Simon Johnson is a former chief economist of the IMF. His Atlantic article, “The Quiet Coup,” is likely to scare the bejesus out of you—if it doesn’t, please leave a comment and tell me where he’s wrong. I’m serious. I’d really like to believe he’s wrong, but he makes too much sense.

It’s bothered me from the start that the government is relying on the same people to try to get us out of this mess who got us into it in the first place. The thrust of Johnson’s argument is that government and the financial industry are too interconnected and thus unwilling to make the tough choices our dire economic situation demands. In his work with the IMF and various Eastern European countries, Johnson says he has seen the same dynamic at work time and again—but this time, since it starts with the American economy, the stakes are far higher.

I’ve been meaning to link to this for most of a week, but this morning Joan Walsh’s column at Salon.com has a brief summary and quotes from Johnson’s article and context for some of the surrounding arguments. I agree with her, Johnson’s article can’t get too much attention.