Alexis de Tocqueville in his book, *The Ancien Régime and the Revolution*, emphasized the role that increasing prosperity played in generating resistance by increasing people's expectations of future improvements. It's when these expectations turn out not to be met that people will then rebel. So misery by itself tends not to generate rebellion. In fact it usually breeds passivity. Jim F. ^^^^^^^^^^ CB: I don't know if the period we seem to be coming out of now was one of "prosperity", but there was a certain amount of pecuniary liquidity with the housing bubble and a lot of spending on credit in the US. Might that be the basis for unmet expectations in the current big recession ?