it absolutely sucks and is incredibly scary. unfortunately i think it's also the case that the only way to decouple everyone's ability to put breakfast on the table from the mechanisms of capital flows is to go through some crisis like this in which the failings of tying the two together are made abundantly clear. which, i think they are now. we just have to demonstrate this to enough people to change it. and unfortunately the consumerist mindset and culture here in the US at least renders this dependency invisible to most people, or if they do see it, they feel like it's a "natural" phenomenon rather than something invented by people that we could decide to change.