An International Monetary Fund veteran explains how the US financial situation is like that of a less-powerful nation's developing economy. Oligarchy, corruption, and the financial sector's control of the government — it's not good.

I want to revisit this later; it is an interesting retort to Michael Pollan and others' condemnations of current farming techniques.

"I had this vision of the future — a ruined empire, run by number crunchers, squalid and stupid and puffed up with phony patriotism, settling for a long slow decline."