oh! man! I'm loving this thread -- there's no question that economic policy is designed as an adversarial game for leverage, especially on the world stage. Taking a step back and seeing how the world has (de)evolved in the past 30 years I'm wondering if selling people what they think they want isn't the best way to bring a society to its knees? edit: and making it just ever so much more breakable to where it's usable but definitely won't last forever..