I don't disagree with any of this. But at this point, economic disaster isn't going to be avoided. There is no policy (whether Earthly or Martian) that is both curative and politically feasible. The hole that's been dug is too deep and things are past the point of no return. (As AF put it, one might just as well try to "dog paddle the 4 light years to Alpha Centauri.") The only question now is when and how reality will finally call in its chips, not whether we can win enough of them back to stave off catastrophe. We can't. Either nothing at all is going to be done, or whatever little will be done will be too late and woefully insufficient. Like trying to command the tides, agitating against the event itself [1] will serve little purpose except as an exercise in futility and a demonstration of impotence, which can only frustrate and dishearten us.
Regardless of our endeavors, the can is going to continue to be kicked until the road runs out. That is the nature of the beast that has been created, and there is nothing we can do about it; perhaps once there was, but the beast's momentum is now too great. If anything, it may be for the best that the inevitable not be delayed, even if we could stave it off for a while longer. Drawing things out might well make the consequences worse - broader, deeper and more intractable.
As for cultures and economies, they do not function entirely separate from one another, like independent stovepipes associated with different fires. They are both manifestations of human action - symptoms, if you will, of the same underlying pathologies. As in any negative feedback loop, if either becomes significantly dysfunctional, the other will become so as well. This fact pertains to all political arrangements, but it is especially evident in democracies, where economic policy tends to be more tightly coupled with the whims of the masses (if only as a sop to keep them quiescent - or to marshal them in support of some party or faction).
[1] Note that I say "against the event itself." There are other practical reasons to "agitate" against economic insanity, such as for the sake of whatever notice posterity might take of our protestations (à la the "Irish monks" analogy r3v has used elsewhere). But preventing the consequences of present circumstances from running their inexorable course is not among them.