[credit: Joe Heller, Green Bay Press-Gazette]
If it was not the nation's future at stake, US Person would have moved on to something more elucidating. But the sad fact is Washington continues to play chicken with our fiscal credibility. The sequester is a band-aid on the festering national debt and a poor one at that, but it is better than nothing to which the two parties where able to agree. Mitch Feirstein, a hedge fund manager and author of Planet Ponzi writes that an IMF working paper estimated the United States would need to raise taxes and cut expenditures both by 35% to close its fiscal gap! Or, Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University calculates the actual size of the United States' indebtedness including the present value of unfunded commitments (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) is around $202 trillion--more dollars than stars in the Milky Way. Naturally, the theoretical level of fiscal sobriety is well beyond political reality, but there are democratic countries which provide a decent level of social service to their citizens including universal health care and are managed well enough to have net surpluses or reasonable deficits in comparison to their GDP. One can think of Sweden, Norway or even Canada and Australia. To be honest the United States is in the same fiscal profligacy league as Italy and Japan. The nation benefits enormously from the twin towers of owning the planet's trade currency and fielding its largest military force. In times of turmoil the dollar is still considered a safe haven. How long America's financial corner will last as the dollar is depreciated by its central bank, inflation rages, and the overseas military empire shrinks by necessity is an open question. B. O'Drama has made the political calculation that the forced reductions in federal spending will hurt the Repugnants more than his party. That may be correct, but at the cost of some genuine social discomfort.
[credit Joel Pett, Lexington Herald-Leader]
Wackydoodle sez; I know a Greek feller that can get you a deal on some ulcer pills!