DER SPIEGEL: Obama’s Mistakes: Chancellor Merkel Visits the Debt President. “The occupant of the White House may have changed recently. But the amount of ill-advised ideology coming from Washington has remained constant. Obama’s list of economic errors is long — and continues to grow.”

Reader Erik Fortune, who sent the link, comments: “The piece drips with der Spiegel’s typical anti-Americanism, but when your spending alarms even the Europeans, it’s time to reconsider.”

And this bit from the article is worrisome: “It is often said that the Chinese and the Japanese will buy government bonds. But the truth of the matter is that trust in the gravitas and reliability of the United States has suffered to such a great degree that fewer and fewer foreigners are purchasing its government bonds. That’s why the Federal Reserve is now buying securities that it has printed itself.”