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Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's | |
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Back in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan's advisers worried that his federal budget deficits risked causing an economic calamity. But the calamity never came, and that's why politicians of today are far more complacent, even though a "deficit-induced crisis" is far likelier, according to a front-page article in yesterday's WSJ.
Many economists are very concerned about the situation: Within four years, surging Social Security and Medicare expenditures will begin to overwhelm the economy, and worse, an enormous 40% of U.S. debt is held by foreigners.
"Oddly, the lesson many Americans seem to have drawn from the experience of the past two decades is that nothing need be done," says Harvard University economist Benjamin Friedman.
There's also a pretty simple generational explanation. In the 1980s,
most government, business and education senior management positions
were filled from a generation that lived through the Great
Depression; today's leaders know nothing of that hardship, and at
worst experienced only mild recessions.
(13-Jul-04)
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