Penta - My recommendation: stop watching Fox News, and actually visit some foreign countries. Really, it's not that bad out there.

Norfolk - Both economic and population statistics even for the late Empire (especially the former) are far too unreliable to really make those kind of sweeping judgments as to what caused the decline of the Western Empire. I notice that there is no discussion of the role of political breakdown amongst the Roman political elite in your thesis, or the general inability of a preindustrial bureaucracy to efficiently manage such a farflung and infrastructurally challenged empire. Also, really, where's the evidence for imminent or even approaching civilizational collapse, unless you're one of those modern T. Lothrop Stoddard types?