused his fellow citizens of selling out for bribes of “bread and circuses.” The Romans did nothing to prove him wrong, until two centuries later the empire was divided forever and Rome was sacked by Visigoths. The complicated causes of Rome’s decline have long fascinated historians, and provide a lens through which to examine the vulnerability of other dominant cultures. Americans’ addiction to entertainment has been compared to the circuses of ancient Rome. We can, and do, spend much of our free time watching dreck on TV like “Half Pint Brawlers,” about a company of self-styled “midget wrestlers” who attack each other with staple guns and broken bottles. In fact, in 2009, people over age 15 spent an average of 58 percent of their leisure time watching television, playing games and using the Internet -- an increase of 16 percent from 2003. When entertainment dominates a society, it changes more than the culture; it also reshapes the economy. You can see that circuses are where the money is from the rise of digital entertainment, which has steered enormous amounts of discretio-nary income toward digital content and the devices that run it: laptops, televisions, gaming consoles, smart phones. In the decade leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, the only major industry other than health care that consistently showed strong real growth was consumer electronics.

Although bold hit hard by the recession, spending on digital media has now begun to rebound. The question is who benefits. We produ-ce a lot of content, yet most of the devices it comes on are not made in the U.S. Trade Imbalances. This exemplif ies another problem that vexed the Romans and faces us today: Dominant economies tend to import more than they export, creating trade imbalances. The manufactured stuff of life, basic items such as food, clothing, cars, phones and furniture -- the bread, as opposed to the circuses -- costs less to buy if produced elsewhere than if made by a highly developed country’s own citizens. The result is a loss of jobs at home. The conquest-driven Romans stand out in history as an extreme example. They brought home their imports, inclu-ding slave labor, as plunder. This made the “bread” as cheap as it could be, and put the Romans them-selves out of work. We merely face a situation in which our labor costs, laws and regulations make U.S. business less competitive than that of other countries. In the 1990s, manufacturing workers went through a draconian loss of employment as work was sent offshore. The very thing that drove the jobs overseas made the bread cheap. During the high-growth bubble decade that culminated in 2008, the sales growth rates of basic consumer goods.

The Football is part of the playfulness , the problem is when that

In the f irst two centuries A.D. faced a yawning gulf between rich and poor. The mighty empire built on tribute reached its geographic limits. Its economy created few exportable goods. Slaves acquired by conquest buiwlt most of its bridges, roads and aqueducts and took jobs in farming, mining and construc-tion. As this cheaper labor replaced Roman citizens, idle, unemployed, hungry people f illed the capital. The Caesars created make-work and part-time jobs, subsidized housing and doled out grain.

Even more, they found, was needed. “A people that yawns is ripe for revolt,” wrote Jerome Carcopino in “Daily Life in Ancient Rome.” Alice Schroeder is the author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.” Before becoming a full-time writer, she was a top-ranked insurance analyst on Wall Street. June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Alice Schroeder, a Bloomberg View columnist and author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life,” dis-cusses her column comparing issues facing ancient Rome to the current U.S. economy. She speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Alice Schroeder is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

The heavy emperors added holidays until, eventually, the Romans spent half their days attending gladiator games, public executions and chariot races. Disgusted, the satirist Juvenal accused his fellow citizens of selling out for bribes of “bread and circuses.” The Romans did nothing to prove him wrong, until two centuries later the empire was divided forever and Rome was sacked by Visigoths. The complicated causes of Rome’s decline have long fascinated historians, and provide a lens through which to examine the vul-nerability of other dominant cultures. Americans’ addiction to entertainment has been compared to the circuses of ancient Rome. We can, and do, spend much of our free time watching dreck on TV like “Half Pint Brawlers,” about a company of self-styled “midget wrestlers” who attack each other with staple guns and broken bottles. In fact, in 2009, people over age 15 spent an average of 58 percent of their leisure time watching television, playing games and using the Internet -- an increase of 16 percent from 2003. When entertainment dominates a society, it changes more than the culture; it also reshapes the eco-nomy. You can see that circuses are where the money is from the rise of digital entertainment, which has steered enormous amounts of discretionary income toward digital content and the devices that run it: laptops, televisions, gaming consoles, smart phones. In the decade leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, the only major industry other than health care that consistently showed strong real growth was consumer electronics.

