[anonymousab]

One of the common meme answers is that a destroyed economy is easier and cheaper for an international megacapitalist to pick apart and buy up. The long-term profits and power from those acquisitions outweigh a decade or two of inconvenience and bad charts.

It can make more sense to buy pieces of a company during a bankruptcy firesale, instead of buying out that company as a bailout. In this case, the company is the USA.

EDIT:

Realistically, there's more blood to squeeze from the consumer stone - you can raise prices with the increased costs, and compensate by 'allowing' people to go far further into debt for longer.

[jauntywundrkind]

Feels a bit like the rise of the kleptocrats after the fall of the USSR. This is more a plutocracy, where the already very wealthy get to be the last man standing.

It stresses the bounds of my ability to take the question at good faith or seriously, if Marc Andreessen is the example of "financially sophisticated." His technolibertarian California-ideology unchecked-rule-by-the-rich fervor doesn't feel well considered, it feels emotional. (If there is an ideology, it's "America's greatness is purely a function of my personal greatness", from what I can see.)