NATION OF CARDS

The Cunning Realist has an excellent new post up, dealing with what he calls Consequences. The consequences of all our decisions, of our collective actions, over the past few years:

We've entered an overarching period of "consequences" -- political, economic, social, and geopolitical. In a global economy, one basic truism is that there's no permanent free lunch; the money to fight wars has to come from somewhere, and irresponsible, politically expedient monetary policy creates bubbles that eventually pop. Since politicians (particularly incompetent ones who shun the work actual governing entails) despise consequences, they need reliable trump cards to play when necessary. The nightmare of every elected official -- especially at the national level -- is a crisis or general malaise with no one to blame and nothing to distract the public; the Carter presidency was the template. Loosely-defined, ever-expanding wars do nicely in that regard, because they serve as covers for the inexorable effects of failed policy.

Read the whole piece. It's not too long, and it goes into a few more details.