a dood makes the point that should hover over all analysis: there is the temptation to suffer ODS against the last 8 years’ BDS that should never be underestimated, and should not be indulged in.

However, the economic crisis has undoubtedly created the infrastructure-in-waiting and public expectation which, if the country’s executives and legislators intend and can manage with sufficient subtlty, could result in a revolution of government power over private wealth, including the power to abrogate contracts.

Conservative “BDS” is a temptation, but there is also a vast difference between starting a foreign war against country which the prior administration had regarded as a threat, *even* if it was just a plot to co-opt Arab oil and move money into Cheney’s friends’ coffers, and altering the fundamental market-government relationship in favor of the government.

Like it or not, that possibility is now locked and loaded. I personally wonder whether all this “outrage” about AIG bonuses and Madoff and whatnot is sincere populist spontaneity or organized to produce the impression, magnified by the media, that there is some kind of mandate among the people for the kind of “fix this problem now whatever it takes, oh Obamamessiah!” that would provide the ultimate image that could lubricate a serious takeover. Even the “czars” – led by the head czar, Joe Biden, bailout commissar – make all this look a little suspicious. I really don’t think a little fear is unjustified in these circumstances.