So sorry, but the lifestyle of low-cost credit and all the goodies it could buy is permanently out of stock. In focusing on geopolitics, we lose sight of the dependence of every economy on a functioning global economy of low-cost goods, services, materials, shipping, transport, capital, labor and financial instruments, all flowing freely across borders and around the world. Russia, China, the U.S., and indeed every economy are equally dependent on access to a functioning global economy to obtain essential goods, services and capital and sell surplus production. The irony here is the "poor" subsistence villagers with very limited access to global markets will manage the breakdown of the global economy far better than the "wealthy" urban dwellers who are totally dependent on free-flowing global trade. (The villagers will be frustrated by spotty cell service; the urban dwellers will be hard-pressed to obtain enough food and fuel to survive.) What few seem to realize (...