“Will a wrecked economy improve? “They always do.”
Tell that to the Greeks. When you kill the golden goose, there aren’t any more golden eggs. Socialists and Communists have never figured that out, especially the university-educated ones.
Totally agree. One huge problem we have, which unfortunately is a problem around the world, is that we have created and accepted the concept of the ‘informed oligarchy’. In the US this ‘informed oligarchy’ consists largely of individuals who attended specific universities, or come from specific families. Propping them up and giving societal legitimacy to them are a connected circle of people who work for specific media outlets, or who belong to the accepted elite of the entertainment industry.
There is a totally unjustified credibility given to these people as being smarter or better informed than the rest of society. I'm sure that in their day, Ptolemy, Plato, and the rest of the geocentric science believers enjoyed this same stature as being smarter than anyone else.
Those who believe in the ‘informed oligarchy’ can be extreme in their defense of its members and of its dogma. We might not burn people at the stake for daring to challenge the informed oligarchy anymore - as we did Giordano Bruno - but we destroy them in other ways - such as the character assassination of Palin, Bush, and the ridicule of anyone who doesn't believe every word that comes from Hansen's mouth about global warming.
Going to Harvard etc. doesn't make you smarter than everyone else, and it certainly shouldn't earn you a designation as a seer. It's imperative that we not allow to continue this flawed manner of choosing to whom we give political and societal power. As long as we do, the same mistakes will continue to be made.