Yes, and it was great to catch up with that linked masterpiece of stygian gloom "LBO at 20," an unbeatable tour d'horizon of reasons why despair should be any thinking person's default mode. I wish, though, that you'd give the old heave-ho to Noam Chomsky's whistling-past-the-graveyard mantra that the US is "incomparably more civilized" than it was in the early 1960s.
BTW, re your "LBO at 20" comment, "... the lesson I learned from the 1987 crash was that the ruling class had mastered the art of state-led bailouts" -- I was reminded of Ralph Nader's recollection of paternal wisdom recently in Counterpunch: "My father many years ago asked his children during dinner table conversation: 'Why will capitalism always survive?' His answer: 'Because socialism will always be used to save it.'" Sagacious guy, Nader père.
Carl
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