Bad-mouthing the US economy and fiscal policy was more enjoyable when the state of the rest of the world was pretty much on the same level, and similar underlying challenges looked to be insurmountable for recovery. A global economic downturn, implosion promised to be just that—global, altering the landscape and brining about change. And while there may be still systemic problems plaguing trade, corporate favouritism and influence, misguided consumption, and any number of confidence-tricks and market-flipping, it seems a lot of the prophets of gloom are very quick to take back their criticism of capitalism and its fully articulated cachet of accessories. It is mostly a hollow business. Before someone was clever and shrewd enough to convince kingdoms that they could mortgage their debts for cash (bonds) and investors were dull enough to buy it, financing was all done with real assets and the backers exacted political capital, grace-and-favour, instead of just moribund obligations.
No extra money was minted because of the risk of inflation and devaluation. Presently, however, there is a situation, a collusion, wherein all these things are possible: influence is trafficked with the debt and quantitative easing is another lever to pull in many markets. Talk of the deficit can be a charged and a malleable topic. In its unprocessed form, the US federal deficit is simply the ratio of government income versus outlays, and though arguable, when people discuss the deficit, they are really talking about the US economy, which are really separate things. Though unsustainable in the long term or as a permanent state, a negative balance of payments can promote tangible improvements for the public and not solely for corporate welfare. A budget shortfall has not yet been turned into an investment instrument the way bonds have, except in the sense of bailout-pie, but it can be for the public good, nonetheless, and government exists only to serve its people. Other governments, whose agendas are not quite so beholden to special-interest, polarizing messages and commercial sooth-sayers, do not dismiss running deficits but approach the matter with more measured responses. As long as someone is buying, it is a sovereign prerogative to allow spending to outstrip receipts for the sake of providing for its citizens. The debate becomes charged when the comparison, talk of the economy in general, is lost to household economics and sacrifices are presented in the same way as a balanced checkbook. Symbolic cutbacks because of unflinching focus on a single economic indicator will accomplish little and probably result in more acute pain.
