But we still have to come to terms with the fact that this is now happening globally, in basically every country. It is really hard for me to think of any region on the planet where representative democracy is actually functioning, even roughly on its core principles. If anyone has good examples I'd like to see them, but the data tend to show a very real and advancing drift towards some form of financial authoritarianism, or global oligarchy, whatever. Of course, it is not consciously coordinated, but instead an adaptive property of unregulated capitalism, which should perhaps give us some hope because if we do show solidarity and commitment to fight this system, we can affect regulatory change. However, I must admit things overall look quite bad, and the struggle would be very tough. Look at Greece, I couldn't be more proud of the Greek people and also the European people who came out in solidarity with them. But it didn't do anything to help their situation in the end. Now it seems like the more the people fight back, the even more harsh the economic policies developed by the financial sector become. Crazy, crazy, times.