America stared at the paragraph in silence.

"Following a decadent decade of market deregulation, fat executive paychecks (with golden parachutes) and blatant corruption, capitalism is now forced to go begging for handouts from the US taxpayer in order to stay afloat. Is this emergency aid, or full-blown socialism?"

It wasn't supposed to end this way. He didn't know how it happened or why, but it did. And now there was nothing to go back to. Most of the other nations blamed him, and no matter where he turned, there were always hostile faces. England said it began all those years ago when America earned his independence, but America had his doubts. The system – his system - had never failed before. Capitalism had always been the representation of America's dream: if you worked hard, you got what you deserved, right? And what you got was yours to do with as you pleased - yours to keep, to sell, to whatever - and nobody could take that away from you.

Right?

Once, America had invited everyone that wanted to, to come and start over. He promised them the finest: cars, television, education - all the freedoms he could offer. Then the banks came. The Federal Reserve emerged out of the Great Depression. At the time, having it seemed like a good idea – even though their system would inevitably create more debt, America trusted them to do what was best for him. Nobody suspected that the key to this sophisticated venture – the American consumer, his own citizens – would one day default on the whole thing. Nobody knew the ideas the system had created over the years would all prove worthless.

And he allowed it to happen.

Now the other nations demanded he fix it. He had his own problems, couldn't they see? Wasn't it enough that he tried to help them? All America could do now was try and save his own bleeding banks, which he had once boasted were "too big to fail." He laughed as he suddenly remembered: there was once another system which had said the very same thing – it was known affectionately as the Soviet Union. Russia had been so confidant in his ability to hold the nations together that, when the USSR finally dissolved, the ensuing chaos as nearly too much for him. America marveled at how he and his enemy were so alike in so many ways – but at least the former Communist new when the game was up.

America would never admit that the game was over.

"As finance grew, the banks got ever bigger – too big to fail, eventually, so… tottered taxpayers had to prop them up. Far from epitomizing capitalism, the undeserving rich undermined it: it was socialism for the wealthy."

Socialism. He remembered the old days when that concept – along with its cousin Communism – were his enemies. Those were the days that he – his people, his government – wrapped themselves around the idea that capitalism, the system destined to never fail, was the best form of government. They wore their colors with pride, cheering, shouting his name - "God bless America!" But no more. America had never wanted to be a superpower – a hero, yes, but not like this. But just who was he trying to kid? He had failed. And heroes who fail were never heroes to begin with.

But that's how it was, wasn't it? He was the unwanted hero – the winner of battles already fought and the savior of no one. America was King of this world, and he was collapsing under its weight. He called himself the 'United States', just like how they called themselves the 'United Nations', it was all just a lie. The situation would get worse, America knew. And when it got past a certain point even the strongest of bonds would break under the pressure.

Clearly, everyone's proprieties had been working in reverse. The whole world was held in the hands of those who were too rich to give a damn about anything and there was nothing left to take from those who'd been sucked dry. It was too late for anything to be done now.

But at least he wouldn't be around to hear them for much longer. This was the road to road to Socialism, American-style, and the rest of the world was just along for the ride.

Authors Note: …Jeez, this sounded very anti-socialist, didn't it? Well I myself am socialist, so its… um… not. Lol I just wanted to write about the current global economy, and how, with the way the world is, the current financial system may not be the best approach to be taking to solve the world's woes. Unfortunately, America is going to have to make a tough choice on its to continue to be capitalist or to become something else entirely ,I think, and that's what this is about. Plus, I'm very interested in Russia (first, I love him, he's my favorite Hetalia character, and second, the culture and language are very interesting), and so I wanted to talk about the Cold War and how it was literally Communism v. Capitalism, and how it seems that both systems are critically flawed (at least in practice). So if I made any errors, please do tell me, and it's not meant to offend anyone, so if it did I am really very sorry! D: