The Atlantic has a post about a section of a chapter of a book that may have figured out why America and the world has gotten in a total economic mess ever since George W. Bush Osama bin Laden Chris Moneymaker won … bridge helped pull us out of the Great Depression, apparently, and poker has taken us the other way:

Yet in the first decade of the twenty-first century contract bridge is in serious decline, viewed as a game for the elderly, with few younger enthusiasts. In contrast, in recent years poker — and especially its twenty-first century variation, Texas hold ’em — has surged forward. These games are played by individuals for themselves alone, emphasize a type of deception variously called bluffing and “keeping a poker face,” and are generally played for money.

[…]

if card games played by millions of people shift the role of deception, wouldn’t we be naive simply to assume that such shifts do not also occur in the world of commerce?

Now before you get all up in arms at the absurdity of blaming a whole subculture that just so happens to take pleasure in raping their friends and stealing from the blinds with total junk hands, I think we should consider taking the heat on this: Yes, absolutely, poker is to blame. We totally fucked up. Oops, sorry about that. But we get a bailout now, right? Please send a few hundred billion care of PartyPoker and the World Poker Tour.