Although bold hit hard by the recession, spending on digital media has now begun to rebound. The question is who benefits. We produce a lot of content, yet most of the devices it comes on are not made in the U.S. Trade Imbalances. This exemplif ies another problem that vexed the Romans and faces us today: Dominant economies tend to import more than they export, creating trade imbalances. The manufactured stuff of life, basic items such as food, clothing, cars, phones and furniture -- the bread, as opposed to the circuses -- costs less to buy if produced elsewhere than if made by a highly developed country’s own citizens. The result is a loss of jobs at home. The conquest-driven Romans stand out in history as an extreme example. They brought home their imports, including slave labor, as plunder. This made the “bread” as cheap as it could be, and put the Romans themselves out of work. We merely face a situation in which our labor costs, laws and regulations make U.S. business less competitive than that of other countries. In the 1990s, manufacturing workers went through a draconian loss of employment as work was sent offshore. The very thing that drove the jobs overseas made the bread cheap. During the high-growth bubble decade that culminated in 2008, the sales growth rates of basic consumer goods such as apparel, cars and sporting goods averaged less than 2 percent, so low as to be deflationary in real terms. Service Economy’ Offsetting the loss of manufacturing work, the leverage- ha-ppy bubble era created so many jobs for bankers, hairstylists, airline ticket agents and home health aides that we began to describe ourselves as a “service economy.” But service businesses are vulnerable to the very same forces that drove the fat out of manufacturing. Take retailing. Since the 1990s, businesses that helped make the bread cheaper, such as superstores and warehouse clubs, were the only major category of retailers to show strong growth. Now these businesses, too, are severely pressured by more eff icient online sellers, which are growing twice as fast as their off line counterparts. The proportion of our total population that is currently working has fallen to 58.4 percent, the level it was in 1983, when far fewer women were in the job market.

It ’s true that this percentage should improve as the economy moves past the lingering effects of the f inancial crisis, but recovery won’t alter the funda-mental trend. Structural forces are creating some very serious employment

mercedes huelvasNew York


The Football is part of the playfulness , the problem is when that entertainment becomes mercedes huelvasNew York

Rome in the f irst two centuries A.D. faced a yawning gulf bet-ween rich and poor. The mighty empire built on tribute reached its geographic limits. Its economy created few exportable goods. Slaves acquired by conquest buiwlt most of its brid-ges, roads and aqueducts and took jobs in farming, mining and construction. As this cheaper labor replaced Roman citizens, idle, unemployed, hungry people f illed the capital. The Caesars created make-work and part-time jobs, subsidized housing and doled out grain. Even more, they found, was needed. “A people that yawns is ripe for revolt,” wrote Jerome Carcopino in “Daily Life in Ancient Rome.” Alice Schroeder is the author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.” Before becoming a full-time writer, she was a top-ranked insurance analyst on Wall Street. June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Alice Schroeder, a Bloomberg View co-lumnist and author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life,” discusses her column com-paring issues facing ancient Rome to the current U.S. economy. She speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Alice Schroeder is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

The emperors added holidays until, eventually, the Romans spent half their days attending gladiator games, public execu-tions and chariot races. Disgusted, the satirist Juvenal accused his fellow citizens of selling out for bribes of “bread and circu-ses.” The Romans did nothing to prove him wrong, until two centuries later the empire was divided forever and Rome was sacked by Visigoths. The complicated causes of Rome’s decline have long fascinated historians, and provide a lens through which to examine the vulnerability of other dominant cultures. Americans’ addiction to entertainment has been compared to the circuses of ancient Rome. We can, and do, spend much of our free time watching dreck on TV like “Half Pint Brawlers,” about a company of self-styled “midget wrestlers” who attack each other with staple guns and broken bottles. In fact, in 2009, people over age 15 spent an average of 58 percent of their leisure time watching television, playing games and using the Internet -- an increase of 16 percent from 2003. When entertainment dominates a society, it changes more than the culture; it also reshapes the economy. You can see that circuses are where the money is from the rise of digital entertainment,

which has steered enormous amounts of discretionary income toward digital content and the devices that run it: laptops, tele-visions, gaming consoles, smart phones. In the decade leading up to the 2008 f inancial crisis, the only major industry other than health care that consistently showed strong real growth was consumer electronics.

