Just running out of money IMO won't be enough of a kick in the pants for people to wise up to the root of the problems, if my intuition and experience (that culture is the root of it all, and is eminently feasible as target for effective reform) are correct. Look at the recent stimulus "solution", and its popular support. This reform came at a time when (unless Im mistaken) we were in the negative and without any truly foolproof solutions (incl. those that require deficit spending) for a while already.
Gedankenexperiment is a manner of speech from German for "thought experiment".
"Good things, hopefully" - I think doing those things justice is a natural tendency for people who aren't given all carrots and no stick, especially the immediate population of such a secession. By stick I don't mean being whipped (conversationally I've often come across this meaning) but holding the carrot at some distance, as all genuine work is by nature.
A people who choose to dissociate from the current USofA because of its excesses and abuses are probably people who yearn for a good, healthy life.
Knowledge is power, and today's lack of adversity thanks to the fruits of the USA's past successes leaves people the luxury of being complacent WRT to their education (real education, not today's nor "indoctrination" token education/totalitarian propaganda, etc) and enables
a culture of "leave it to the geeks" while they binge on meaningless MTV and Abercrombie and Fitch culture.. As in e.g. Idiocracy or Wall-E. Today most American's don't care or don't believe that knowledge is power. Power to make the
future happen, not just re-runs of today or yesterday. Most Americans don't know or care what the salient points of the US Constitution or the founders' writings are, when those are
exactly what allowed the USA to grow into the wonderfully comfortable reality they live in today.
"Informing people" - This project would need to be of historically pretty massive proportions to succeed (not in mere esthetic but first of all in research: the demonstrated psychology must be irreproachably realistic, transparent, and inspiring). But IMO, if it happens in today's USA it would be influenced by enough people of the same unhealthy culture that brought us here and now that it would fail just as Hollywood and the news media have repeatedly failed to inform people truthfully on the war in Iraq, on the war on drugs, etc.
Another thing. My POV on this is kind of passive. If people choose to ruin themselves, I can't reasonably force them not to. Everyone is entitled to living their life as they choose to. I'm not religious, but to me that's a sacred thing, effectively. Filling that blank canvas by making your own choices is the whole point of life.
I think one of the major concurrent factors in contemporary secession would be the second amendment. Overall, I think Pat Dollard (or maybe it was someone else, but I read it while reading about Pat Dollard) called it right: for a while now we've been in a sort of civil war only without any blood spilled. The fundamental rift of (regardless how well informed) opinion between the sides in debates like the gun regulation debate (others being e.g. abortion) is really that far gone, IMO.
But those differences within today's USA that would justify secession, IMO, are those aligned on the differences between small govt purists and everyone else. It's a shame this kind of topic is taboo in popular intellectual forums like TED. This is IMO one of the major flaws in American culture and descendant cultures of English culture in general. Unreasonable, unrealistic prudishness. But back on that tangent topic - I'd definitely read and maybe contribute to a discussion over secession in the modern USA.