WAR IS A MERE CONTINUATION OF POLICY BY OTHER MEANS. Good old Clausewitz. Best book on war ever written. (The Art of War was about something else.) But the 21st century has reversed his famous line. Politics has become war by other means. Germany has a history of waging wars of conquest. World War I. World War II. The Greek bailout. As Stratfor’s George Friedman explains:

The greatest mob movie of all time was Get Shorty. (Please, don’t argue.) The whole movie revolved around this exchange: Ronnie Wingate: Excuse me bro', but who the fuck are you? Chili Palmer: I’m the one tellin' you how it is… Last Sunday, Greece was Chili Palmer. A few days later, Angela Merkel is. Funny how things change. You probably heard that Greece’s Prime Minister called for a referendum on the troika’s terms.

The world is even more fragile than it was in 2007. The big banks are bigger. Aggregate bank assets are concentrated in fewer hands. The bank derivatives books are much larger. Market liquidity is worse. —James Rickards, The Daily Reckoning Well, ain’t that just dandy? And it’s undeniably true. We were told that the 2008 financial meltdown was caused by entities that had grown too large: banks, insurance companies, corporations, derivitives.

Greece has voted to reject the “troika’s” bailout terms. The people of Greece said “no” to the central banksters who encourage sovereigns to enslave themselves under mountains of debt. The Greeks showed remarkable courage and resiliency, and their example could disrupt the entire international banking system. Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge: The Greek people have spoken and they said “OXI”! So congratulations Greece: for the first time you had the chance to tell the Troika, the unelected eurocrats, and the entire status quo establishment, not to mention all the banks, how you really felt and based on the most recent results, some 61% of you told it to go fuck itself.

In 47BC, Julius Caesar assumed dictatorial power in Rome. He instituted “reforms” that transformed the Republic into the Empire. In the process, he became a dictator. Rome’s decent into oblivion began. In 44BC, seeing the damage Caesar’s tyranny and reforms, three men removed Caesar from power by the method of the day. History moves faster now than it did 2,000 years ago. A megalomaniacal leaders bent on fundamentally transforming a nation can do remarkable damage in the blink of an eye.

Break out the Depression Glasses to toast the Obama Administration’s latest foray into economic disaster. Just posted on WSJ.com: BREAKING: The Federal Reserve and other central banks open a credit line to send dollars to Europe to ease debt crisis. Yes, folks. Your taxes are going up, your kids are going deeper into debt, to bail out lazy, overpaid, spoiled Greek socialists. Thank your president. The U.S. move follows a panicked decision by EU leaders to pump hundreds of billions of $$ into failing socialist economies in Europe to avert a global economic collapse.

As I waited to appear on Larry Kudlow’s show last Friday, I heard Larry announce over and over again that he’s sick of hearing about Greece’s problems. Greece isn’t America. The U.S. economy is booming, and Greece can’t hurt it. I didn’t tell Larry, but I think he was wrong. Greece’s problems will hurt the American economy because Greece’s problems foreshadow a far more dangerous crash headed to America. Markets are people.