While I don’t typically look to George Will for lessons on economics, he has a recent editorial that does a nice job explaining the challenges that the O’bama administration has placed on our country. A few excerpts:
Today, Americans are still paying down their debts that fueled consumption between 2001 and 2007. Nevertheless, household debt is still 30 percent above what it was a decade ago, so deleveraging has a long way to go…
The residential-real-estate sector triggered the recession, which now may bring a convulsion in commercial real estate. A quarter of a trillion dollars of loans must be rolled over in each of the next few years…
With Washington experiencing prolonged hyperkinesis, businesspeople are paralyzed by uncertainty about what the rules and costs of commerce are going to be. What would a cap-and-trade carbon-control regime do to energy costs? What will be the costs of whatever the Environmental Protection Agency decides to do on the basis of its “endangerment” finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant? What will health-care and tax costs be? Money cannot be free forever, so someday interest rates are going to change. Starting from zero, the change will be adverse for many people.