I don't think it is really fair to characterize the government's deficits as being driven by our miltary actions. The numbers may say that in a simple manner but to say that suggests that in the absence of these military actions there would be a nearly balanced budget, I think our current brand of politicians have shown themselves far to willing to spend money to assume that.

The financial game is indeed over as this piece aptly points out. I think also however that raising the spectre of the financial oligarchy sets up a demon for the series of events which requires no demon in advance. For how long have economists said that imbalances in the economy were unsustainable, well now they are no longer being sustained. The economy, to adjust first needs to rid itself of it's reliance on debt, a painfull adjustment, it then needs to build a higher level of savings, it can then return to a more sustainable level of activity, this is a timeline which will take many years, and be painfull throughout. The concentration of power in the financial sector needn't be blamed for this no matter what sort of long term evil it represents, these things will happen of their own.

On a side note if you want an easy example of how globalization has changed the U.S. economy consider the lack of layoff announcements in this weak economy. Auto makers have had ongoing layoffs, but that seems to be a continual ritual for those uncompetitive industries, the financial sector has seen layoffs, airlines have had layoffs, another already struggling sector of the economy. But where are the manufacturing layoffs. For those of us old enough to remember economic downturns, (or meltdowns), were always full of layoffs in the manufacturing sector. The reason this catastrophe will be so difficult is because there isn't the manufacturing base that once existed, there aren't the middle or lower income jobs to keep economic activity going. This economy has been living on growth in government and health care growth, now that the asset income based economy is falling apart all the ancillary service industry jobs will provide no cushion.