For years the Post has used both its editorial and news pages to push the idea that Social Security and Medicare are unaffordable burdens for the U.S. economy. The paper almost never lets readers hear from any of the expert voices who question this assessment or shows any of the evidence that exposes it as being wrong.
Today, Ruth Marcus suggested that President Obama have a lecture series to explain to the American people that these entitlements are unaffordable. She also suggested that he offer his podium to dissenters, like Republican Congressman Paul Ryan who wants to privatize both Medicare and Social Security.
The question that millions are asking is does Marcus envision that President Obama would allow dissenters who oppose its austerity vision, or does she want him to be as one-sided as the Post? For example, should President Obama give his podium to someone who would show that there would be no budget problem if per person health care costs were the same in the United States as in any other wealthy country? Should podium users be allowed to point out that Medicare could save trillions over its 75-year planning period by just giving people the option to get care from countries with more efficient health care systems? Will the public be exposed to the idea that we could save trillions of dollars over the next decade by adopting a more efficient mechanism for developing prescription drugs.
It would be great if President Obama used his platform to educate the public about major economic issues. Unfortunately, I think that Ms. Marcus’s intention was that this platform only be used to highlight Post approved views.
For years the Post has used both its editorial and news pages to push the idea that Social Security and Medicare are unaffordable burdens for the U.S. economy. The paper almost never lets readers hear from any of the expert voices who question this assessment or shows any of the evidence that exposes it as being wrong.
Today, Ruth Marcus suggested that President Obama have a lecture series to explain to the American people that these entitlements are unaffordable. She also suggested that he offer his podium to dissenters, like Republican Congressman Paul Ryan who wants to privatize both Medicare and Social Security.
The question that millions are asking is does Marcus envision that President Obama would allow dissenters who oppose its austerity vision, or does she want him to be as one-sided as the Post? For example, should President Obama give his podium to someone who would show that there would be no budget problem if per person health care costs were the same in the United States as in any other wealthy country? Should podium users be allowed to point out that Medicare could save trillions over its 75-year planning period by just giving people the option to get care from countries with more efficient health care systems? Will the public be exposed to the idea that we could save trillions of dollars over the next decade by adopting a more efficient mechanism for developing prescription drugs.
It would be great if President Obama used his platform to educate the public about major economic issues. Unfortunately, I think that Ms. Marcus’s intention was that this platform only be used to highlight Post approved views.
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The NYT and other major media outlets have continually referred to public pensions as being “unsustainable” or out of control. The implication is that public sector workers get exorbitant pensions.
In fact the main reason that the public pensions are underfunded at present is not the generosity of the benefits, but rather the plunge in financial markets that followed the collapse of the housing bubble. If public pensions had earned just a modest 5.0 nominal annual rate of return since 2007 their assets would stand at $3.6 trillion today, 41.3 percent above current levels. This would eliminate most, if not all, of the their reported shortfall.
The NYT and other major media outlets have continually referred to public pensions as being “unsustainable” or out of control. The implication is that public sector workers get exorbitant pensions.
In fact the main reason that the public pensions are underfunded at present is not the generosity of the benefits, but rather the plunge in financial markets that followed the collapse of the housing bubble. If public pensions had earned just a modest 5.0 nominal annual rate of return since 2007 their assets would stand at $3.6 trillion today, 41.3 percent above current levels. This would eliminate most, if not all, of the their reported shortfall.
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That is the only thing that readers can conclude from its heroic efforts to balance the budget in 2030. This exercise is utterly mind-boggling. We have more than 25 million people unemployed, underemployed, or who have given up work altogether. This is a real crisis. Furthermore, it is worth noting that these people are largely suffering as a result of the incompetence of the budget balancers. (The budget balancers were the same people who dominated economic debate in the years before the crash and could did not see the $8 trillion housing bubble that wrecked the economy and gave us the huge deficits that now have them so obsessed.)
Obviously it is politically popular in Washington to be obsessed by the deficit, but we are supposed to have an independent press in this country. It is utterly loony to be focused on the projected deficit in 2030, when we have tens of millions of people who are seeing their lives ruined today by the downturn. This is like debating the colors to paint the classrooms when the school is on fire with the students still inside. Given economic reality, it would make far more sense to use the effort devoted to construct an elaborate game like this to designing a route toward restoring full employment.
