There's no doubt about it, if you are looking for perceptive and shrewd commentary on American affairs then look no further than Charles Krauthammer. Also, you will find yourself meeting all sorts of interesting and sometimes distinguished people of whom, if you're as big an ignoramus as me, you will never have heard. Such, for example, as the late (and already in my book 'the great') Mr. Herbert 'Herbie' Stein, yet another of those dead clever Jews the Hebrew race continues to produce from generation to generation. Mr. Stein was a high-powered economist employed in various Federal agencies concerned with running the American economy. He is more famously known for his Stein's Law pronouncement in which a complex economic truth is, in typical Jewish/American comedian style, reduced to a one-liner: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."
There-in is encapsulated the folly and the tragedy of all governments, and I do mean all, from the creatures of Planet Zog who currently rule North Korea to the political cowards in Washington and London. All of them know, in their heart of hearts, that what they are doing in the macro-economic field is unsustainable . . . and yet . . . and yet . . . none of them, well, to be accurate, 98% of them, have the political courage to do what they know is required whilst they are in office. Of course, if you are reading this and nodding wisely as you mutter "bloody politicans" under your breath then do please remember that the people of North Korea have no alternative to the Planet Zoggians who have gripped their nation but you do!
The greatest and therefore potentially the most apocalyptic "something" that is currently going on and which cannot go on forever and which, therefore, will one day stop, is the practice of governments in borrowing more and more and yet more without any means of paying it back. Some of you will be flying off to the Med for your summer hols and, if you are sufficiently perceptive, you will see actual examples of what happens when this practice beloved of politicians actually does come to a halt. Unfortunately, 'Dim Dave' has only gone as far as Cornwall for his holiday so he is unable to warn 'Posh George' at the Exchequor not to be quite so smug when the totally dodgy stats for the British economy indicate an increase in growth because he is still borrowing zillions more because he is spending more than he earns. That is the "something that cannot go on forever" - but do either of them give a shit? They do not! As for Obama and his eyewatering debt, well, I can only assume that he is living by the adage of the late Louis XV of France: "Après moi, le déluge!" And as far as he, personally, is concerned, 'après moi, who gives a shit?'
Meanwhile let's hear it for good ol' Herbie, he knew how tell it the way it was - and still is!
