Also there is a 3rd option to paying or defaulting on debt, and that is leaving it out there and paying interest on it. Don’t say it is not legitimate. Except for Clinton, every government in the last 50 years has used this strategy.

The problem IS an EU problem, and I don’t know the rules for dealing with a problem country that doesn’t live within its means. can they expel them?

Otherwise, within the EU, it will be cheaper to support a plan by Greece to get bailed out. They actually have the leverage of “the stick” because they could otherwise default, which will cost more to the other EU bondholders.

Were you making anlaogies to the American economy? Because it is ridiculous for us to consider our deficits before we first consider our economy and jobs. Think: you could have a deficit of -0- if you eliminated ALL government spending, haha but you wouldn;t want the implications. Our government needs to first support the productivity and stability of our people, which provided the engine for us to have had a balanced budget through the period of the 90’s etc.

Interesting. As an editorial staff of Internal Auditor magazine, I reviewed an article from a prospective futurist who supposed what was going to happen in the profession 10 years from now. His answer to the question was that there would be a lot more systems, expert systems, automatic reporting etc.

I indicated that the premise of the article had to be expanded, first of all why should we care about what the profession is in 10 years? And then, is that all there is, it will become an IT profession?

See, to your question of knowing more is knowing less about what is beyond. The person was trying to create interest about wanting to know more about the future, but didn’t say why we would want to know more, nor had a very exciting prediction…

If I had written the article, I would say that we want to speculate on the future in IA because we want to try to anticipate it with the proper leadership in creating control mechanisms at the leadership level: regulations, structures for control etc.

And the future is going to include a lot of humans making programming mistakes, not monitoring effectively, trying to bypass systems, trying to program fraud or avoiding detection of fraud through steering programming away from it. And leading reporting efforts that don’t fairly capture the substance of the transactions they are doing.

There will be plenty of work. Dan

What do you suggest by social unrest? I think it will be peaceful. London’s bankers were just hit by a 50% windfall tax on their excess bonuses over $40,000. But I didn’t hear of the related news story about revolutions, pitchforks, new pilgrim boats, etc. We should have a similar windfall tax and we will expect peace as well, in the greatest country in the world, in spite of heathcare that rivals Turkey’s, the most prominent EU country that hasn’t nationalized yet.

Threat of filibuster in the Senate is on 80% of the bills with the new Republican majority, it was at 20% under the Democratic minority under Bush. The Repubs reject single-payer or government-owned healthcare, while we praise Medicare and the Veteran’s Administration, successful examples of each in this country, with administrative costs of 2%, as opposed to the healthcare companies’s 20%. No, a clear-thinking financial person like you or I should have NO IDEA how costs could be saved here I suppose.

We’ve screwed the value of our own currency through Bush-era deficits after a Clinton surplus. Two unfunded wars helped. It’s a free world and in honesty, the Euro is a safer haven than the dollar now. What this will likely cause is $4-5 per gallon gas and austerity that will finally drive us toward energy independence.

Any opinions about the economy are unfounded: do you know the joke about the economists, one said the economy was improving, the other said it was deteriorating, and the answer was that they were both wrong, haha. But optimism is always called for: you , as a Keynesian should recognize that optimism will hold off the thrift paradox, people saving and not pumping money into the recovery.

To finish with a joke: are you going to believe me or your own eyes? haha Dan