WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: CalPERS Goes After Compton. “California’s pension crisis is metastasizing. Last week we noted that the California public pension fund CalPERS was at loggerheads with the city of San Bernardino, which was using its bankruptcy filing as grounds to default on its obligations. This week, CalPERS sued the city of Compton, which owes $2.6 million to the fund. One detects its desperation here. . . . Spin it as you like, but math wins in the end. California’s retirement numbers just don’t add up, and clinging grimly to failing policies and dying institutions is not the way forward. CalPERS can sue every city in California, but that won’t fix the pension crisis — and it won’t get the California economy on track for the kind of growth that would make the tradeoff between pensions and services a little less dire.”

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be.

LOWER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Progressives Sour On Chicago’s Teachers. “The Chicago teachers’ strike and the coming pension crisis has even progressives worried that public-sector employee costs are bankrupting the city: Matt Yglesias is arguing that the teachers’ union’s proposal to raise taxes to pay for their pension programs may divert funds from more important programs. . . . The larger problem here is that blue policies simply can’t be made to work. Higher taxes won’t fix the problem of an overpriced, underperforming school system; indeed, they will just drive out even more of the city’s tax-generating economic base. The city is now on a course to make all its problems steadily worse. Chicago is slowly bankrupting itself to sustain a school system it can’t afford that doesn’t educate its kids very well.”

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. That observation, from economist Herb Stein, is likely to be the sum-up aphorism of this decade.

DEFICIT TOPS $1 TRILLION: “CBO, which releases estimates each month, said the government ran a $192 billion deficit last month. That’s the highest deficit ever for August, which is not traditionally a major month for running in the red. That deep monthly deficit powered the government well past the $1 trillion mark for the fiscal year. With a month still to go, the government is already running $1.17 trillion in arrears.”

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Public Pension Cutbacks Spread Across The Country. Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

EUROPE: Employees at Just One Paris Hospital Are Owed 2 Million Vacation Days. Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

Related: Britain: The busiest online shopping day of last year was the day of a mass public sector strikes.

INDEED: The Spenders Won 2011: Republicans fell for Obama’s backroom budget trap. But something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

GOOD QUESTION: The Law School Bubble: How Long Will It Last if Law Grads Can’t Pay Bills? “In 2010, 85 percent of law graduates from ABA-accredited schools boasted an average debt load of $98,500, according to data collected from law schools by U.S. News & World Report. At 29 schools, that amount exceeded $120,000. In contrast, only 68 percent of those grads reported employment in positions that require a JD nine months after commencement. Less than 51 percent found employment in private law firms.” Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

DO YOU THINK? “The ongoing increases in college tuition and fees make the housing price bubble seem pretty tame by comparison, and we should therefore be very concerned about the possibility that we might now be facing an unsustainable higher education bubble.” If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.

WORRIED ABOUT DEBT? This chart won’t make you feel better. But remember — if something can’t go on forever, it won’t.

STEVE DEN BESTE WRITES ABOUT POSTWAR MALAISE in the blogosphere. I know what he means. In fact, as I said a while back, Kaus put it best:

You’re completely sick of the war — sick of watching cable, sick of reading the paper. The military campaign’s basically been won. The adrenalin is leaving your body. The overwhelming urge is to breathe a sigh of relief and get back to normal life, only more so: normal life minus current events. Yet this is just the moment when it’s probably most important to pay attention to what is going on in the Middle East, because these are the weeks when we will or won’t make the mistakes that will cost us the benefit of all the sacrifice of life and treasure.

That’s why I didn’t take a vacation like Andrew Sullivan, or Bill Quick. (Or, sadly, like Nick Denton). But it’s been a struggle. It’s been made worse by the difficulty of getting a big picture. Yeah, there are lots of media reports suggesting that things aren’t going that well. But they’re mostly from people who were declaring the war a quagmire after 15 minutes, and who peddled the bogus looting stories. Others are from more credible sources, but even those are hard to place in perspective. Europe and Japan looked pretty crappy for quite a while after World War II — ordinary people were putting food on the table via prostitution for quite some time after the war, something now largely forgotten except for vague jokes about nylons and chocolate bars. Things aren’t nearly that bad in Iraq. And in some places they’re quite a bit better. We also faced efforts at subversion by the Russians in Japan and Germany that were far more serious than anything we’re likely to face in Iraq, which is smaller and has — I think — actually got more U.S. troops occupying it per-capita than Japan had in 1946. (I haven’t checked this, but a usually reliable reader emails that fact.)

