The financial crisis could have interesting effects on America, China, and Europe. Anyway, this was most interesting by Stratfor:
This, then, is the third crisis that can emerge: that the elites become delegitimized and all that there is to replace them is a deeply divided and hostile force, united in hostility to the elites but without any coherent ideology of its own. In the United States this would lead to paralysis. In Europe it would lead to a devolution to the nation-state. In China it would lead to regional fragmentation and conflict.
These are all extreme outcomes and there are many arrestors. But we cannot understand what is going on without understanding two things. The first is that the political economic crisis, if not global, is at least widespread, and uprisings elsewhere have their own roots but are linked in some ways to this crisis. The second is that the crisis is an economic problem that has triggered a political problem, which in turn is making the economic problem worse.
Economics will affect the actions of states and the states themselves.
But the extreme potential outcomes for Europe and China are most interesting to me. Europe fails to become a political entity with power reverting back to the countries that form it to some extent. And China sees power revert to the provinces at the expense of the center.
I want the European Union to die. I've not been shy about saying it.
China, too, is a problem as a political entity. Might not "China" become a geographic term rather than a political term?
And America? No collapse of the federal government for us. No, we might face "paralysis." Stratfor says that like it is a bad thing.
If the paralysis keeps the federal government from regulating and taxing our economy to death, while allowing the states to thrive with their own economic policies, that would be a good thing.
A real conspiracy theorist would say we plotted the financial crisis to bring down our two biggest competitors--China and Europe--at an acceptable cost.
