Greece / Photo credit: Ulamm

In actuality, there isn’t much in common between the United States and the Greeks.

That was the conclusion of a distinguished panel of economists hosted by the American Action Forum and led by former CBO director Doug Holtz-Eakin.

But if we don’t get our act together soon, things could get steadily worse for the economy and for the American people, and while we probably won’t default on our debt (because we can always print more money), it won’t be very pleasant around here unless we start making some fundamental changes

Senator Judd Gregg, a longtime deficit hawk and current ranking member of the upper chamber’s Budget Committee, keynoted the forum, wryly pointing out in his presentation that western Democracies founded on the Scottish Enlightenment philosophy of free market capitalism and representative government (which, of course, would include the UK, the US, and Japan) are having the hardest time dealing with debt.

Totalitarian regimes, like the Chinese and the Cubans, don’t have our debt problems, because in the case of the Chinese, they work hard and have a government that is immune to public opinion, and in the case of the Cubans, nobody sane would lend the large amounts of money in the first place.  Read more...