I think the demise of communism and growth of free-market capitalism in the past several decades has created a tremendous amount of wealth and left a LOT of money floating around, and I think this will continue for a while as more countries decide to stop being stupid and get on the prosperity bandwagon. I also believe that a sizeable portion of that money should have been going to pay off the party we've been having on our children, grandchildren, and more distant generations. At some point that same free market will come calling for its due--think rolling over a national debt of 30 trillion at 10% interest and see what's left for the rest of the budget--and there will be a serious rebalancing of spending priorities everywhere. But until that austerity gets imposed on us, we might as well enjoy our hobbies--as economists love to say, in the long run we're all dead--and who knows, when they start rolling the money-printing presses fast enough to try to pay off our bills from all those years of deficits, our cards might just become the new standard of value!
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