It would also be worth pointing out to readers and participants in the NYT game that the long-term deficit is 100 percent a health care story. If the United States paid the same amount per person for health care as any of the 35 countries with longer life expectancies, we would be looking at huge budget surpluses for the indefinite future. Pointing out this simple fact would at least get people to focus on the real long-term problem facing the country: a broken health care system.
That is the only thing that readers can conclude from its heroic efforts to balance the budget in 2030. This exercise is utterly mind-boggling. We have more than 25 million people unemployed, underemployed, or who have given up work altogether. This is a real crisis. Furthermore, it is worth noting that these people are largely suffering as a result of the incompetence of the budget balancers. (The budget balancers were the same people who dominated economic debate in the years before the crash and could did not see the $8 trillion housing bubble that wrecked the economy and gave us the huge deficits that now have them so obsessed.)
Obviously it is politically popular in Washington to be obsessed by the deficit, but we are supposed to have an independent press in this country. It is utterly loony to be focused on the projected deficit in 2030, when we have tens of millions of people who are seeing their lives ruined today by the downturn. This is like debating the colors to paint the classrooms when the school is on fire with the students still inside. Given economic reality, it would make far more sense to use the effort devoted to construct an elaborate game like this to designing a route toward restoring full employment.
It would also be worth pointing out to readers and participants in the NYT game that the long-term deficit is 100 percent a health care story. If the United States paid the same amount per person for health care as any of the 35 countries with longer life expectancies, we would be looking at huge budget surpluses for the indefinite future. Pointing out this simple fact would at least get people to focus on the real long-term problem facing the country: a broken health care system.
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The New York Times seems to be following in the footsteps of the Washington Post in terms of making up nutty numbers to promote trade deals. The NYT told readers that if Japan did not join in a pan-Asian trade agreement it would “eliminate eight million jobs.”
According to the OECD, employment in Japan is just over 62 million. This means that the estimates in the NYT imply that not taking part in this trade agreement would cost Japan a number of jobs approximately equal to 13 percent of its current employment the equivalent of roughly 18 million jobs in the United States. Given that Japan already trades with these countries and this deal would simply expand trade, it is implausible that the agreement would increase its employment by even one-tenth this amount.
The New York Times seems to be following in the footsteps of the Washington Post in terms of making up nutty numbers to promote trade deals. The NYT told readers that if Japan did not join in a pan-Asian trade agreement it would “eliminate eight million jobs.”
According to the OECD, employment in Japan is just over 62 million. This means that the estimates in the NYT imply that not taking part in this trade agreement would cost Japan a number of jobs approximately equal to 13 percent of its current employment the equivalent of roughly 18 million jobs in the United States. Given that Japan already trades with these countries and this deal would simply expand trade, it is implausible that the agreement would increase its employment by even one-tenth this amount.
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The discussion of the trade imbalances continues to be muddled even beyond the failure to realize that changes in relative currency prices are the main mechanism for adjustment in a system of floating exchange rates. Many news articles and columns have lumped together Germany and China as troublemakers due to their large trade surpluses. This is wrong.
The principle here is very simple. China is an extremely fast growing country where the return on capital is very high. Germany is a relatively slow growing country, where the return on capital is much lower. In standard trade models, capital is supposed to flow from countries where the return is low to countries where the return is high.
The implication of this simple point is that we should expect relatively wealthy slow growing countries like Germany to have trade surpluses. Their capital could in principle be better used in fast-growing developing countries. This would imply a trade surplus.
By contrast, it would be expected that a fast-growing country like China would be an importer of capital. This is due to the fact that capital gets a much higher return in China than in wealthy countries. This would correspond to a trade deficit, not a trade surplus.
The fact that China and many other developing countries are running trade surpluses does not mean that they have done something wrong. The real problem in this story has been the system of international finance designed primarily by the I.M.F. and therefore the United States. This system has not allowed developing countries to feel comfortable in accumulating foreign debt, forcing them to build up reserves to avoid being subjected to dictates from the I.M.F.. But, reporters should recognize what economic theory says about the current world trade imbalances.
The discussion of the trade imbalances continues to be muddled even beyond the failure to realize that changes in relative currency prices are the main mechanism for adjustment in a system of floating exchange rates. Many news articles and columns have lumped together Germany and China as troublemakers due to their large trade surpluses. This is wrong.
