[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Romney's readers, by contrast, will have to make do with his take on the decline of the Ottoman Empire and other great powers (easy money and a lack of innovation did them in, in case you were wondering)."

One other thing, Mitt's wrong. The Ottoman Empire was made up of a bunch of disparate peoples who did not want to be unified in one country. A very similar situation to the Austrian Hungary empire. Their ultimate demise was because of WWI.

[Above My Pay Grade]

That is interesting. I always thought it was because they spent too much time on their sofas, with their feet up. :-)