4.06.2010

Mainstream media finally waking up to debt crisis

Pity a country where the majority of the population doesn't regularly read financial blogs and relies on the dinosaur media to tell them what's important.

They're only learning right now that our unsustainable debt is a ticking time bomb.

The San Francisco Chronic:
Lost amid last month's passage of the new health care law, the Congressional Budget Office issued a report showing that within this decade, President Obama's own budget sends the U.S. government to a potential tipping point where the debt reaches 90 percent of gross domestic product.

Economists Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University have recently shown that a 90 percent debt-to-GDP ratio usually touches off a crisis.

This year, the debt will reach 63 percent of GDP, a ratio that has ignited crises in smaller wealthy nations. Fiscal crises gripped Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Ireland when their debts were below where the United States is shortly headed.

3 comments:

Dean said...

"...usually touches off a crisis."

That's a very civil way of putting it.

SarahB said...

sharing...

llntrn said...

Should we be preparing for a VAT then?

Happy Super Tuesday!