The principle here is very simple. China is an extremely fast growing country where the return on capital is very high. Germany is a relatively slow growing country, where the return on capital is much lower. In standard trade models, capital is supposed to flow from countries where the return is low to countries where the return is high.
The implication of this simple point is that we should expect relatively wealthy slow growing countries like Germany to have trade surpluses. Their capital could in principle be better used in fast-growing developing countries. This would imply a trade surplus.
By contrast, it would be expected that a fast-growing country like China would be an importer of capital. This is due to the fact that capital gets a much higher return in China than in wealthy countries. This would correspond to a trade deficit, not a trade surplus.
The fact that China and many other developing countries are running trade surpluses does not mean that they have done something wrong. The real problem in this story has been the system of international finance designed primarily by the I.M.F. and therefore the United States. This system has not allowed developing countries to feel comfortable in accumulating foreign debt, forcing them to build up reserves to avoid being subjected to dictates from the I.M.F.. But, reporters should recognize what economic theory says about the current world trade imbalances.
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“Elections come and go, but the United States is still careening toward bankruptcy. By 2020, the U.S. will be spending $1 trillion a year just to pay the interest on the national debt. Sometime between now and then the catastrophe will come.
It will come with amazing swiftness. The bond markets are with you until the second they are against you. When the psychology shifts and the fiscal crisis happens, the shock will be grievous: national humiliation, diminished power in the world, drastic cuts and spreading pain”
I still like the biblical version with the four horseman and the rivers flowing upstream, but hey, it’s the oped page of the NYT. No one expects that people will be reading this stuff 1500 years from now.
Anyhow, let’s take a closer look at Mr. Brook’s apocalypse. The U.S. will be spending $1 trillion a year just to the pay the interest on the national debt.” Pretty scary, huh?
Well, first it is probably worth noting that Brooks is somewhat more pessimistic on this score that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) which puts interest in 2020 at $916 billion. How scary is that?
Let’s get out the GDP projections. CBO tells us that GDP will be $22.5 trillion in 2020 [thanks Jeff]. This means that Mr. Brooks scary interest burden will be equal to about 4.1 percent of GDP. Will that be the end of the world or least national humiliation, as Brooks promises? The interest burden peaked at 3.3 percent of GDP in 1991, so we would not be in hugely different territory than we were during the Bush I presidency.
But, there is a further complication. The Fed currently holds much of the federal debt and it is actually increasing its share. This is what QE2 is all about. Given the massive amount of excess capacity and unemployment, coupled with the trend towards disinflation, there is no reason that the Fed should not continue to hold this debt. (It can take other steps, such as increasing reserve requirements, to ensure that an increase in reserves in the banking system does not lead to inflation in future years.)
If the Fed holds the debt, then it poses no burden to the government. The Treasury pays interest on the debt to the Fed and then the Fed refunds the interest to the Treasury. Last year the Fed refunded $77 billion in interest to the Treasury, nearly 40 percent of the net interest paid out by the Treasury.
If the share of interest going to the Fed is the same in 2020 as it is today, then the interest burden on taxpayers in 2020 will be equal to about 2.6 percent of GDP, well below the levels of the late 80s and 90s. If the Fed increases the share of the debt it holds, as it is doing now with QE2, then the interest burden on future taxpayers will be even less.
This doesn’t leave much for Mr. Brook’s apocalypse story. Of course, if Brooks really wants to tell a story of national humiliation he just has to look around beyond the streets and restaurants that he and his friends frequent. The country has more than 25 million people who are unemployed, underemployed or who have given up work altogether. Tens of millions of people are underwater in their mortgages and millions face the imminent prospect of losing their home through foreclosure.
This might not be the apocalypse, but it should be humiliating to the nation, especially since this suffering is entirely due to incompetent economic policy and therefore was and is entirely avoidable. And, Brooks doesn’t even have to wait for 2020 to talk about this picture.
“Elections come and go, but the United States is still careening toward bankruptcy. By 2020, the U.S. will be spending $1 trillion a year just to pay the interest on the national debt. Sometime between now and then the catastrophe will come.
It will come with amazing swiftness. The bond markets are with you until the second they are against you. When the psychology shifts and the fiscal crisis happens, the shock will be grievous: national humiliation, diminished power in the world, drastic cuts and spreading pain”
I still like the biblical version with the four horseman and the rivers flowing upstream, but hey, it’s the oped page of the NYT. No one expects that people will be reading this stuff 1500 years from now.
