Its comfy to wallow in the mire of self pity or blame for everyone but our individual selves. But looking at it pragmatically, in black and white, we all took part in the terrible mess of the nation. When times were “good,” living with the delusions of the “wealth effect” of debt and credit, the far far greater majority took part wholeheartedly, because they liked it very much as it was. Maybe the smoke and mirrors was just too thick for most to see through.

After all, if one has no inkling of how Keynesian economic systems operate or understand that scores of new securities were made up and traded privately without any oversight using trillions in leverage and trillions more in other debt instruments, and that the day of reckoning would finally arrive…… then… one would naturally be very shocked. But who is there to blame for one’s preference of closing their eyes to more serious affairs, even if they are constantly distracted by the ubiquitous call of hedonism summoning the masses to the latest in celebrity or sport worship, or from being dulled by the use of licit or illicit drugs.

So now, in the aftermath of the great party years, followed by the great crash and ongoing decline, it’s so easy to blame everyone, like governing bodies, unions, public workers, illegal aliens, Muslims, and every single criminal Wall Street/mega bank crook exposed for their corruptness. My point? Just about everyone did look away and so the make believe party COULD continue. And there is genuine serious blame to be distributed generously among most of those named above, and the latter most of all, BUT, just as much to the rest of the nation who did participate in the great economic farce that could not possibly last, as it was so very obviously built on the shifting proverbial sands.

But now, today… what good does it do to blame, blame, blame? Hey, since the nation’s manufacturing base was just about totally exported, a new system of cover to hide the treasonous doings of government and the betrayal of corporations, had to be built to put off for another day, announcing to the nation that life as they knew it is finished. What government could possibly tell their citizens that they must prepare for a progressive decline in their standards of living? No government in this world would!

With no real mass industry to support the nation and employ tens of millions or the funds available for trillions in mass infrastructure rebuilding, a new-fangled system of high finance was invented, in the last some 30 years or so. But all it really served was the very few who designed it to steal from the very many, for as long as it lasted. The masters of the system had to devise a way to prolong the mess a bit longer. It’s just that they no longer can. We have arrived in unchartered water with no compass.

Only independent thinkers will become self sufficient by changing their operations to localizing methods and they will adjust. The rest will suffer much.

Angie Carlson’s commentary is in response to the column California and Bust, recently published in Vanity Fair magazine. Ms. Carlson is a friend to the Federal Observer.

You’ll want to follow the link and read the column in its entirety. (Ed.)