Farce

IMHO we are witnessing Socialism's last hurrah. It is my considered opinion, forged over many years, that the global economy is set up for absolutely catastrophic collapse in what amounts to a multi-century-scale Black Swan event (but it's not like you couldn't see this one coming). Folks in general have been all in favor of creeping socialism because they actually rather enjoy picking their neighbor's pockets. But when in the implosion we reach a point where there is absolutely nothing left to be had, and when all welfare-state promises worldwide have self-evidently amounted to nothing but a ludicrous pipe dream, and government is widely seen as an entirely useless destroyer of limited resources, chock to the brim with petty tyrants, freeloading public union leeches, and pathological con men, then, and only then, will most folks be ready to try something different.

Winston Churchill once said something along the lines of (and this applies to citizens of all the "advanced" socialist industrial powers):

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, once they've exhausted all other alternatives."

So from where I sit, I don't worry in the slightest what the long term consequences of this latest f*ckover are going to be, simply because the cake is already baked, the train left the station a long time ago, the ship has already hit the iceberg, and there simply does not exist another five or ten years for anything to play out before the genuine gotterdammerung is upon us. In the event, the federal government will be rendered absolutely, visibly, and irretrievably unable to deliver on any of its promises, and will have thereby lost most of its reason for being.

This is not 1933, when the nation embarked on something that had never been tried before and under terms that would allow the pyramid scheme to run for most of a century. Nor is this 1965, when the nation was at the absolute peak of a no-smoke-and-mirrors prosperity. Instead, the current scam is being foisted in 2010, in the midst of the exponentiating collapse of all the previous schemes. As such, it will have almost no chance of success.

One simply cannot run a successful con if the mark's pockets are already empty from the previous cons.

The commies in Congress remind me of folks who have just noticed that the tide has suddenly gone way, way out. Instead of reflecting on what it portends, they rush into the newly uncovered sea bed to see what kind of treasures they can gather up. In all their childish excitement, they don't notice that the entire edge of the horizon has taken on an eerie white sheen. They are wholly oblivious that their fate is now absolutely assured. While most of them have no idea that the game is damned near up, the worst of them do, but they are confident that they still have plenty of time to grab some lobsters before the wave arrives, and maybe get some amusement picking the pockets of all those standing around gaping at the starfish.