• Home
  • Topics
  • Posts by Date
  • What This Is
  • About Us
  • Mailing List

World of the News

~ For the universal in today's top stories

Tag Archives: government debt

America: the country for old men

October 13, 2013

Old men and their tired faces. Pouchy cheeks and droopy eyes. Advised to watch their cholesterol and get the prostate checked.

On Thursday, America will be prostrate before its creditor nations unless by then the elderly men of Capitol Hill can agree to raise the Federal Government debt ceiling.

Shouldn’t be too difficult, gentlemen, deciding how much more we are allowed to ask to borrow; especially since our creditors cannot afford to refuse. We are, proverbially, too big to be allowed to fail.

Cut to Jim Yong Kim, lively and elegant in his cutaway collar. The chair of the World Bank is speaking about the dire consequences of American default – if it were allowed to happen on Thursday. Born in Seoul, raised in the Mid-West, former principal of Dartmouth College, nominated by President Obama – no less, he is Korean-American, surely symbolising this century as a co-production between East and West. Or if next week is truly telling, perhaps he already represents the changing face of power. Power having acquired distinctively Asiatic features, whereas until now it’s been too early to tell.

Gentlemen, we are, proverbially, too big to be allowed to fail.

Yet fail they might if they don’t sort themselves out in four days. Perhaps there will be an agreement before then, in which case the questions asked will be cut back to just one: what took you so long? But the answer to this question is also the reason why the default deadline may well go unmet.

Washington’s Congressmen have been ta(l)king so long because they’re in a double bind: if they act like the far-sighted, can-do country they used to be, this would entail substantive recognition of their current status as a dependent nation, increasingly reliant on the surplus produced elsewhere. On the other hand, as long as they lack the courage to look into this abyss, they also lack the gumption to get that crucial deal together. Aside from politicking in the West Wing and shenanigans on Capitol Hill, this is the existential crisis underlying Washington’s imminent debt crisis. read more

…

Archives

  • July 2017 (3)
  • June 2017 (7)
  • May 2017 (11)
  • April 2017 (9)
  • March 2017 (3)
  • February 2017 (3)
  • January 2017 (3)
  • December 2016 (1)
  • November 2016 (4)
  • October 2016 (5)
  • September 2016 (6)
  • August 2016 (11)
  • July 2016 (6)
  • June 2016 (6)
  • May 2016 (2)
  • April 2016 (2)
  • March 2016 (4)
  • February 2016 (3)
  • January 2016 (2)
  • December 2015 (2)
  • November 2015 (3)
  • October 2015 (2)
  • September 2015 (3)
  • August 2015 (2)
  • July 2015 (1)
  • June 2015 (2)
  • April 2015 (3)
  • March 2015 (3)
  • February 2015 (2)
  • January 2015 (2)
  • December 2014 (2)
  • November 2014 (4)
  • October 2014 (3)
  • September 2014 (4)
  • August 2014 (4)
  • July 2014 (5)
  • June 2014 (4)
  • May 2014 (4)
  • April 2014 (7)
  • March 2014 (6)
  • February 2014 (7)
  • January 2014 (6)
  • December 2013 (19)
  • November 2013 (9)
  • October 2013 (7)
  • September 2013 (5)
  • August 2013 (8)
  • July 2013 (8)
  • June 2013 (7)
  • May 2013 (7)
  • April 2013 (2)
  • March 2013 (9)
  • February 2013 (7)
  • January 2013 (9)
  • December 2012 (8)
  • November 2012 (3)
  • October 2012 (6)
  • September 2012 (15)
  • August 2012 (9)
  • July 2012 (2)
  • June 2012 (3)
  • May 2012 (4)

Tags

Afghanistan Authority BBC Boxing Celebrity China Crime Disease Energy Europe Football France Immigration India Iraq Islam Journalism Labour Party Leveson London murder Northern Ireland Obama Poetry Police Policing Pope Protest Race rape refugees Religion Royalty Russia Sex South Africa South Korea suicide Syria Terrorism Trump UK Ukraine USA War

Categories

  • News
  • News of the World
  • What This Is
  • World of the News

Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Chateau by Ignacio Ricci.