OT - Is America going broke?

Great article! Saw this in the doctor's office the other day and
thought it was a perfect Rec.scuba topic.

Best explanation I've seen so far of the impact of the deficits coupled
with other shortfalls. Further, its real clear that we're ALL in this
together.

George

http://tinyurl.com/3zv3s

Is America going broke?

Record deficits, colossal debt and no clear plan for digging itself
out. If the U.S. sinks, it will take Canada down with it.

STEVE MAICH

David Walker can see the future, and it scares the hell out of him.

That wouldn't be terribly unusual if he were one of the thousands of
lobbyists, legislators and activists crawling all over Washington on
any given day, pontificating about the urgency of their pet issues.
There is a thriving industry here built on pushing policy prescriptions
for every ailment, real or imagined. But Walker isn't a lobbyist or an
activist, he's an accountant. His title is comptroller general of the
United States, which makes him the head auditor for the most important
and powerful government in the world. And he's desperately trying to
get a message out to anyone who'll listen: the United States of
America's public finances are a shambles. They're getting rapidly
worse. And if something major isn't done soon to solve the country's
intractable budget problems, the world will face an economic shakeup
unlike anything ever seen before.


Seated in his wood-panelled office in downtown Washington, Walker
measures his words, trying to walk the fine line between raising an
alarm and fostering panic. He cringes when he hears prominent
economists warning about a financial "Armageddon," but he makes no
bones about the fact the situation is dire. "I don't like using words
that are overly inflammatory," he says, leaning forward in his chair.
"At the same time, I think it is critically important that the American
people, as well as their elected representatives, get a better
understanding of just how serious our situation is."

THE NUMBERS are staggering -- a US$43-trillion hole in America's public
finances that's getting worse every day. And the stakes are almost
inconceivable for a generation of politicians and voters raised in
relative prosperity, who've never known severe economic hardship. But
that plush North American lifestyle to which we've all grown accustomed
has been bought on credit, and the bill is rapidly nearing its due
date. If the United States can't find a way to pay up, the results will
spill beyond national borders, spreading economic misery far and wide.
In Canada, the country whose financial well-being is most tightly tied
to trade with the U.S., there wouldn't be a single region or industry
left untouched by a fiscal shock south of the border.

It's the looming presence of this potential crisis that brings Walker
to this office every day, through the doorway with the words "Honesty
Accountability Reliability" inscribed above, in hopes that someone will
listen and take up the challenge before it's too late. "The sooner we
start fixing this, the better," he says, "because right now the miracle
of compounding is working against us. Debt on debt is not good. We have
to first stop digging, and then figure out how we're going to fill the
hole."