Allan Sloan on the S&P Downgrade

From Allan Sloan at Fortune comes: American Idiots: How Washington is destroying the economy.  This is an interesting review/rant, and some parts are especially compelling. It's worth the read.  Sloan explains:

Now, a few facts. The S&P downgrade is not -- as some hate-filled knuckleheads inside the Beltway and in the hinterlands keep repeating -- from fear that the U.S. is "broke" or lacks the financial ability to meet its obligations. S&P's primary worry is that the U.S. may not summon up the political will to pay its debts.

. . . .

The root of our current problem is that there are no grownups in positions of serious power in Washington. I've never felt this way before -- and I've written business stories for more than 40 years, and about national finances for more than 20. Look, I certainly don't worship Washington institutions. I called former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan the "Wizard of Oz" when he was known as the "Maestro." I've said for more than a decade that the Social Security trust fund had no economic value and would be useless when the system's cash flow turned negative -- which I also predicted. But despite being an irreverent professional skeptic, I never felt there was a total absence of adult supervision in our nation's capital. Now I do.

I fear he's right.  The question is, what are we going to do about it? 

--JPF