It was all a con, over and over, year after year, decade after decade. And Americans were rich enough and resourceful enough and later cynical enough to keep getting taken and getting taken and finally to pretend that the con was business as usual rather than admit we had been fooled. Eventually servicing the con -- keeping it going, distributing its proceeds, covering it up, financing its debts, legitimizing its shoddy tactics, philosophizing about its nature, criticizing it, distracting from it, and a thousand other associated tasks -- nearly became the basis of our society, our culture, and our economy. But not quite. Not quite. Some residual sense or instinct or hope or maybe fear kept us from giving ourselves entirely to the massive runaway ever-compounding scam that in some fashion we are all in on at this point. It's probably paying half my bills right now. I have no idea! Though actually I do. It's almost certainly over half. What a staggering unwinding this will be.