Anatomy of a crisis.

It happens slow at first.. then all at once.

So many big news at once these days.. An inadequate debt-deal, a hurtful process, treasury downgrade, two days of diving markets. And gloomy outlook.

But it might be useful to look at this summer in the bigger picture – that of hurtful policies over three decades, with unsustainable budgets and unsustainable distribution among the population. That model for running a country could work well for some decades – but it always breaks down. More wants more, and the rest are increasingly left without food, work or a place to live. You might fish more than the natural breeding in a pond for a while, but it will always be empty in the end.

And while the recipe for a fix right now is quite simple on paper – you cut spending on defense and entitlements, and raise some taxes – you just can’t get it through. A few people have too hard a grip on the government, and a huge part of the population are deliberately dis-educated and fed nonsense and delusional thinking over generations.

Thus a crisis evolves – and not just a tough debate with a reasonable outcome.

So let’s just hope the moderate right speaks up more strongly pretty soon – which they probably will – as most of them are rational people with habits of long-term thinking. And when that happens, maybe the progressives and moderate left could grow stronger as well, so the loud fringes get marginalized.

In the meantime, more market dives and noise might in some ways be just necessary steps on the path to better days. And America has survived and emerged stronger after much worse crises than this.

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