Anyhow, let’s take a closer look at Mr. Brook’s apocalypse. The U.S. will be spending $1 trillion a year just to the pay the interest on the national debt.” Pretty scary, huh?
Well, first it is probably worth noting that Brooks is somewhat more pessimistic on this score that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) which puts interest in 2020 at $916 billion. How scary is that?
Let’s get out the GDP projections. CBO tells us that GDP will be $22.5 trillion in 2020 [thanks Jeff]. This means that Mr. Brooks scary interest burden will be equal to about 4.1 percent of GDP. Will that be the end of the world or least national humiliation, as Brooks promises? The interest burden peaked at 3.3 percent of GDP in 1991, so we would not be in hugely different territory than we were during the Bush I presidency.
But, there is a further complication. The Fed currently holds much of the federal debt and it is actually increasing its share. This is what QE2 is all about. Given the massive amount of excess capacity and unemployment, coupled with the trend towards disinflation, there is no reason that the Fed should not continue to hold this debt. (It can take other steps, such as increasing reserve requirements, to ensure that an increase in reserves in the banking system does not lead to inflation in future years.)
If the Fed holds the debt, then it poses no burden to the government. The Treasury pays interest on the debt to the Fed and then the Fed refunds the interest to the Treasury. Last year the Fed refunded $77 billion in interest to the Treasury, nearly 40 percent of the net interest paid out by the Treasury.
If the share of interest going to the Fed is the same in 2020 as it is today, then the interest burden on taxpayers in 2020 will be equal to about 2.6 percent of GDP, well below the levels of the late 80s and 90s. If the Fed increases the share of the debt it holds, as it is doing now with QE2, then the interest burden on future taxpayers will be even less.
This doesn’t leave much for Mr. Brook’s apocalypse story. Of course, if Brooks really wants to tell a story of national humiliation he just has to look around beyond the streets and restaurants that he and his friends frequent. The country has more than 25 million people who are unemployed, underemployed or who have given up work altogether. Tens of millions of people are underwater in their mortgages and millions face the imminent prospect of losing their home through foreclosure.
This might not be the apocalypse, but it should be humiliating to the nation, especially since this suffering is entirely due to incompetent economic policy and therefore was and is entirely avoidable. And, Brooks doesn’t even have to wait for 2020 to talk about this picture.
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Everyone knows that the Washington Post abandons any pretext of objectivity when it comes to trade. It once even famously claimed that Mexico’s GDP had quadrupled from 1988 to 2007 in order to tout the benefits of NAFTA. (The actual increase was 82 percent.) So, it is hardly surprising that it resorted to name-calling in denouncing the opponents of the trade pact with South Korea.
It referred to these opponents as “protectionist voices” within the Democratic Party. Of course everyone involved in trade debates is protectionist, the only issue is who is being protected. This trade agreement would actually increase protections for items like copyrights and patents, increasing the cost to consumers of items like prescription drugs and recorded music and videos. This will slow growth and reduce jobs. The deal also does little or nothing to reduce the barriers that protect highly paid professionals like doctors and lawyers from international competition.
This is why it inappropriate to refer to the Korean pact as a “free-trade” deal. Does the Post require that reporters refer to every trade deal that it likes as a “free-trade” pact, instead of increasing accuracy and saving space by referring to it simply as a “trade” deal?
The Post also repeats the silly old trick of telling readers that the pact will help the economy creating 70,000 jobs in firms exporting goods to South Korea. Of course, the real story on job creation depends on both exports and imports. (Come on, does the Post really think it can fool readers with this one?) The country’s trade deficit has increased with most of the countries with whom it has signed trade pacts in the last two decades, implying that by this crude measure the deals have been job losers.
So, the main information that readers get from this front page article is that the Washington Post really likes the proposed trade pact with South Korea. But regular Post readers already knew this.
Everyone knows that the Washington Post abandons any pretext of objectivity when it comes to trade. It once even famously claimed that Mexico’s GDP had quadrupled from 1988 to 2007 in order to tout the benefits of NAFTA. (The actual increase was 82 percent.) So, it is hardly surprising that it resorted to name-calling in denouncing the opponents of the trade pact with South Korea.
