OT
Government is merely a reflection of the values of the people who create it. The population of a country becomes morally debased before their currency does. The currency of Rome was not debased by those who built the Roman empire, but by those who came after, who reveled in the affluence created by their forebears, and were thus lulled into a hedonistic state as consumers of wealth, rather than creators of wealth (sound familiar?). While there were brief periods of a return to the glory of yesteryear, ultimately and inevitably this led to Rome's twilight years and ultimate demise.
During times of hardship the best in people rises to the surface, as we saw so vividly on 9/11. Even the best of all forms of art are created during "hard" times, because a life of ease stifles the creative impulse. Affluence is comfortable, but the price of comfort is high in terms of what must be foregone to achieve it. And once achieved, affluence supresses much that is good in people, because it makes life so easy that one grows lazy and stops tackling the hard issues, planting the seeds that ultimately destroy affluence (read Arthur Clarke's "The City and The Stars" for an illustration of how everything is temporary and contains the seeds of its own ultimate destruction).
Like the stockmarket, nothing goes straight up or straight down, and nothing lasts forever; everything continues, cycles within cycles, within cycles. And just as the largest rises in the stockmarket are followed by the greatest declines, the biggest problems require the harshest corrective measures. If this country and its people are to regain their fiscal, moral and social equilibrium and recapture their place of honor and respect in this world, perhaps another Great Depression is just what the doctor ordered. Like a toothache, the cure is often more painful than the problem, but necessary for a return to health. Not to be wished for, but realistically speaking, there is no free ride in life, and we have yet to pay the piper for our temporary indulgence in irrational exuberance -- no pain, no gain.
Newly
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