My waitress at dinner was a Kurd, who reported that relatives in Northern Iraq (she hadn’t been back for a couple of years) say that things are much better since Saddam’s fall. Mark Steyn reports that things look pretty good to him. Phil Carter, meanwhile, is less positive: he has argued pretty persuasively that we had enough troops to win the war, but not enough for the occupation. (He also thinks we’ll see Al Qaeda attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq.)

But as Salam Pax says,

Everyone expected a civil war, but now that’s not happening. Actually, the situation is much better than we imagined before the war… People who before the war sold tomatoes now suddenly offer satellite phones on the open street…

And, actually, even this is probably good news:

One thing is sure: No one is relying on the Americans. No one expects
that they will do anything for us.

Low expectations are better than too-high ones, and self-reliance is better than dependence. I think that this has been a deliberate strategy in the occupation, though we may have overplayed it. On the other hand, Baghdad has free Internet now, via self-help. That’s a good sign, I think. But a too-disengaged approach is likely to breed more resentment than an overbearing one, actually. As Osama says, people (especially Arab people) tend to want to back a strong horse. So it’s important to look strong.

On the broader scale, things look pretty good. We had anti-Al Qaeda demonstrations in Morocco, and Syria seems to be feeling the heat. There have been some signs of self-examination and skepticism toward fundamentalist Islamism even in Saudi Arabia, though the Saudis remain unimpressive on this front. The Iranian mullahs are nervous (though not nervous enough), and — though I remain skeptical — there are some things that could be interpreted as progress with regard to Israel and the Palestinians, though I doubt it will be possible to achieve peace there as long as Arafat is alive. And, over all, Al Qaeda has faced many, many arrests, and we’ve gone over 18 months without a significant Islamic terrorist attack in the United States.

That’s all pretty good news, and far better than we feared in September of 2001. In fact, the big news so far is that things are a lot better than we feared in September 2001.

I certainly agree with Paul Wolfowitz that:

I think the two most important things next are the two most obvious. One is getting post-Saddam Iraq right. Getting it right may take years, but setting the conditions for getting it right in the next six months. The next six months are going to be very important.

The other thing is trying to get some progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

I think the two are connected. Getting things right in Iraq is very important, and it won’t happen overnight, and it won’t be obvious how things are going overnight. (It’s not obvious how things are going in Russia, and it’s been well over a decade since the end of the Soviet Union). I think it’s very important that we work at it, and I think it’s ironic that some of the people who were critics before the war saying “we’ll just put in a friendly dictator and leave” are now pushing arguments and criticisms that imply just such a course of action when the Administration is obviously committed to something more. We want a peaceful, free and prosperous Iraq. Claims that Arabs are somehow incapable of that sort of thing seem a bit dubious to me, especially when they come from people who call themselves “progressive” — and it’s especially unimpressive when those people say “Iraq is ungovernable” with ill-concealed glee at the prospect of what would be, in practice, a far bigger disaster for the Iraqi people than for George Bush. But they don’t care about the collateral damage if they can see Bush hurt.

As for the Palestinian problem, well, I tend to see that more as a symptom than as a disease — it’s a vehicle for Arab despots to use in distracting their citizens. But denying them that vehicle wouldn’t be such a bad thing. And getting rid of Saddam, both because it undermined Arab fantasies and because it deprived the suicide bombers of a very significant subsidy, can only help that.

So overall, I’d say that it’s too early to say how well things are going, but that things in general look pretty good. And though there are predictions of doom aplenty, it’s worth remembering that the doom-predictors have a pretty lousy record so far.

I think, though, that both Iraq and Israel are currently tests for the Arabs. If they can’t achieve a reasonable degree of peace and freedom here, if they sink back into theocracy and thuggery, then it’s going to be easy for the rest of the world to give up on them — as the “progressives” already have — and say “what can you expect from the wogs?” as it turns a blind eye to another generation of dictators’ brutality. I don’t want that, and I don’t think that the Iraqi people, or even the Palestinian people, really do.

But as I said before, and Roger Simon says now: “Patience, patience — now of all times.”

