Tank: "So what do you need? Besides a miracle"

Published on September 12, 2014

Morpheus: 

Globalization "is the wool that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth"

Agent Smith: 

"There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path": While productivity doubled over the past 40 years and the world's total wealth quadrupled (see "Who Benefited..."), real wages for western manufacturing workers have stayed below their 1973 peak (first achieved in 1971), after growing exponentially for the previous 30 years! (chart)

Morpheus:  

"What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad"

Neo:  

Well, guess what? I know what it is! We produce $17 trillion in annual GDP, while our $60 trillion (total) debt grows exponentially, hiding that we've never really benefited from globalization's amazing productivity gains, we've only become addicted to debt-driven consumption for the benefit of our Matrix slave masters!

Cypher: 

 "You know what I realized? [Takes a bite of steak],Ignorance is bliss" 

Agent Smith:  

"Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability"