I recently listened to a podcast by Dan Carlin.  It was a very thorough and interesting account of the events leading up to WWI.  What strikes me most about those events is the old guard’s refusal to acknowledge that the world had changed beyond their control or understanding.  It was right there in font of their faces yet they decided to ignore it and carry on as before regardless of the cost.  The cost:  almost 17 million lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

I think that today we are in a very similar situation.  The powers that be are trying to hold on to a dying system and if they hold on too tight we can have a global catastrophe on our hands.  The most recent financial catastrophe is just a taste.  This BBC article by John Gray sums it up nicely :  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25680144

P.S. Thanks for the title John.