Americans have been good at making assumptions--housing priceswould continue to spiral, Fannie and Freddie would never need agovernment backstop, borrowing increasingly more would never comeback to haunt us, and our major investment banks-managed byfinancial geniuses-- were impervious. One by one, our assumptionshave been knocked down.
Politicians and bankers have also posited that internationalinvestors would always continue to invest in Treasury bills andU.S. companies, because American is a safe haven and the mostpowerful economy on earth. We could afford to run up ournational debt--now over $10 trillion-- and our federaldeficits--this year $400 billion plus and about to balloon, becausethe rest of the world would keep pumping money into us even when welower interest rates to overcome economic weakness. The fail safeassumption is they have so much invested, they would only hurtthemselves if they stopped banking on us.
Some economists have warned for years we shouldn't be takinganything for granted and that one day the rest of the world couldview the U.S. as just a bad investment bet--sort of like a CDO fullof subprime debt. Why keep throwing good money afterbad? It's time to bail. Given our current condition that day may befast approaching. According to today's Washington Post sovereignwealth funds sit on the sidelines, having been burned byinvestments they made in various banks earlier in the year. TheGerman finance minister excoriated the U.S, in a speech thismorning for putting the entire world economy injeapordy and suggesting the U.S. has lost its financial marketprimacy.
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