Doom Schmoom! Things are just dandy!

Or maybe not so much.

This WaPo article makes many of the same points I've made myself. Though US debt now as a percentage of GDP has been almost as high before (particularly during the World War II era), we were at the beginning of a high-growth curve then. Now? We've got a rapidly-aging workforce, a slow-growth economy, sky-high personal debt, and a public sector that groans under the weight of debt and unfunded entitlements.

Another problem is that too many of our elected officials are relying on the least likely scenario (i.e., a high-growth economic spurt) to pull us out of the debt-spiral. Obama's recent budget makes this belief explicit, but it's common among politicians of both parties. There is a prevailing belief that the interest-rate environment will remain stable, that inflation will remain low, and that we can continue to place our debt at low rates of interest. Given the upheavals in the middle east and the resultant spike in the price of oil, and the "hidden" inflation caused by spikes in the price of food and fuel, these seem like faulty assumptions -- yet most politicians, Democrat and GOP alike, speak blithely about managing the debt in terms of decades rather than years.

I just don't know why they think we have that much time.

[UPDATE]

Oops! Lauraw bade me to include a picture of a cute kitty-cat every time I post a DOOM thread. You know, to ease the burn.

posted by Monty at 08:02 AM

| Access Comments