Living Above and Beyond Market Forces

See tomorrow today?

Bret Stephens in the WSJ:

“ … the mystery of France is how a nation can witness what happens to countries that live beyond their means and yet insist on living beyond its means. France’s debt-to-GDP ratio will rise to 90% this year from 59% a decade ago. It spends more of its GDP on welfare payments (28.4%) than any other state in the developed world. It has an employment rate of 62.8%, as compared to Germany’s 76.5% or Switzerland’s 82.9%…Americans should also take note that we aren’t so different from France, either: in our debt-to-GDP ratio, our employment rate, our credit rating. Above all, both in France and in America there’s a belief that, as exceptional nations, we are impervious to the forces that make other nations fall. It’s the conceit that, sooner or later, brings every great nation crashing to earth.”

Still, France looks relatively sane compared to some of the things that are happening in the US.