Putting out fire with gasoline

I want to avoid conspiracy theories. Really, I do. It's no fun wondering about larger patterns most of the time. Otherwise smart and kind people get huffy, dismissive, and condescending when anyone like me even says "conspiracy" in passing. My personal "magic bullet" in these cases is to remember that I have no commitment to the outcome on any given theory. I am just curious.

Therefore I ask: Are people in the highest echelons of this society trying to destroy the economy? Is the national debt so far gone now that the creation of hyperinflation is the only way out?

Americans must prepare themselves for a massive collapse in the dollar as investors around the world dump their US assets, a former Bank of England policymaker has warned.

Chinese doubts about the value of US Treasury bonds highlight a crucial question: who will buy the estimated $2.7 trillion to $4.2 trillion of debt expected to be issued over the next two years?

It looks more and more like the stimulus is an inferno accelerator. TARP 1, TARP 2, stimulus bill and now...whatever comes next...housing bailout? Seizing banks? All would seem to add up to a forced dumping of dollars by foreign governments. The "full faith and credit of the U.S. Government" is becoming painful even to think, much less print.

We are bankrupt. I don't see another way to put it. The credit card is maxed.

And where does this leave us? Where ever it is - it ain't Club Med. People - esp American people - are not going to roll over as their lifestyle evaporates. I wholly own and embrace my "Doomer" sensibility. But no one else needs to, just know that some very powerful folks are wondering how we will react: In plain English...this translates into the imposition of martial law and a de facto government being run out of the Department of Defense. They are considering it. So should you.
D.O.D. types always plan for domestic insurrections. This is not new. What is new is the circumstances surrounding these latest plans. Most of us have never seen an economy like this. Disintegration can happen rapidly.

I watched the L.A. riots from my window in a sketchy part of Hollywood. It stopped being a "race" riot after a day. For 2 more days it was a purely economic riot. The have nots seized the moment - looting and taking what was otherwise impossible to have.

The membrane between order and chaos is less than razor thin.

So far the economic jolts have been disparate and, for many, still distant. This will change.