The Times' Roger Cohen, with the best, one-line summation yet of Western Civilization's rather sudden bassackwardness:
What we are witnessing on either side of the Channel is the double whammy of a debt-ridden public sector making cuts wherever it can and a bonus-addicted private sector making cuts wherever it’s profitable — with the resultant disaster foisted on a general public.
The irony is that Western Civilization democratically hails the "general public" as absolute king, while in reality the body politic operates mostly as a powerless constitutional monarchy. Adding insult to irony, "powerless" is not improbably the better-case scenario, for when handed the formidable democratic opportunity to actually improve their lot in life, said democratic monarchs are as likely as not to hand the reins of public power to the sacred free-market, good-government-despising quackery of a Boehner & Co., which in unconcealed cahoots with the bonus-addicted private sector will then double down on the double whammy.
Merry Christmas.