As long as they were (re)building, there was investment opportunities excess of maintenance and whatever upgrades were offered by technological progress.

Once the empire reached its maximum extent, growth could only happen as a consequence of technical innovation. And so both the volume of investment opportunities fell, and the share of investment going into maintenance rather than new growth increased.

The game changed from being revenue creation to being revenue capture.

Politically, this happened to happen at the same time peak US continental oil shifted the Texas oil companies from the "full employment" camp to the "deregulation" camp.

And the rest is history.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.