This is no mere political news, but an ominous sign of the times - of today's broken system. It might/will directly affect more than half of the hackers and indirectly all of us.
These submissions are getting really tiresome, not least because of the way discussions proceed: the article is submitted, it's silently upvoted by people who agree with it, and everyone who disagrees posts comments explaining why. This was the pattern on the "Why I'm Not Hiring" submission a while ago; nearly every comment explained the many idiotic deficiencies of the article, but it was still a highly upvoted submission because of people who agreed with its substance.
Very annoying.
edit: And now I'm getting silently downvoted too, in the mirror image of the above phenomenon. Excellent.
The current crisis is not cyclical, it's man-made:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/12697/64796
Some have seen it coming, ie it could be averted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw
Countries have been breaking the basic economic law - income >= spendings - for a long time. There are several ways to get rid of the debt, eg inflation or nationalization. All of them are unethical and are basically stealing from all but a select few at the top. That's what this article is about.
If things come as far as the author writes, it will affect all of us here at Hacker News. There is a lot of people here trying to create something, to enrich the others and thus to get rich. It will all be in vain if our governments decide it's time to rob us.
I could have been less emotional and more specific about this. Thank you for challenging me.