Big money, big industry and others of the same ilk are facing a coming crisis.  It is a general one and it is perception based.  It is simply this: A great portion of the population, especially in developed countries and places, US, Canada, EU, to name a few, now have such a poor opinion of big business and big money that they see heavy socialism, even communism, as an attractive alternative.

In another part of my life, I write a conservative political column.  It is shocking to me how many readers have adopted the stance I stated above.  It is something along the lines, "We have been lied to by big business for a very long time, how can communism or socialism be any worse?"

Folks, this will end badly.  My greater fear, however, is that individually, big business will ignore this and think it is someone else's problem to solve.  In the end, if this stance is adopted by all, it will lead to violence and total destruction of economic systems as we know them.

Look at this piece of dialogue from a young person educated in a private US liberal arts college, recently graduated: “I think Obama being able to at least shake hands and talk with leaders like Chavez in Venezuela is a step in the right direction. Yes, things have mostly 'stood still,' but at least we aren't making the problem worse by trying to overthrow a democratically elected president (Chavez), like the Bush Administration did. And yes, I think Chavez should do a better job at making elections fair in Venezuela, but you can't deny that his rule has been good for the Venezuelan people so far. And I also think that if Obama is re-elected, he will try to remove the embargo on Cuba. He would never try to do that in his first term."

Folks, there is a person who reads this column who was in Venezuela shortly before Chavez's government seized a brand new industrial facility where he was consulting.

Grave matters, indeed.  Standing still on the part of industry will not make this go away.