UPDATE: Dave Winer has a notably nasty post on this. It begins “Amazingly, Glenn Reynolds is still covering the war,” and then goes on to blast warbloggers. Um, you’d rather I ignored this, Dave? Or do you just not like the way I point out that “progressives” never gave a damn about the Iraqis, and still don’t? I think you’ve proved that, anyway. And probably provided an answer to Marduk’s question for war opponents:

Given the choice which would you prefer:

A. George Bush is proven correct. Peace in Iraq. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Bush re-elected.

B. George Bush is proven incorrect. No peace in Iraq. No peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Bush defeated.

The answer to that one is pathetically obvious. “Pheh” right back atcha, Dave.

ANOTHER UPDATE: It’s interesting to contrast the antiwar folks’ self-justifying kvetching with this rather thoughtful post from SgtStryker.com:

After the fireworks are over, people like me are sent out unto the world to do all the hard work in support of peacekeeping and all that mess. It doesn’t make for good TV like war does, but war sells. It’s got death, ‘splosions and all that other cool stuff people like to watch. Peacekeeping, on the other hand, isn’t exciting at all. It’s long, boring and never goes as fast as everyone wants it to. It’s kind of like construction. Those buildings they put up always seem to take forever to build and the work isn’t exactly glamorous. I-beam by I-beam, concrete block by concrete block, these buildings slowly rise from the remains of what was there before and begin to take shape. It’s done right out there in public so everyone walking by can give their take on the whole deal and criticise the design, the materials used or how things would go so much better if everyone just listened to them.

But at the end of the thing, the workers have a sense of accomplishing something solid that’ll remain for while. Everyone always gathers around and watches those dramatic building demolitions. The walls explode, the building collapses into a cloud of dust, people clap and then everyone heads off to the next big thing. It’s a brief, transitory moment of excitement, but that’s about it. Building stuff is a hell of a lot less glamorous then blowing it up, but at least you have something to point to years down the road when someone asks what the hell you were doing all that time. It’s kind of hard to point at nothing, no matter how dazzling its collapse may have been.

That’s what I’m writing about, Dave. Sorry it doesn’t interest you.

HONESTLY, THIS DEBT CEILING APPROACH SOUNDS FINE TO ME:

Many on Wall Street believe that the Treasury Department, in order to avoid defaulting on U.S. debt, would “prioritize” payments on its bonds if it could no longer borrow funds to cover all its expenses. They expect that America’s lenders — the bondholders who own U.S. Treasury debt — would be first in line to receive interest and other payments, even if it meant delaying other obligations like government salaries or retirement benefits.

Plus:

A number of prominent financial experts at Bank of America, Barclays and other major firms are confident that the U.S. will avert a global market meltdown by continuing to pay its bondholders if the Treasury Department crosses the threshold where it can’t cover all its other bills. They think the U.S. can do so by withholding funds for things like benefits owed to individual Americans or payments to firms doing business with the government.

It’s a view that aligns with those of conservative lawmakers, who argue that payment prioritization on Treasury securities — the bedrock of the international financial system — is a viable contingency plan as they push for budget cuts opposed by President Joe Biden.

The White House and Treasury are already putting up resistance to the idea, which Treasury says would amount to a default. But disclosures over the past several years — driven in part by investigations by House Republicans — have revealed that officials believe the government has the technical capacity to implement payment prioritization, though it would be experimental and risky.

And:

The key in both stories is that some on Wall Street are open to the idea of a default not being a financial catastrophe. A thorough read of both articles suggests that there are long odds on that. But note that just having this reportage out there reframes the conversation from “a default will be catastrophic!’ to “if a default happens, how would we muddle through?” The moment the framing shifts, suddenly the inconceivable becomes a little more conceivable. At that point, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, now we are just haggling over the price rather than sticking to principle.

It’s a way to shrink government obligations without defaulting on actual creditors. Since the political system is too broken/parasitized to do that, it’ll have to happen another way. Remember: Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

SO SAD: How Big Tech’s pandemic bubble burst.

In January 2021, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke in lofty terms about how the first year of the pandemic had sparked a staggering shift toward online services, benefiting his company in the process. “What we have witnessed over the past year is the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry,” he said.

Two years later, the situation appears much more stark. This week, Microsoft said it planned to lay off 10,000 employees as businesses rethink their pandemic-era digital spending and confront broader economic uncertainty. Microsoft’s customers, Nadella said, are now trying “to do more with less.”

Microsoft isn’t the only company experiencing such a dramatic reversal. Days later, Google-parent company Alphabet followed suit, saying it plans to cut around 12,000 jobs, amounting to more than 6% of its staff.

