What happens when we reach the point that patching the tears in the previous patches of the culture no longer works?

My sense is the cracks go to the foundations.

While the last 3000 years, of going from tribal cultures, where one's status was a function of what one added, to nation states of millions and now billions of people, where one's status is a function of what one can extract, might seem like a long time, in evolutionary terms, is an eye blink.

As linear, goal seeking creatures in this cyclical, circular, reciprocal, feedback generated reality, it is like we haven't really come to terms with the implications of the world being round, not flat.

For example, as those goal seeking creatures, people see money as signal to save and store, while markets need it to circulate. Consequently Econ 101 describes it as both medium of exchange and store of value.

They are not synonymous. In your body, blood is the medium, fat is the store. Mix them up and see how long you live.

Roads are a medium, parking lots are a store. If we treated roads like we treat money, everything would be paved over, but we would still be fighting over our lots.

As a medium, you own money like you own the section of road you are on, or the air and water flowing though your body. It's not your picture on it, you don't hold the copyrights and, most importantly, are not responsible for its value, like a personal check.

It is a contract that enables the economy, not a commodity to mine from it. To store the asset side of the ledger, there has to be a debt to back it.

Surprisingly, the one job the flunkies in DC are really, really good at, is running up the debt. The secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth.

Modern economics and bacteria operate on the same infinite growth formula. The problem is when they hit the edge of the petri dish, or the limits of the resources.

The advantage of multicellular organisms is being able to sense and navigate their surroundings.

To the extent society functions as a super organism, government develops as the nervous system, while money and banking function as blood and the circulation system.

We have evolved enough to recognize that the function of government is actually the health of the entire society, not just the accumulation of power by those at the top. Thus making it a public utility.

We have yet to realize the same principle applies to banking, so now banking is having its, "Let them eat cake." moment.

When the medium enabling markets is privately managed, they are not free, as everyone else are tenant farmers to the banks.

When we step back enough to deal with those sorts of problems, Jimmy might be in a healthier society to begin with.