How did mercantilism affect people in the old world?

Broadly speaking, Mercantilism was very good for European countries for a while but terrible for their colonies.

Mercantilism made people in the Old World VERY rich.

But, as a result of the imbalance, the relationship between the European countries and their colonies deteriorated making mercantilism good in the short term but bad in the long term.

a big one is

to appoint and regulate officers of the land and naval forces,

which caused much controversy ending the articles