the deficit... nothing quite like it to get people riled up.
first off, it's not like this is news. anybody who follows the finances of this country knows it's coming.
secondly, nobody knows for a fact if this is a bad thing. 100% debt with regards to GDP most economists consider is something okay, as well as a deficit 3% of annual GDP. of course, economists tend to be wrong a lot, and i think they could be quite wrong on this. but this year's deficit really isn't something you can say no to.
most economists, while they won't say it in the press that often, believe that pretty much all the currently debt-heavy nations, like Japan, Britain, Spain, Greece, and of course, the US, will have to inflate their way out of it.
it is not without precedent that a major industrialized nation gets into debt trouble. britain asked for IMF money in 1976 when its debt got out of hand as its currency tumbled. austere measures were taken, and the country eventually recovered. it's not all that bad really, a decade or two of tighter purse strings and collective sacrifices.
of course, the US getting into trouble is an order of magnitude more serious than the british. ironically, there is a host of reasons it would hurt other countries more than the US itself. US loses its leadership position, sure, but it gets a chance and a rhetoric for politicians to rebalance its economy.
but it's not like the US gets to maintain being a hegemon anyway, so we might as well get it over with sooner as opposed to clinging to it.
whether a world without a hegemon is better off... my feeling is most certainly not. but that is for another discussion.
the Wii is an epidemic.
