At last, common ground.
I could not agree more with your closing paragraph. And in my post, the use of the word "fix" was not meant to convey that I thought things would be better. "Fix" in the context of which I used it meant an ouster of the oligarchs. Ten years ago or so, I was visting NC and ran into a physician friend who, in his later years, had become quite the Right Winger. We argued for a while and then I said to him, "Look, Bert. You've got a choice. You can start sharing a little of what you have now or you can refuse. But if you refuse, those people you won't share with now will some day come to you and take all that you have."
Losing the Soviet Union as a counter-balance certainly did not serve us well. But, people do not revolt until they are hungry. And this country is the breadbasket of the world. That fact coupled with the fact that except for a time 150 years ago when we were killing ourselves for a handful of years, we've never really suffered any sort of invasion or violence on our own turf that left us in shambles. So, we are not comfortable with even the hypothetical that we might suffer some discomfort. Revolution causes discomfort in the extreme and we are loathe to consider it. But, if we get hungry enough...well, who knows?
Food is getting expensive - protein cost will go up at least another 10% in the coming year. Is that enough? Perhaps not. But it looks increasingly like we have a "never to be employed again" class that is growing. If it reaches critical mass and there isn't enough food, well, maybe this old Socialist will live long enough to see the revolution after all.
