So if not a clarifying debtpocalypse, what might the future look like on either side of the Atlantic? I'm guessing much like on either side of the Pacific.
In one corner stands Japan, now contemplating a third consecutive "lost decade." The once unstoppable economic powerhouse has been mired in a mild, post-bubble economic malaise for an entire generation, as successive bank bailouts and stimuli failed to jump-start meaningful growth. It's still a pleasant place to live, particularly if you're old, but every year people's sights just get set a little lower. American President Barack Obama, despite explicitly warning against creating another "lost decade," has nonetheless pursued many of the same policies, and produced an economic track record as bad as any modern president's.
But I think the more likely scenario is the one being played out in California: dreary, internecine battles over a shrinking revenue pie, while potholes deepen, libraries close, population stagnates, and lousy
political results of all types-unemployment, deficits, even government itself-receive the apologetic prefix of "structural." The kind of place where the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation's history is
greeted with a lecture by the state's largest newspaper to avoid "finger-pointing."
Sure, California (like Japan, and Europe) will always be a comparatively nice place to live. But as long as the rich world keeps reacting to its predictable calamities with evasion, can-kicking, and ever-creative bouts of muddling through, the best-case scenario will be a slow erosion of the very dynamism that made us rich enough to get away with mistakes.
This is not the 21st century we signed up for.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/05/muddling-toward-mediocrity
Governments are doing such a fine job of handling other peoples' money, what could possibly go wrong with Obamacare.
In one corner stands Japan, now contemplating a third consecutive "lost decade." The once unstoppable economic powerhouse has been mired in a mild, post-bubble economic malaise for an entire generation, as successive bank bailouts and stimuli failed to jump-start meaningful growth. It's still a pleasant place to live, particularly if you're old, but every year people's sights just get set a little lower. American President Barack Obama, despite explicitly warning against creating another "lost decade," has nonetheless pursued many of the same policies, and produced an economic track record as bad as any modern president's.
But I think the more likely scenario is the one being played out in California: dreary, internecine battles over a shrinking revenue pie, while potholes deepen, libraries close, population stagnates, and lousy
political results of all types-unemployment, deficits, even government itself-receive the apologetic prefix of "structural." The kind of place where the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation's history is
greeted with a lecture by the state's largest newspaper to avoid "finger-pointing."
Sure, California (like Japan, and Europe) will always be a comparatively nice place to live. But as long as the rich world keeps reacting to its predictable calamities with evasion, can-kicking, and ever-creative bouts of muddling through, the best-case scenario will be a slow erosion of the very dynamism that made us rich enough to get away with mistakes.
This is not the 21st century we signed up for.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/05/muddling-toward-mediocrity
Governments are doing such a fine job of handling other peoples' money, what could possibly go wrong with Obamacare.
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