I wonder if anyone else has noticed the following: Ask an American about Greece and he or she responds “They’ve got way too much government debt, plus they’re on the hook for huge pension and health care obligations. They’re finished.” Ask the same person about the U.S., which is on track to accumulate an even larger debt as a percentage of GDP and which also has enormous pension and health care obligations. A surprising number of people who wrote off Greece say “It’s just the business cycle” when asked to account for the 15 million Americans currently unemployed.
Presented with similar facts, Americans seem to reason differently depending on whether they’re asked about their own country.
I agree! Talk of (wo)man with a hammer syndrome – to an American, everything that happens in America can be fixed whereas other countries are doomed even with a smaller proportion of the same evil.
There are many similarities. Interestingly, one that is not mentioned much is the huge defense outlays of both countries. As a member state of the EU, Greece spends much to defend itself from a perceived Turkish threat. Imagine if Texas had to spend profusely on their own for armed forces protecting against a Mexican invasion with no help from the Feds.
I don’t think Americans are misplaced in their pride in the past of our manufacturing dominance paying for generous pensions and health care for employees. We are, as you often note, headed towards a future similar to other countries with little industry where most opportunities will now be in the government as we continue to dismantle our industrial capacities. Most Americans will not admit that we are indeed headed where Greece is while having the nagging feeling we had it all and gave it away (mostly to China).
Fox News compares the US to Greece constantly, so at least some Americans see the two countries in the same vein.
Not to say that the US is doing well, but the following are reasons I’ve heard why the US is not Greece — the US:
– issues debt in its own currency
– controls its own currency and can inflate it, allowing it to depreciate and reducing the burden of its debt.
The typical solution for a country’s debt obligations is currency depreciation and debt restructuring, neither of which are readily available to Greece because they adopted the euro. The US does not face this restriction.
Agreed. Though not surprising. Ask the Greek how they got into this mess and you will hear much more about the EU, the Germans, the French, etc than you will about Greek economic policy.
For a person to think that our collective standard of living will have to flatten out or regress to get in decent fiscal shape as country is more than we can take. I can say that thinking that my children will not have the same economic opportunities as I have had is depressing.
I think you can replace “Americans” with “people” as it’s the same in every country on just about every subject.
For instance, people are all too happy to criticize other countries’ colonial past, forgetting about their own. Or the wars others might have started, while thinking theirs were perfectly justified.
It’s just easier to stick your head in the sand about the current situation or forget about an embarrassing past than to admit ones mistakes. Best keep telling yourself how great you are to remain happy!
The pension issue is scary. A recent presentation by our public school superintendent on the district’s budget woes ended with “…and then there’s $5M worth of pension benefits we don’t know how to cover.”
This editorial by Richard Karlgaard makes an effective case that most police and firemen in the US are multi-millionaires when you consider the value of their pensions.
This is only going to get worse as more and more publicly employed boomers hit retirement age.
Down here in deep Red Texas, a lot of people are highly aware that we are on the same track as Greece, and it scares us to the soles of our cowboy boots.