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Thursday, May 13, 2010

Hey! Will you Yanks clean-up your act?

From Glenn Reynolds mailbag, a special request:

Reader Patrick Whittome writes:

Glenn,

A British perspective on borrowing:

In Europe the left wing governments are falling away. Greece is pushing through spending austerity because it has no choice. In Spain, Portugal, Germany and many other countries they are slashing spending because the Greek ending scares them to death. The UK just sacked its spendy lefty government and got one determined to accelerate spending cuts significantly. We may have been the bad boys on irresponsible public spending for ages – but boy are we now getting a serious re-education! Canada, Australia and Sweden are countries that have been to the edge, pulled back, cut back and have emerged much the stronger and better managed for it.

And that, for me, leaves behind just two big spending basket cases: Japan and the USA. Japan’s crunch will come in the next two years as domestic savings run out and they will have to start borrowing externally – and find that they can’t at reasonable interest rates. A Greek end game awaits them. I’d advise banks and businesses everywhere to cut their Japanese exposure right now because it won’t be pretty.

So that just leaves you chaps across the pond. Will the timetable of collapse be Greece today, California tomorrow, USA 2012? Who knows. Obama is a very engaging and articulate man – but he’s spending you guys into the dirt. It’s an existential risk not just a tough political issue. Please would you be so kind as to elect someone prepared to deal with it – coz if you sink we all do.

We’re doing what we can.

I second that emotion.

Reproduced from Instapundit