Everybody in the world is broke, except for maybe Lloyd Blankfein, and he may not end up broke so much as broken — by a political meat-grinder that is revving up to turn the world’s woes and swindles into a new kind of Long Emergency sausage, to be distributed among the roiling, angry masses as a synthetic substitute for nutriment. Call it a synthetic non-collateralized political obligation.
Something snapped in the world last week and a lot of people around the world sensed it — especially in the organs of news and opinion — but this ominous twang was not very clearly identified. It was, in fact, the sound of the financial becoming political.
Kunstler thinks this will inevitably lead to chaos. But the financial (finally) becoming political could also lead the start of real change in the country. People are pissed, and they are paying attention. That includes the southerners and rednecks that make him so twitchy. (Hey Jim, go read Deer Hunting With Jesus, ok? These folks aren’t the enemy. Really.) So, if the populace is coming around to the view that Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein belongs in prison, then that is a good step in the right direction.