James Howard Kunstler is a good example of some very sceptical American thinking – http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/01/forecast-2011—gird-your-loins-for-lower-living-standards.html#more
The basics are that most of what we call banking is a scam, any recovery is just a re-elaboration of the scam, most of what we call ‘the economy’ is about pointless crap and we’d be better off having lives rather than globalism. Scary reading, a bit like Banksidebabble or the better ‘evil poor – police farce’ stories on Gadget writ large in the idiot global economy. Britain is cast as a European and Middle Eastern banking centre with little other economic activity. China is probably being screwed by an even more corrupt banking system than ours – one without even minimal scrutiny, building empty cities that may put Ireland’s ‘Ghost Towns’ in minimalist perspective.
Kunstler is worth a bit of a read. The question is what might make us wake up to reality. We have a legitimation crisis, something done to death in academe as ‘postmodernism’ for 30 years. He suggests the moment may come through an Indian war against Pakistan.
Allcoppedout's Blog 