It referred to these opponents as “protectionist voices” within the Democratic Party. Of course everyone involved in trade debates is protectionist, the only issue is who is being protected. This trade agreement would actually increase protections for items like copyrights and patents, increasing the cost to consumers of items like prescription drugs and recorded music and videos. This will slow growth and reduce jobs. The deal also does little or nothing to reduce the barriers that protect highly paid professionals like doctors and lawyers from international competition.
This is why it inappropriate to refer to the Korean pact as a “free-trade” deal. Does the Post require that reporters refer to every trade deal that it likes as a “free-trade” pact, instead of increasing accuracy and saving space by referring to it simply as a “trade” deal?
The Post also repeats the silly old trick of telling readers that the pact will help the economy creating 70,000 jobs in firms exporting goods to South Korea. Of course, the real story on job creation depends on both exports and imports. (Come on, does the Post really think it can fool readers with this one?) The country’s trade deficit has increased with most of the countries with whom it has signed trade pacts in the last two decades, implying that by this crude measure the deals have been job losers.
So, the main information that readers get from this front page article is that the Washington Post really likes the proposed trade pact with South Korea. But regular Post readers already knew this.
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The deficit report put out by the commission’s co-chairs, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, had one striking omission. It does not include plans for a Wall Street speculation tax or any other tax on the financial industry.
This omission is striking because the co-chairs made a big point of saying that they looked everywhere to save money and/or raise revenue. As Senator Simpson said: “We have harpooned every whale in the ocean – and some minnows.” Wall Street is one whale that appears to have dodged the harpoon.
This omission is made more striking by the fact that at least one member of the commission, Andy Stern, has long been an advocate of such taxes. Presumably he raised this issue in the commission meetings and the co-chairs chose to ignore him.
The co-chairs apparently also chose to ignore the I.M.F. Noting the waste and extraordinary economic rents in the sector, the I.M.F. has explicitly recommended a substantial increase in taxes on the financial industry. It is even more striking that the co-chairs apparently never considered a speculation tax since Wall Street’s reckless greed is at the center of the current economic crisis.
In this context, it is worth noting that one of the co-chairs, Erskine Bowles, is literally on Wall Street’s payroll. He earned $335,000 last year for his role as a member of Morgan Stanley’s (one of the bailed out banks) board of directors. Morgan Stanley would likely see a large hit to its profits from a financial speculation tax.
It would have been appropriate for the reporters covering the report to ask about a financial speculation tax. It would also be appropriate to explore the connection between Mr. Bowles role as a Morgan Stanley director and the absence of any financial taxes in this far-reaching report.
The deficit report put out by the commission’s co-chairs, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, had one striking omission. It does not include plans for a Wall Street speculation tax or any other tax on the financial industry.
This omission is striking because the co-chairs made a big point of saying that they looked everywhere to save money and/or raise revenue. As Senator Simpson said: “We have harpooned every whale in the ocean – and some minnows.” Wall Street is one whale that appears to have dodged the harpoon.
This omission is made more striking by the fact that at least one member of the commission, Andy Stern, has long been an advocate of such taxes. Presumably he raised this issue in the commission meetings and the co-chairs chose to ignore him.
The co-chairs apparently also chose to ignore the I.M.F. Noting the waste and extraordinary economic rents in the sector, the I.M.F. has explicitly recommended a substantial increase in taxes on the financial industry. It is even more striking that the co-chairs apparently never considered a speculation tax since Wall Street’s reckless greed is at the center of the current economic crisis.
In this context, it is worth noting that one of the co-chairs, Erskine Bowles, is literally on Wall Street’s payroll. He earned $335,000 last year for his role as a member of Morgan Stanley’s (one of the bailed out banks) board of directors. Morgan Stanley would likely see a large hit to its profits from a financial speculation tax.
It would have been appropriate for the reporters covering the report to ask about a financial speculation tax. It would also be appropriate to explore the connection between Mr. Bowles role as a Morgan Stanley director and the absence of any financial taxes in this far-reaching report.
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The Washington Post notes that the Fed’s new round of quantitative easing will:
“harm exports from developing countries. That’s because steps to lower U.S. interest rates and put money into the economy have the effect of making other countries’ currencies more expensive.”
