The global financial and economic system is in broad failure. Hoarding, at least among the wealthy and the corporate, is rampant. Trust has evaporated. Worse, western nation-states (from the US to Ireland to Russia) are following historical patterns of response -- massive bail-outs of the financial sector. Unfortunately, this crisis is ahistorical (a black swan). Why? The global financial system is much LARGER, FASTER, and COMPLEX than the nation-states that are trying to bail them out. As a result, nation-state intervention won't return things to the status quo. What it will do, however, is tightly couple western nation-states to the now inevitable failure in the financial system (this is akin to lashing a dingy to the Titanic to prevent it from sinking). The rampant proliferation of bankrupt and hollow states is now likely inevitable.