corrente

Here.

But guess what? The loons are wrong! The Rapture may be coming, well, like a thief in the night...

Of course, this may be a temporary thing, since it looks like the Europeans and the Asians have decided they don't want to finance our debt anymore:

ut a rash of new data, including Treasury Department figures released yesterday showing a net sell-off by foreigners of U.S. bonds in August, has stoked debate over whether overseas investors -- private individuals, institutions and government central banks -- are growing dangerously bearish on the U.S. economy.

In a speech this March, Lawrence H. Summers, a Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and now the president of Harvard University, warned of "a kind of global balance of financial terror," in which the economic well-being of the United States depends on the actions of foreign governments.

"There is surely something off about the world's greatest power being the world's greatest debtor," he said. "In order to finance prevailing levels of consumption and investment, must the United States be as dependent as it is on the discretionary acts of what are inevitably political entities in other countries?"

In a word, Yes. Because that is what Bush's reckless fiscal policies have brought us too. (Historical note: The Brits, when they had their empire, were lenders, not debtors.)

And a cheerful word from Paul Krugman here:

The twin U.S. budget and trade deficits would set alarm bells ringing if we were a third world country. For now, America gets the benefit of the doubt, but if financial markets decide that we have turned into a banana republic, the sky's the limit for interest rates.

I always wondered why Greenspan recommended that people go for variable rate mortgages...

Anyhow, Dean was so, so right. The Republicans can't handle money.