Quote:
Originally Posted by InCoGnEtO
...Is anyone worried about the US going the way of Greece soon? Govt has no money, yet supports 1/3 of their population (14% on food, 12% on social security, 10% work for the govt). What is going to happen when they run out of money or when the inevitable devaluation of the US dollar happens?
This is all lining up for a huge US crisis.
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There are enormous differences between Greece and the US, and probably more differences than similarities economically. One important factor though is that the US doesn't have to rely on other countries...it might not be pretty, but they can print more money. One issue the Greeks have is that they don't control that factor.
Another point that people should recognize is that both Canada (in the early 1990's) and Australia (around 1986 if memory serves) have been in pretty big trouble fiscally before. Its not easy, and not fun but there is a way out. In Canada and in Alberta in particular it was a recipe of both cost cutting and asset sales. We obviously still recall the cost cutting in terms of programs. The other factor is largely forgotten, but the province sold a lot of things as well: we privatized alcohol sales; we moved registries to the private sector; we divested of the old Alberta Energy Corp. and a few other areas. This was partly ideology of the government of the day, but partly driven to get out of debt.
The US has some issues ahead of it. They'll be doing some cost cutting, and likely some asset sales as well (I'm not too familiar with what they have that they could sell, but it could be as simple as real estate holdings which isn't uncommon). Point is that they need to make the revenues and expenditures a little closer to one another and there are ways to do this. The political will to do this will follow as people demand better.