Over the past three months, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook-parent Meta have announced plans to cut more than 50,000 employees from their collective ranks, a stunning reversal from the early days of the pandemic when the tech giants were growing rapidly to meet surging demand from countless households living, shopping and working online. At the time, many tech leaders seemed to expect that growth to continue unabated.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Democrats Will Soon Regret That Republicans Failed To Repeal ObamaCare. ObamaCare was never sustainable. Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

DAMON LINKER: The global elite are headed for a fall. And they don’t even know it.

They are themselves the greatest beneficiaries of the global meritocracy — and that very fact serves to validate its worth. They live in or near urban centers that are booming with jobs in tech, finance, media, and other fields that draw on the expertise they acquired in their educations at the greatest universities in the world. They work hard and are rewarded with high salaries, frequent travel, nice cars, and cutting-edge gadgets. It’s fun, anxious, thrilling — an intoxicating mix of brutal asceticism and ecstatic hedonism.

The problem is that growing numbers of people — here in America, in the U.K., in France, and beyond — don’t see it like this at all. Or rather, they only see it from the outside, a position from which it looks very different. What they see is a system that is fundamentally unjust, rigged, and shot through with corruption and self-dealing.

They see Marissa Meyer, the CEO of Yahoo, taking home a cool $186 million in stock (on top of many millions in additional salary and bonuses) for five years of “largely unsuccessful” work. . . .

And this is how things appear at this historical moment: The world is run by an international elite that lives in a rarified world of seemingly boundless power and luxury. Though the members of this elite consider their own power and luxury to be completely legitimate, it is not. It is the product of a system that’s rigged to benefit them while everybody else languishes in declining small cities and provincial towns, eking out a dreary existence, toiling away their lives in menial service-sector jobs or scraping by on disability checks while seeking out a modicum of fleeting joy in the dumbstruck haze of a painkiller high.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

PENSION TSUNAMI UPDATE: Unions Ask Court To Rule Against Math:

Pension hawks celebrated in August when a California appeals court upheld a state law limiting the ability of public employees to spike their pensions late in their careers. But with the case possibly headed to the state’s Supreme Court, the battle isn’t over yet. . . .

The so-called “California rule” has historically prohibited the state from reducing pension benefits over time. So when union-dominated public pension funds would purposefully conceal the costs of their liabilities and eventually run up a huge shortfall, the state would be unable to do anything except increase its own contributions even further. The California appeals court ruling from this summer modified this precedent by holding that, “while a public employee does have a ‘vested right’ to a pension, that right is only to a ‘reasonable’ pension—not an immutable entitlement to the most optimal formula of calculating the pension.”

It’s no surprise that the unions are looking to get the ruling tossed.

Hopefully the California Supreme Court won’t give more cover for more can-kicking and phony accounting. Municipalities in the Golden State and across the country are facing deep fiscal holes that they will not emerge from without either adjustments to pension guarantees or draconian cuts to vital public services like education or public safety. As more and more cities start to feel the tremors of the coming avalanche of defaults and credit downgrades, judges need to give local governments more fiscal flexibility than they have had in the past. Without that flexibility, more municipalities are headed for bankruptcy. And once they file for Chapter 9, all bets are off, and pensioners could face an even worse haircut than anything being discussed today.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be. Plan accordingly.

HOUSE OF CARDS: Companies Build Bonds for European Central Bank to Buy.

The European Central Bank’s corporate-bond-buying program has stirred so much action in credit markets that some investment banks and companies are creating new debt especially for the central bank to buy.

In two instances, the ECB has bought bonds directly from European companies through so-called private placements, in which debt is sold to a tight circle of buyers without the formality of a wider auction.

It is a startling example of how banks and companies are quickly adapting to the extremes of monetary policy in what is an already unconventional age. In the past decade, wide-scale purchases of government bonds—a bid to lower the cost of borrowing in the economy and persuade investors to take more risk—have become commonplace. Central banks more recently have moved to negative interest rates, flipping on their head the ancient customs of money lending. Now, they are all but inviting private actors to concoct specific things for them to buy so they can continue pumping money into the financial system.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

THAT MEANS IT’S WORKING: ObamaCare problems deepen as insurers scramble to stem losses.

One by one, the nation’s top insurers – Humana, UnitedHealth Group, Blue Cross and Anthem – have shifted their tone on the law.

