Yeah - whenever I hear "Get woke, go broke" I cringe.

In 2008 we shifted over from a rigged market to an outright managed economy. Prior to 2008 there was still a fair chance the government would let a company go bankrupt. I remember ENRON when I was a young man. Despite their close connections to the white house not even the Bush administration dared to bail them out or protect their executives from prosecution.

2008 changed everything.

We could debate until we're blue in the face about exactly when the last time there was a reasonably free market. Some might say 1913 with the federal reserve. Others might say the great war when the allies and central powers decided to pay for the war on credit which put a Rothschild boot on the throats of the worlds wealthiest nations. After the great war you have the rise of what James Burnham called the "managerial regime" - FDR, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin. Maybe the second world war and the creation of the permanent security state or maybe as late as 1971 when the gold window was closed.

Now I don't think it matters how bad things got, the large corporations, banks and investment firms would never be allowed to go under. It would get to a completely absurd situation you had in dark age and medieval Europe with the amount of tin pot monarchs who still laid claim to the title "emperor or Rome" even though the Romans had been gone for hundreds of years. Look at Zimbabwe - the country doesn't even have a currency. People use foreign currency and barter in biro pens, cigarettes and lighters when they lack change but at the end of the day ZANU PF still have the army and police to maintain their grip over key institutions and the handful of economic operations that can generate hard currency.