Although hit hard by the recession, spending on digital media has now begun to rebound. The question is who benef its. We produce a lot of content, yet most of the devices it comes

on are not made in the U.S. Trade Imbalances. This exemplif ies another problem that vexed the Romans and faces us today: Dominant econo-mies tend to import more than they export, creating trade imbalances. The manufactured stuff of life, basic items such as food, clothing, cars, phones and furniture -- the bread, as opposed to the circuses -- costs less to buy if produced elsewhere than if made by a highly developed country’s own citizens. The re-sult is a loss of jobs at home. The conquest-driven Romans stand out in history as an extreme example. They brought home their imports, including slave labor, as plunder. This made the “bread” as cheap as

it could be, and put the Romans themselves out of work. We merely face a situation in which our labor costs, laws and regu-lations make U.S. business less competitive than that of other countries. In the 1990s, manufacturing workers went through a draconian loss of employment as work was sent offshore. The very thing that drove the jobs overseas made the bread cheap. During the high-growth bubble decade that culminated in 2008, the sales growth rates of basic consumer goods such as apparel, cars and sporting goods averaged less than 2 percent, so low as to be def lationary in real terms. Service Economy’ Offsetting the loss of manufacturing work, the leverage- happy bubble era created so many jobs for bankers, hairstylists, airline ticket agents and home health aides that we began to descri-be ourselves as a “service economy.” But service businesses are vulnerable to the very same forces that drove the fat out of manufacturing. Take retailing. Since the 1990s, businesses that helped make the bread cheaper, such as superstores and warehouse clubs, were the only major category of retailers to show strong growth. Now these businesses, too, are severely pressured by more eff icient online sellers, which are growing





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The Football is a Circus

Movement, drawing, and other gallery activities give everyone the chance to participate. Each month a new theme is introduced.

Note: Kids must be four years old to attend this pro-gram. Younger siblings will be allowed to accompany the group, but the participating child must be four.

+ infowww.breadandcircus.com/political

Sala I01.09.13 / 14.11.13Ulrich Hub

DirectionMichael Jung

Mass MediaManipulation

Look, listen, and share ideas while you explore mo-dern and contemporary art. Movement, drawing, and other gallery activities give everyone the chance to participate. Each month a new theme is introduced.


Sala II09.10.13 / 14.11.13Steven Parson

DirectionAna Palmer

PoliticalCorruption

Wwhile you explore modern and contemporary art. Movement, drawing, and other gallery activities give everyone the chance to participate. Each month a new theme is introduced.

Note: To accompany the group, but the participating child must be four.


Sala III03.11/13 / 14.11.13James Barber

DirectionMarta Smith

Playfulness the problem

Share ideas while you explore modern and contem-porary art. Movement, drawing, and other gallery activities give everyone the chance to participate. Each month a new theme is introduced.


Sala IV07.12.13 / 31.12.13Xio Xua

DirectionJuly Parker

INFORMATION

Bread & CircusPlaça del Àngels, 108001 BarcelonaC. +34 690 120 110

www.breadcircus.esA/e: [email protected]

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TICKETS OFFICE

Recollida d'entradesLes entrades es podran recollir a les nostres Taquilles un cop acabat el procés de compra if ins el dia del concert coincidint amb els hora-ris de taquilles de dilluns a dissabtes de 10h a 21h(excepte festius).

CHANGES

Bread & Circus no és responsable dels canvis de programa, intèrprets, horaris i/o data que puguin alterar la progra-mació dels concerts.

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bread & circus magazine

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