Niggling Doubts: Cliff Dwellers - Barrons.com

Cliff Dwellers - Barrons.com

Somehow it niggles at me that, as widely reported, Obama et al have failed to ever come up with a long-term budget (even with tax hikes) to close the budget deficit.

I can’t help but recall in the October before the roof fell in on the Greeks, that they were still adding jobs, wanting bigger salaries, etc. – ignoring their own budget problems.

And, as the election has shown, when someone is promising ‘you’ something that ‘someone else’ is going to be paying (or borrowing) for – well, who’s to complain?

California also showed the truism of the above with new taxes on the rich to pay for public union retirement benefit (in the guise of avoided education and public safety cutbacks). We can’t even talk about cutting back public union benefits that far exceed those of the private sector.

Maybe Obama’s house-of-cards, Greek-like economic policies won’t fall down. But, borrowing 42 cents of every dollar spent with extremely low interest rates – what will it be if rates go up as they have in much of Europe?