Hey, we agree on something! Sadly, there are posters on FR who think that we WILL experience a great depresssion so vast and mighty that we turn into worm-scavenging cavemen.
"However, when we spend billions on laser fusion when we lack energy independence (and fission works just fine) or we allow a an education cartel to cripple the minds of our youth, or when we allow a real estate cartel to accumulate enough leverage to threaten the entire finacial system (in the name of affordable housing??), don't expect me to remain silent."
I don't want you to be silent. I'm just trying to put reality into perspective for you. Billions spent on nuclear fusion over the last two decades are inconsequential to a $12 Trillion annual economy, for instance.
Our education cartel is harming our society, but only at the margins. Even the poorest inner-city student can attend a well-respected engineering university and make up for the earlier educational deficit in his/her life. In the grand scheme of things, the U.S. is turning out enough engineers, scientists, researchers, et al to continue our technological dominance. Moreover, inefficiencies in this system are prime areas of opportunity for entreprenuers.
There is no real estate cartel. No real estate company controls any significant amount of real estate. Now granted, the masses who own real estate do broadly agree on a few large, well-established government policies (e.g. the mortgage interest tax deduction), but you do need to realize that the masses are something completely different from a "cartel". Masses=democracy, not cartel.
The closest thing to a real estate cartel would be the mortgage industry, but trading paper debt is hardly a political position of strength.