The one thing that seems quite reasonable to conclude from the "Great Recession" is that the majority of both our city, county, and state governments, haven't recovered from it (and the other events mentioned below), even after all of this time. One could also safely say, I think, that the majority of working people have only sort of recovered; which is only to say that they have come back to just barely being able to keep up with not only stagnant wages, but the terrible increases in basic life need costs (as in Healthcare, Housing, Education, and transportation, to name a few big ones), and doing it by having to work harder, for less.
The federal government was hamstrung more too, not only because of the extra deficits taken on by the bailouts, but also because the Right wanted to wage wars without paying for them up front. In addition to Newt Gingrich deciding that it was time to really put the pedal to the metal on "Tribalism Politics," and bring initially fundamentalist religious issues into the game of stack the House of Representatives deck with carefully crafted voting districts; making sure that singular, fringe belief issues would get oversized representation in that stacked deck. And Oh, if you can also stack the Last Court of Appeals in this country as well, why the hell not. And then, as a side line, at every state level possible, attack voting rights every way you can, so that the working majority, who've had their power of labor organization all but eviscerated now, and who are, to a significant degree, minorities you don't like anyway, are just as powerless as you can make them.
Into all of this comes a growing realization that a bill is truly due on all of the "Total Lifecycle Costs" of all of the things that Capitalism has made enormous amounts of money on, for both the holders of capital, and the holders of skill. Enormous amounts of money because the actual costs of each product, or service, has hardly ever been factored in at the time of purchase. A thing which some countries are starting to do now, certainly, as they create certain green oriented taxing systems, but for which the pushback from the holders of capital is still quite significant. Resulting in the fact that such financial aid won't be enough, soon enough, to do much more than pay for another series of band aids here, and band aids there, doing some good, of course, but not really addressing the primary problem at all.
What everyone also seems to forget, however, is that these already stressed social systems, who's poor performance in so many areas of life now, only make seriously distressed people (which is what most of what working American is now) a great deal more so. So you get a combination of more and more folks making very poor decisions, with social systems that can't handle the increasing levels of the bad outcomes from bad decisions. Of which, certainly, Capitalism still makes a great deal of money off of because everything is commoditized now. Everything. Which is why addiction, and corruption are growing so much more rapidly now, along with the ever increasing, draconian, authoritarian, reaction to it; because the authoritarian reaction is where the money is to be made.
With all of that in mind, and knowing full well that, if a major catastrophic weather event, or political event, were to occur, what do you think will happen to the so called "Booming Economy" we have now? What do you think "Big Money" will do when a major chunk of economic infrastructure becomes inoperative for a significant amount of time? Dole out largess to one and all to hold them over until things get better? And how exactly, at that point, are things ever going to get better if barely suppressed rage across the land meets up with a sudden need for government to declare Martial Law? In order to start making people do what has to be done stave off, oh say starvation. Or access to suddenly very short supplies medicines, or fuel even?
All of you know very well what Big Money will do. It will run for cover into whatever precious metal, or other commodity, might still hold value (as in the medicines mentioned earlier, as well as the self medicating drugs), surround itself with security for hire, and become fiefdoms of their own; perhaps even challenging whatever Martial Law might be established; and no doubt feebly maintained by a now totally crippled National Government, because they will have their hands full holding off outside actors thinking they might take advantage of the new world situation.
See Also:
The Voters Who Disappeared From the Rolls
