"The Return of a Zero Sum World"

I am not as pessimistic as Michael Lind, but I agree with him that the old economy has been dead since 2008, and all the crony capitalists in the world cannot revive it:

'The most probable outcome, when the depth of wealth destruction becomes clear, is likely to be crony capitalism -- the use of political power to provide jobs and income for a much greater number of self-styled "venture capitalists," corporate managers, nonprofit workers, university professors and highly paid public sector managers (not ordinary civil servants like schoolteachers and police officers) than the slowly growing, post-crash economy can actually afford. The right will try to preserve and expand a simulacrum of free enterprise, in the form of defense contractors and privatized welfare state functions. The left wing of the elite will try to create a zombie economy based on taxpayer-subsidized "green industries" that would collapse without tax subsidies and mandates on utility rate-payers. Each party will try to cut the zombie sector of its rival in order to fund its own pet zombies. In the long run, the attempt to prevent an elite economy that is already dead from decomposing, by putting it into suspended animation, is unlikely to succeed, but the project could last a decade or two. Bubble Conservatism and Bubble Progressivism will morph into Zombie Conservatism and Zombie Progressivism.'