BALTIMORE – Last Thursday, the Brits said auf Wiedersehen and au revoir to the European Union.

On Friday, the Dow sold off 611 points – a roughly 3.5% slump.

What's going on?

Dying Order

In Europe and the U.S., the masses are getting restless.

Mr. Guy Wroble of Denver, Colorado, explained why in a short letter to the Financial Times:

The old liberal world order is dying because the cost-benefit ratio for the average person in the Western world is now negative.

The welfare state depends on three things: population growth, productivity growth, and credit growth. All three are either slowing… or are already negative. As a result, economies can no longer keep up with the costs imposed by the Deep State and its cronies.

The "Deep State" is shorthand for the many people, in and out of government – the "foxes," as Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto called them – who control policy decisions and use them to tilt the playing field in their direction….

Taxes, regulations, and wars are not for the benefit of the electorate, but simply to pay off one special interest group or another.

People vs. Politicians

The "foxes" are expensive.

For instance, the median house nationwide sells for $180,000. In Washington, D.C., it's more than $500,000. On Wall Street, the average bonus last year was $172,000 – six times the total median compensation of workers nationwide.

More important, the foxes set up a financial system that was fraudulent, pernicious, and bound to blow up.

Using credit instead of commodity-backed money, they distorted the entire economy, curtailed real capital investment, pinched off productivity, stopped income growth for 90% of the people, and slowed economic growth for everybody.

Now, the economy isn't growing enough to make good on the politicians' promises. After you factor in inflation, the average working man in the U.S. earns no more today than he did 40 years ago.

Almost all income growth in the last 10 years has gone to the rich. So, the only way the average voter could possibly benefit from the welfare state would be if he were able to tap into the income of the very rich.

And that isn't going to happen, for one very obvious reason. That top 1%? Those are the foxes that control the system!

Vive la Revolution!

The appeal of the welfare state ceases when people get less welfare than they pay for.

The more wealth and power the elite sucks out of a stagnant system, the more the typical citizen feels trapped and robbed.

The Brexit vote was an attempt to escape.

And in the U.S., many see a vote for Donald Trump as another way to get parasites off the backs of the common people.

Mr. Trump has pledged as much. The presidential election this November, he says, will determine whether the U.S. will be "ruled by the people or the politicians."