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Putting this all together, it’s clear that the source of the current housing bubble is the explosion of financial speculation fueled by central bank policies. Those benefiting from speculative bubbles have powerful incentives to deny the bubble can bust.

It’s very difficult to find common ground that supports cooperation in the disintegrative stage of scarcities, rising prices, catastrophically centralized power and social discord.

The mercantilist dependence on exports for growth, a winner for the past 70 years, has reached diminishing returns. Rather than be a source of growth, it’s a source of stagnation. Conventional wisdom holds that geopolitical power is inevitably shifting from West to East. It isn’t quite this simple.

It’s time to reprogram the conditions of the economy to serve the many rather than the few. Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru training exercise tests officer candidates’ response to a no-win scenario: any attempt to rescue the crippled ship’s crew results in the destruction of the candidate’s ship, while standing by and taking no action results in the loss of the Kobayashi Maru’s crew.