U.S. budget crisis. . . . storm warnings are up!

[AztecWilliam]

Politicians ask of the voters, "What do you want." Economists, somewhat more realistic, ask, "What do you want most." Right now the party in power seems unconcerned that the majority of Americans, at least with respect to the deficit, are thinking more like economists than greedy mendicants.

We've all heard the facts; the Obama administration has piled up more debt than every government in the past 2,000 years put together. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. But, seriously, how can this country continue along this path without ending up like Greece?

Here's Samuelson's take, and coming from him it's a dash of cold water that should not be waved off as hysterical or hard-hearted. Too bad those who are running the federal government do not seem to take things as seriously.

www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/29/planting_the_seeds_of_disaster_104952.html

(Just in case you wondering, I'm only a bit more optimistic about the chances that the GOP would do a lot better. What we need is a bipartisan agreement that 'tax, tax, spend, spend, win elections" is not a good philosophy for either party. But it will take a lot of guts for a pol to look the American people in the face and same, "Sorry, we are going to have to tighten our belts if we want to get the books to balance.")

AzWm

[davdesid]

>>But, seriously, how can this country continue along this path without ending up like Greece?<<

It will end up more like Rome in the 5th Century... levying taxes on the people "in kind"... because the money will be worth nothing.

[AztecWilliam]

Apr 4, 2010 16:59:48 GMT -8 davdesid said:

>>But, seriously, how can this country continue along this path without ending up like Greece?<<

It will end up more like Rome in the 5Th Century... levying taxes on the people "in kind"... because the money will be worth nothing.

There are some paths a country can follow which basically lead off the nearest very steep cliff. The U.S.A. has come close to that only twice. The first was the Civil War. We were saved that time by the physical resources of the Northern States and the indomitable will and sound judgment of Lincoln.

The second was the Great Depression. Perhaps FDR's initial actions kept us from going off that cliff. On the other hand, FDR's constant and unpredictable meddling in the economy made recovery nearly impossible. Let me remind you that unemployment was 14% in 1940. Fourteen per cent! That was ELEVEN years after the 1929 stock market crash and SEVEN years after Franklin had taken the oath.

(Imagine what the average Joe would think of unemployment even at 10% in 2014, seven years after the current recession began? And what would he think of the Obama administration, should there still be one, in that case? I suspect that the GOP would probably duplicate 1938's off year election result of picking up 80 House seats.)

Still, we did survive those brushes with national catastrophe, thanks in part to WWII. (What would have happened had Hitler never been born and the Japanese had not become a quasi-military dictatorship? We'll never know.)

But back to the future. There must be some Democrats (here I refer to Democratic office holders) who are aware that we can't continue down this road of astronomical deficits forever and that a very un-Democrat change of heart regarding spending is called for. Sadly, most in this category appear to be unwilling to buck their leadership.

Worse are those Democrats (including Nobel Laureate Krugman) who do not seem too upset about continuing deficits. Samuelson, among others, has explained why such a cavalier attitude is irresponsible. Maybe those on the Left who shrug at the deficit are in denial due to their leftist political orthodoxy, a system that considers vastly expanded government control over more and more areas of society as so noble a goal that all else does not matter.

That are wrong. Terribly wrong. I just hope that when this all becomes clear even to Krugman that it is not too late to prevent the country from breaking up into a series of fiefdoms in which our Constitution is a dead letter.

Can't happen, you say? That's what the Romans said. And the Soviets. I might add the British and Spanish Empires. Or even General Motors before the Japanese arrived.

It's foolish to say, "It can't happen here."

AzWm