Once optimistic, each has reported struggles with plans sold on the exchanges. Many say they weren’t ready for the influx of customers that have generated more claims than predicted.

As a result, companies are scrambling to find ways to cut their losses and stop the fiscal bleeding. A few say they’ll be forced to pass on costs to customers.

Already, rates on the exchanges are skyrocketing. From 2013 to 2016, almost every state has seen an increase in monthly premiums. In Michigan they are expected to jump 17.3 percent this year. In Virginia, the average premium increase could hit 37.1 percent, Bryan Rotella, attorney and founder of the Rotella Legal Group, warns.

“In fact, two of three federal programs to manage this exact risk are due to expire in 2017,” Rotella wrote in an opinion piece for The Hill. “Without these programs to fall back on, many insurance companies likely will need to jack up their premiums even higher or bail out of the exchanges all together.”

Blue Cross reported losing hundreds of millions of dollars on its exchange plans across the country. In Tennessee, it took a $300 million hit; in North Carolina, $280 million and in Arizona, $135 million.

In California, the company is expected to raise rates 19.9 percent – more than triple the average annual increase.

Others like Humana are threatening to quit altogether.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

I’VE BEEN WARNING ABOUT THIS FOR YEARS HERE AT INSTAPUNDIT: The Pension Crisis Keeps Getting Worse.

The $2 trillion public sector pension shortfall created by decades of interest group bullying and political fecklessness is not going away on its own. In fact, according to a recent report from a major consulting firm, it’s getting steadily worse. . . .

It’s important to note that the major market indices actually rose substantially over the time period covered by the report. If Wilshire assessed the solvency of public pension funds today, after months of market turmoil, the situation would likely be even more grim.

At least some state and local governments are taking steps to reform their public pension systems before it’s too late. For others, that moment may have already passed. It’s probably only a matter of time before the most indebted states and localities start going hat-in-hand to the federal government requesting massive bailouts. Time for think tanks, academics, and policymakers to start preparing for this eventuality: Should Congress be prepared to offer any assistance, and if so, on what terms?

The problem: Congress is broke too, but still in denial.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be. Plan accordingly.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The China Bubble: It’s probably bursting, one way or another. And the world hasn’t figured out what to do about it.

China’s slowdown is having knock-on effects around the world. Here at TAI, we have been following the commodity crash story for some time—and not just as a piece of economic news mostly interesting to financial market speculators. This is a political and a geopolitical story as well. Falling commodity prices matter to everything from the security of Putin’s power base to the ability of the oil-dependent Nigerian state to wage an effective war against Boko Haram; the fate of democracy in countries like Brazil and South Africa is complicated by the prospective fallout from the commodity crash; Venezuela may implode into chaos as a result of the oil crash, and fears for Venezuela’s future were a major consideration in Cuba’s decision to respond to the Obama Administration’s normalization overtures. In other words, significant shifts in world commodity prices can tilt the balance of power, undermine the stability of some governments, and boost the prospects of others.
But the story may be getting still bigger. We may be looking at something more serious than the unwinding of a commodity boom; we may be looking at the bursting of a bubble that could dwarf what happened in 2008. The China Bubble is bigger than the real estate bubble, and its liquidation could pose bigger risks for world politics than the subprime implosion.

There’s a difference between China and the China Bubble. China is a middle-income developing country bumping up against the limits of a growth model built on massive exports of manufactured goods. There are lots of bubbles inside China, largely because both national and local governments have pursued a mix of stimulative policies even as the health of the underlying growth model deteriorated. Massive over-investment in real estate, infrastructure and manufacturing capacity, overvalued stock prices and poorly priced financial assets have created an increasingly toxic and dangerous economic situation inside China, and a rattled government is doing its best to keep the system from imploding. The government is hoping to achieve a ‘soft landing’ as China switches away from growth led by manufacturing for export to growth led by services and internal consumption. We shall see; China’s regulators and managers are skilled and have a lot of ammunition. But this is a difficult maneuver to execute and as Chinese society and the Chinese economy both become more complex, the task of running the country keeps getting harder.

The China Bubble on the other hand is an international phenomenon. All over the world, the producers of commodities and manufactured goods have bought into the idea that Chinese demand is a perpetual growth machine.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: The Hill: Ex-GAO head: US debt is three times more than you think.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be. Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Plan accordingly.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “U.S. universities have grown increasingly reliant on rapid, double-percentage-point-per-annum growth in the number of students from China, who now account for 31 percent of international students in American higher education.” Plus: “I think there is a sense in the U.S. that universities have taken the Chinese student enrollment levels for granted, that they’re able to charge significant tuition and somehow this growth will continue into the future unimpeded. I just don’t believe that.”

