Downer of the day...

Downer of the day: from Niall Ferguson, a voice I listen to, writing in today's Wall Street Journal.  He's not impressed with Obama's leadership:

Meanwhile, President Obama has become the Hamlet of the West Wing: One minute he's for bombing Syria, the next he's not; one minute Larry Summers will succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the next he won't; one minute the president is jetting off to Asia, the next he's not. To be in charge, or not to be in charge: that is indeed the question.

And he's utterly convinced the U.S. is in deep debt crisis:

Yet, entertaining as all this political drama may seem, the theater itself is indeed burning. For the fiscal position of the federal government is in fact much worse today than is commonly realized. As anyone can see who reads the most recent long-term budget outlook—published last month by the Congressional Budget Office, and almost entirely ignored by the media—the question is not if the United States will default but when and on which of its rapidly spiraling liabilities.

As Maggie Thatcher liked to say: the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money...