The Quiet Coup: The Atlantic

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

Here, very clearly, we're shown how the financial markets and banker oligarchs have taken over the US.

I've been wondering if there IS any way out of this, at least, a way that doesn't have a high cost. Here, they talk of two likely paths we'll travel:

One, keep bailing out things, over and over until we patch things together. It won't solve the problems, it won't remove the Oligarchs, and, in the end, it would just allow us to muddle through amid years of confusion.

Two: Things will keep detoriating and the eastern block nations economies and banks will collapse. This will ripple outwards to western banks and only then will we be forced to rethink our systems and those who run them.

Either way, it sounds pretty doom and gloom to me. I'm starting to wonder if we'll look back on the 80s and 90s as our grandparents did the 20s and 30s, but in a polar opposite way. As they told us of the almost unbelievable horrors of the depression, we shall be able to tell our grandchildren of the wonderful times, where everyone had more than they needed and we'll be lucky if they believe us. It's the end of an era.




It's a long read, but very worth it.

www.theatlantic.com...

I caught this article myself. Basically saying that the US is showing some of the signs that other countries did just before they collapsed. This and another article that I can't seem to find right now have been making the rounds. One is going as far as to say that certain aspects and actions by the US government in this crisis are reminiscent of things that happened in Argentina and the Soviet Union just before collapse. It basically boils down to corruption as one of the root causes.

There was another article in the Rolling Stone that addressed the power grab going on too.

I think I've changed my mind about the bailouts. In the beginning I thought, "OUCH, but what else is there that we can do?" Now? I think that no matter what we do, we're just postponing the inevitable.