Well, you know what they say: Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

EUROPE’S IMMIGRATION PROBLEM is structural.

This time the crisis is over one of Europe’s most cherished icons: the Schengen visa-free/passport-free zone, which has given the European project arguably its strongest evidence yet that a larger and ultimately “pan-European” community would emerge from the nation-states bound by the treaty and the ideals behind it.

The current wave is fast invalidating all earlier numerical projections: Germany is looking at about 800,000 asylum applications this year; in July alone more than 100,000 people entered Europe, mainly through Greece and Italy. Reportedly, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will now call for the member countries to resettle the 160,000 people who have reached Greece, Italy, and Hungary—a fourfold increase relative to two months ago. This is the “Schengen wave” of immigration; now reaching the point of entry places one within striking distance of Europe’s interior.

The size and distribution of the resettlement quota within the EU has become an intra-family squabble, with Britain resisting and Germany and Italy asking for higher quota commitments from other countries, especially from the reluctant “new members.” Here Hungary has led the way in its opposition to the plan, building a barbed wire fence along the Serbian border and pushing enabling legislation through the parliament that would reassert national control. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has called the immigration wave a “German problem.”

So it now will come to this: Germany’s Angela Merkel will insist that increasing resettlement quotas for all is inevitable, making it a litmus test of intra-EU solidarity. If she gets her way—and she likely will next week—Greece, Italy, and Hungary will be allowed to dispatch the migrants from their territory to other countries, establishing an ad hoc quota policy of sorts. Problem solved? Not so fast, as another deal on the resettlement quota will not alter the overall migration dynamic or momentum, with push and pull factors (war in MENA and Europe’s generous social support and prospect of a better life) now mutually reinforcing and locked in. And in a world framed by instant communications and social media, the message of Europe’s promise will continue to go out to the desperate and the entrepreneurial thousands, reinforcing their determination to come.

You can’t have open borders and generous welfare benefits. At least, not for long. And something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

REALITY ASSERTS ITSELF: UK FOLLOWING SCOTT WALKER’S EXAMPLE.

The UK is not exactly a bastion of right-wingery. As a hoary political joke has it: In the UK, they have two parties—the Labour Party, which we in the U.S. would call the Socialist Party, and the Conservative Party, which we in the U.S. would also call the Socialist Party. And in the American context, Wisconsin is not a particularly right-wing state. Why are unions not getting their way in these places?

The answer is not, pace the wailings of Richard Trumka, a labor leader and Scott Walker critic, that Gov. Walker is some unique right-wing monster—and the same holds true for British PM David Cameron. As Richard Aldous pointed out in a must-read essay yesterday, the British voters reelected Cameron because of, not despite, his austerity and reform agenda; likewise, Wisconsin voters chose three times to keep Scott Walker in office.

To the moderate voter, it seems faintly ludicrous that public sector unions, alone of all political advocacy groups, are entitled to government-enforced dues collection. And then, that voter opens the London papers and sees that unionized public sector workers such as London’s tube drivers, who make far more than that same average voter, are going to strike for the second and third time this month over issues that have nothing to do with safety, job security, or any of the supposed traditional arguments for unionization. (The rural-American equivalent would be a school strike in a Wisconsin town over pension and health contribution levels that the average voter can only dream of.)

The waning of the blue model isn’t just an American phenomenon. The inability of Western countries to support and pay for lavish public sector pensions and benefits is becoming more apparent. Voters are giving politicians on both sides of the pond a mandate to do some remodeling.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

CORRUPT, FECKLESS LEADERSHIP PRODUCES PREDICTABLE RESULTS: Think Greece can’t happen here? You’re wrong.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be. Plan accordingly.

QUINN HILYER ON THE LATEST FROM GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: My Alma Mater Makes A Fool Of Itself. “Both the campus paper of record, the Hoya, and the Georgetown Center for Student Engagement (yes, I kid you not, that’s the name of an official department of the university), have done even more to embarrass themselves than did the students who posted ‘trigger warnings’ that Ms. Sommers might say things that upset somebody.”

Cost of attending Georgetown: $67,520 per year. Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.