Isn’t public deficit financing a Ponzi Pyramid, doomed to collapse sooner or later as surely as the Madoff meltdown? (Is Environmental Hedging not much the same thing?) Our species is reputed special for being uniquely able to “delay gratification” (short-term pain for long-term gain) — but with it seems to have come an appetite for the opposite: Short-term personal gain for others’ long-term pain.