Most fantasy cabinets are probably too filled with name players and high-ranking officials when its more likely they’ll be filled by a mix of savvy private people and dedicated lower-profile public officials. Warren Buffet is a glamorous pick for the role, but would honestly probably be better off being an adviser for Obama.

I would completely expect Gates to remain on as defense secretary, especially since Obama has hinted that he likes that idea and they seem to share the same philosophy on the War on Terror going forward. Some people may throw out Wesley Clark’s name, but he has not been retired from service for the mandatory 10 years before being eligible for the position.

And absolutely our infrastructure is strained, but not broken, and that’s the key. The infrastructure is inadequate, but not overtly dysfunctional so there is little incentive to truly reform it. Therefore, with current infrastructure we would not be able to cope with a new influx as you note, and thus we would be forced to (hopefully) change it.

I maintain it will be a bad situation, we’re talking about a gradient in perception here of how awful that situation will be though - its not impact vs no impact. and I think its its fruitful to discuss whether some collective hardship might improve our country in the longer run.

If you are having trouble seeing why so many people think that we are venturing into ‘catastrophic’ situations, then you need to learn more about the mechanisms of financial markets and how they impact economies, government, and society as a whole.

But what happened during the great depression? I don’t know, I wasn’t there but I can imagine the times were hard but people survived - we’re not talking about chaos to the point of death and destruction here (the Dune bit was me being flippant if that wasn’t clear).

Its important to note we aren’t talking about survival here or folks literally starving - we are talking that there might be less vacations, that we will be forced to save energy and wear more layers in the winter, that we may have to God forbid, live together and cook more…

Hardships forces us to rethink our priorities - the way we live, how we share, how we spend, how we come together as communities. I’ll take it that these changes will affect some more than others, and even if I don’t emerge unscathed I will probably be on the less impacted side so its easier to maintain this position.

also:
“Now it’s in the millions who will be unemployed, who are unable to pay for decent health care, the energy bills, or find that extra bit of money so their child can go to college. Millions” - isn’t this already the case?