Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Manana Economics

I love that expression . . . manana economics. It covers those areas of economics that can be dealt with tomorrow, i.e., where kicking the can down the road is a good idea.

Fareed Zakaria is a native of India with a Ph.D. from Harvard and writes a column for Newsweek, as well as being a CNN contributor. He coined the term referring to the inability of the U.S. to deal with its deficit problem, pointing out the new $900 billion tax cut extension only adds to the problem.

He also referred to the inability of the U.S. to tackle unpleasant and painful subjects as a disease of modern democracy.

Some drug addicts need an intervention by loved ones to deal with their addiction problems. Will loved ones provide the intervention that the U.S. needs or will it be bond vigilantes?

How time flies . . . it was only a week ago that the presidential deficit commission made their recommendations . . . seems like ancient history now?

Yesterday, for the first time, the bond rating agency of Moody's even put us on warning that we must deal with the problem. If we lose our AAA rating, the cost of borrowing will increase, making it even harder to manage the burden of our huge debt . . . tick . . . tick . . . tick . . .