Not so ridiculous I opine. I fear I have smudged your schoolgirl's skirt.

"Yeats' references are all to the unraveling of civilization, which he saw happening in the 20th century. He never concerned himself with such a mundane topic as economics."

Economics is profoundly an integral part of Civilization. Yeats would not have denied this.
"The inraveling of civilization" which Yeats observed continues apace, and is now accelerating. The American elections have the character of a comicbook horror thriller. There isn't any candidate of much note. I am more concerned with the power vacuum that will be left as American power wains, and with the machinations of the far-more-astute leaders in Eurasia. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, will emerge from the coming turmoil?

You don't like our involvement in W. Asia, and indeed it is full of corruption. However, planned or not, an important effect is that the equivalent of the European 30 Years War, in this case between Shia and Sunni, has been postponed as a result. When the US pulls out of the region, expect a conflict, stretching from Lebanon to India, that WILL go nuclear.

"If Obama wins, and he can even stop, let alone reverse, the slide into the economic abyss, he will get credit for that. If he can inspire people to pull together and stop being so hateful to each other, he'll get a lot of credit for that."

So far all the effects of Obama's "hold the country at arms length"-anthropological approach to politics has belied all the smart-ass talk about unity, etc. I observe among diverse groups of people that he is a divider, and an uncreative one at that. There is some deja vu in this election for me, since I was present on the UC Berkeley campus during the heyday of SDS. Their rhetoric nauseated me then, and still does now.