The Last Resort Of A Dying Economic System: From "Beggar Thy Neighbor" To "Beggar Thyself"
(http://www.zerohedge.com/article/las...beggar-thyself)

Quote The phrase of the week comes from The Privateer's Bill Buckler, who has coined the one term that best describes the lunacy that has gripped the world: "Beggar Thyself." Unlike the 1930s when the theme of the day was "beggar thy neighbor" and which culminated in World War 2, this time the emerging paradigm is one in which the first to defect wins... if only for a few seconds. Because when the "beggar thyself" process is complete, it will mark the end of not only the central banking regime, and the days of excess wealth accrual to the financiers of the world, but also the termination of the 140 year old Bismarckian "welfare state" which is the primary culprit for the creation of trillions of imaginary wealth out of thin paper. When the fiat system ends, so will end the hallucination that developed societies are capable of providing for their hundreds of millions of existing and future retirees. And with that will come the "social instability" that always marks the closure of a failed monetary regime and the admission of global bankruptcy.
Quote Co-operative debt-based stimulus didn’t “work” and neither have “austerity” programs, according to the IMF. Their “World Economic Outlook” comes to the conclusion that the world can neither “stimulate” its way out of the current GFC nor get there via “austerity” programs. And it isn’t too sanguine on the prospects of currency wars either. As the IMF report noted: “Not all countries can reduce the value of their currency and increase net exports at the same time”. After all, they tried that in the 1930s. The only thing that “saved the day” then was a REAL war, not one on the foreign exchanges.

But still, the global financial potentates keep thrashing around inside their own context looking frantically for a way to overcome their plight. As they want the citizens of the nations they “represent” to see it, they have no choice. If they for one second admitted that the entire system as it is presently constituted is deficient by its very nature, they would instantly have the “social instability” they are warning us against.
Commment: many people see we are about to hit economic wall. That is good. Roman empire died for almost 300 years, we might get coup de grace soon-ish. Sadly, it seems global war might be inevitable.
Real problem is: what do we do after the chips fall.
Do we fall for half-a**ed "easy economic solutions"? Try marxism again? Maybe other failed policy from the past? Would rebuilding old structures anew be best thing we can figure out?

What are the alternatives?

Are we capable of building something entirely different?