Friday, August 27, 2010

Mort Zuckerman Gets It. Finally.

Zuckerman is a bit late to the game.

I've been talking about the spending since mid-2007. NOW Mort gets it? Maybe he reads this blog. It would be good for him to have done so.

...There is another instinctive conclusion among the American people. It is that the national deficit, and the debts we have accumulated, are of critical political importance. On the national debt, the money the government has spent without the tax revenues to pay for it has produced mind-numbing numbers so large as to be disconnected from reality. Zeros from here to infinity. The sums are hard to describe; it is hard to describe an elephant, but you know one when you see one. The public knows that, shuffle the numbers as you may, the level of debt is unsustainable.

Who could be surprised since millions of voters have discovered that for themselves? As one realizes the morning after the night before, there is an unavoidable penalty for excess. It is unnerving to wake up and learn that you have a mortgage on your home that exceeds the value of the property. Or, and too often both, you have a credit card line that you cannot repay and the issuer has you on the rack for ever bigger compound interest on the debt. The lesson has been well and truly learned that debt catches up with you. Millions understand that they are just going to have to find a way to live within their means—and then still eke out some savings to pay down debt.


Reportedly, Zuckerman's a (D).

Obama must know that if he doesn't address this, he will be the president who drove us toward a debt crisis. And so too must Congress, for both have now participated in the most fiscally irresponsible government in American history.

Maybe Mort oughta call Paul Ryan.

2 comments:

J. Strupp said...

Quick thoughts:

"It is that the national deficit, and the debts we have accumulated, are of critical political importance."

I doubt it. People vote on jobs not deficits. Put people back to work and deficits have little political importance.

"Zeros from here to infinity."

Politicans love to paint a colorful picture. The U.S. GDP has zeros from "here to infinity" too. And the debt level is what needs to be controlled as a function of GDP. This kind of rhetoric is similar to whenever Democrats used to complain about Big Oil's multibillion dollar profits without taking into consideration economies of scale.

"Maybe Mort oughta call Paul Ryan."

Why? Ryan's Roadmap increases the long run deficit by reducing tax revenues by more than his spending cuts.

neomom said...

I don't think the conventional wisdom of how people thought about debt holds anymore.