The next depression isn't as far as everyone thinks, be afraid 
!!!!!!!
I wish I could say something strong enough to make an impression, but of course it's too big an elephant to kill.
BUT...
Being a USA resident and citizen and having seen things progress over the past few decades, I would strongly advise
against being afraid. Or maybe to be afraid of being afraid.
Today I know exactly what the FDR quote means - "we have nothing to fear but fear itself".
OK what I mean by this is that our US government has created a systematic campaign of fear to clear a path for pushing several agendas. The nature of the agendas don't seem to matter, but if you can establish a culture of rampant fear in the general population, then apparently the groundwork has been done to push just about anything you want past the sheep.
It came to a head of course when the towers collapsed. There is no denying that this was a tragic event with several thousand lives lost, borders breached, etc. But considering that it was a handful of screwballs taking advantage of the weaknesses of a security system to accomplish it, it always seemed to me that the response was misguided and entirely overboard. Now in retrospect, it is well known that the Iraq debacle was almost totally uncalled for. Sure they guy was a crazy, power-tripping nut, but how does that differ from the other dozen power-tripping nuts in that region? Eventually they finally put effort back into catching the guy likely responsible for the tower attacks - a decade later? Anyways, doesn't it seem that with such a huge US military capability, the group actually responsible could have been pretty much squashed with much less resources, especially in terms of people, being wasted? Take a little time, find them, then snuff them out. I wonder how things would be today if that would have been done rather than pulling the rug out from under ourselves and squander SO MUCH of what we had,
including the global empathy we briefly had after the towers fell. The decisions done instead are still inexplicable to me unless you consider that the real goal was to make changes - changes that greatly benefited a specific few at the expense of everyone else, and not only US folks, but folks worldwide. I have little doubt that the wars our government started contributed greatly to the financial collapse that shows no sign of getting better - possibly ever. And yet the few obscenely rich and powerful at the top have doubled or tripled their slice of the pie.
I strongly believe that holding on to this much fear is 95% unnecessary. Sure there are crazy people to be wary of. That has always been true. To let that fear be a manipulation tool is to roll over and just allow a more clever crazy set of people steal away what should be your birthright. Life shouldn't have to consist of so much looking over your shoulder. But it is now, and I feel like I'm having to scrutinize much more the people claiming to run things than I ever would need to watch out for Middle-East crazies. Sure you need to keep an eye open, but in my opinion our own government has done far worse damage than any group of religious fringe nut group could ever hope to do.
Lately we had a government and media circus around an artificial fiscal crisis. What was accomplished? NO change except to establish political groundwork for upcoming elections, and to create yet another commission of twelve political goofballs which are supposed to magically figure out what to do. It didn't change the inevitable credit rating drop - anybody notice that? That is the way of politics, by the way - Need something done? The solution apparently is to set up a commission to "study it" and offer so-called solutions. Don't actually DO anything, just create a subset of politicians to argue about it some more. As a politician, you don't have to actually DO anything, just make it look like you did and give it a snappy name, like "Super-something" so it sounds effective.
Anyway, without the culture of fear, the general public would have been much less apt to sit by and let this just happen.
Fear makes you weak, slow and stupid. Stay vigilant my Aussie friends. DO NOT let this happen to you like it did here if you can possibly avoid it. Do whatever you can to keep your government sane. The rich and powerful are a clever bunch and they'll get together on Sunday morning breakfast to compare notes and figure out how to take more from you. Keep your eye fixed. Don't let them make you look at their left hand magic trick while their right stabs you with their knife. Hopefully it's not already too late. But whether it is or not, being afraid WILL NOT help. Instead, be angry.
Good night, and good luck.
