Archive for 2010

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Growth only way to avoid U.S. economic collapse.

Lucky this baby didn’t land during the G20 meeting! America’s fiscal judge, the Congressional Budget Office, has produced another nightmare report. The bad news: U.S. debt-to-GDP will hit 858 percent by 2080, roughly ten times today’s level. The “good” news: The economy would implode long before. But avoiding that fate requires just the right balance now between austerity and a push for real, private-sector led economic growth.

The Administration seems to be pursuing the opposite strategy, for some reason. At least, if you were trying to kill private-sector led economic growth, it’s hard to see what you’d do differently.

STANDING UP FOR CIVILIZATION.

EMILY DICKINSON’S dark secret.

I’VE MENTIONED NAT ROBB’S BOUTIQUE CAYMAN DIVING OPERATION, InDepth Water Sports before. Here’s an article on his future plans, from the Cayman Compass. I had hoped to be there for the sinking of the USS Kittiwake, but the schedule just kept changing.

CAN THE GOVERNMENT TELL YOU what to eat?

Ann Althouse writes: “The clip is taken out of context, and now it has a vigorous life of its own.”

A WAR AGAINST station wagons?

MEGAN MCARDLE ON AUSTERITY HORROR: “If Ireland hadn’t done the austerity budget, it might now be more like Greece–in danger of default without massive intervention from the rest of the European Union. Intervention that might well not be forthcoming, if it became clear that too many countries were going to require it. . . . Austerity is an expensive form of insurance against a true fiscal crisis. And though it doesn’t necessarily seem like it when you’re not having one, fiscal crises are much, much worse than austerity budgets. Fiscal crisis means that rather than unpleasant cuts, you have sudden, unmanageable collapses in things like public pension plans. The resulting suffering is not unpleasant; it is disastrous.”

Plus, from the comments: “The pols dream up all sorts of way to piss away money when times are good, then are forced into ‘austerity’ when times are bad. If they hadn’t dreamed up the garbage spending in the first place, they wouldn’t need the ‘austerity’. Take a look at our worst states. Their problem is all related to incredible jumps in spending over a period of 25 to 30 years. Now it’s caught up to them.”