Whenever I start to get a little panicked about what's going on, I keep coming back to the fact that so many of our states, & countries of the world, are deeply interdependent upon each other now. This 'aint like the old days with our isolationist policy & the oceans acting as natural boundaries. This blue marble is getting increasingly smaller all the time. Therefore I have hope that WWIII will be avoided, as Mother Russia & China now have a voracious appetite for our Levis & McDonalds, along with our consumption of Asian cars, anything at Walmart, etc, & I especially think we're long past the days where a Civil War can break out.... Except maaaybeee for Texas or California, because of their proximity to Mexico, large populations, & hispanic influences. I guess Alaska could split too, since they're all alone up there in Canada anyways.... But they don't strike me as unhappy rabblerousers On the flip side.... I still say all it would take is for China to downgrade our credit rating, thereby raising our interest rate on all the $$ we owe them..... And they could take us over without a shot ever fired