If world imbalances are going to be addressed, then developing country exports must be hurt. In economic theory, rich countries like the United States are supposed to have trade surpluses. This means that they export capital developing countries. The logic of this pattern of trade is that capital commands a higher rate of return in fast growing developing countries in which it is relatively scarce.
There were in fact substantial flows of capital from rich countries to poor countries prior to the East Asian financial crisis in 1997. However, the harsh treatment of countries in the region by the I.M.F. led developing countries throughout the world to focus on accumulating vast amounts of reserves in order to avoid ever being in the same situation. This meant that developing countries had to run export surpluses with the United States and other wealthy countries.
In effect, the I.M.F, under the guidance of the Rubin-Summers Treasury Department, put in place a dysfunctional system that would inevitably explode. The effort to re-balance trade is about reversing those policies.
The Washington Post notes that the Fed’s new round of quantitative easing will:
“harm exports from developing countries. That’s because steps to lower U.S. interest rates and put money into the economy have the effect of making other countries’ currencies more expensive.”
If world imbalances are going to be addressed, then developing country exports must be hurt. In economic theory, rich countries like the United States are supposed to have trade surpluses. This means that they export capital developing countries. The logic of this pattern of trade is that capital commands a higher rate of return in fast growing developing countries in which it is relatively scarce.
There were in fact substantial flows of capital from rich countries to poor countries prior to the East Asian financial crisis in 1997. However, the harsh treatment of countries in the region by the I.M.F. led developing countries throughout the world to focus on accumulating vast amounts of reserves in order to avoid ever being in the same situation. This meant that developing countries had to run export surpluses with the United States and other wealthy countries.
In effect, the I.M.F, under the guidance of the Rubin-Summers Treasury Department, put in place a dysfunctional system that would inevitably explode. The effort to re-balance trade is about reversing those policies.
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In introductory economics students learn that in a system of floating exchange rates (like the one we have), trade deficits and surpluses are eliminated through changes in the exchange rate. That is the point of the float. This means that if a country has a trade deficit, like the United States, then we should expect its currency to fall.
This means that when countries that complain about the U.S. trade deficit complain about the decline in the value of the dollar, as the NYT claims is the case with Germany, China, and Brazil, these countries are saying that they don’t understand economics. In this case, the news is that major economic powers are being governed by people who don’t know economics.
This would be like countries promoting their exports and then complaining that foreigners were buying up their output. If these countries want the United States to reduce its trade deficit then they want the dollar to fall. There is no other plausible mechanism to reduce a trade deficit. In the article the drop in the dollar is described as the “easy way out.” It should also have been described as the “only way out.”
The article also notes complaints from other countries that the low interest rates resulting from the Fed policies may lead to bubbles in their economies. Insofar as this is true, these countries are in fact complaining about their own poor economic management. Low interest rates, like low food and energy prices, should promote growth, not impede it. If countries consider low interest rates harmful to growth, it suggests that they have a poorly structured economy.
This article also refers to the United States’ “addiction to debt.” This sort of bizarre criticism (it is not supported by anything) belongs on the opinion pages, not in a news article.
In introductory economics students learn that in a system of floating exchange rates (like the one we have), trade deficits and surpluses are eliminated through changes in the exchange rate. That is the point of the float. This means that if a country has a trade deficit, like the United States, then we should expect its currency to fall.
This means that when countries that complain about the U.S. trade deficit complain about the decline in the value of the dollar, as the NYT claims is the case with Germany, China, and Brazil, these countries are saying that they don’t understand economics. In this case, the news is that major economic powers are being governed by people who don’t know economics.
This would be like countries promoting their exports and then complaining that foreigners were buying up their output. If these countries want the United States to reduce its trade deficit then they want the dollar to fall. There is no other plausible mechanism to reduce a trade deficit. In the article the drop in the dollar is described as the “easy way out.” It should also have been described as the “only way out.”
The article also notes complaints from other countries that the low interest rates resulting from the Fed policies may lead to bubbles in their economies. Insofar as this is true, these countries are in fact complaining about their own poor economic management. Low interest rates, like low food and energy prices, should promote growth, not impede it. If countries consider low interest rates harmful to growth, it suggests that they have a poorly structured economy.
This article also refers to the United States’ “addiction to debt.” This sort of bizarre criticism (it is not supported by anything) belongs on the opinion pages, not in a news article.
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