The debt crisis is the big issue in Europe and in the US. The western governments have to pay debts with money they don't have. However the governments have to put money aside and they save it simply on the population, on social policies and education.
In today's situation you can see the economic crisis as a threat to the global system and to the hegemony of the US. The result could be the collapse of the global economic system. When politics fail, war has to save the problems. In the current development you hear about the "humanitarian" war in Libya. Which eventually is a war about the domination of Libya’s substantial oil reserves.
Or would it mean only the collapse of the US like a soviet scientist predicted:
"Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. [...] Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html
However no powerful government such as the United States would simply give up power. There would come a time, which possibly has already arrived, to save the power and the hegemony of the US with any means and to suppress every movement which prevents this goal.
Finally, it is hard to say what will happen in reality. However the mighty politicians save the money on the people. Have you expected something else? This is the way world works, they take money from the poor and give it to the rich.