I'm deeply worried about the loss of jobs though, even if society doesn't seem to regard them with a lot of value, and what that will mean for individuals, for families, and for communities.

Yeah. I think I was there about eight years ago. The first time I heard John Mauldin use the term "structural unemployment" I knew that economists had managed to make carnage palatable through the studious application of euphemism. "the jobs that never came back" sounds every bit as horrible as "all the money you lost." Far better to use cute terms like "structural unemployment" and "haircuts." Haircuts! Who'd object to a haircut? Even a $270 billion euro one?

What followed was some heart-hardening and a steel-eyed view towards the future.

I worry that too abrupt of a change will be too much for us as a country to handle.

This country has handled some real shit, man. The more I study history the more patriotic I become. I believe that one of the reasons things are so divided right now is we don't have anything unifying us.

Hardship is unifying.

And at this point, I think it's unavoidable. I also think it's going to be purifying, like a crucible... and like a crucible, a lot of people are going to get burned to a crisp.

Where we differ is that I've given up hope on the people who are going to lose and have been actively doing all I can to separate myself from them. I think we're going to be okay on the whole, but individually a lot of us are going to suffer. I can't help everyone and the better off I am, the more people I can help.