Great article, and insightful. I have been trying to make this comment often and some folks won't let me get away with it: The poor in the US are not better off than average people in developing nations.

I am not going to explain everything; I just want to compliment you on a well written article, and provide just one pointer.

The global currency peg is the dollar. It means that the dollar cannot sink as deep as other currencies, because when everyone's economy is doing bad, then the dollar is still the buoy everyone (every investor) swims to.

That means that banks can hand out more money here than banks elsewhere because the dollar can take a beating and still remain floating.

Naturally, there are many more issues at play here in the US. But one of the reasons is the very strong dollar that cannot sink below a certain level (until the rest of the world gives up on dollars collectively).

The worst part of course is that the homeless did sink far deeper but that is partly explained by a society that does not value all people; it values particularly the majority of people in general (and not the minority of people) and it particularly values the ones with the most value, period.