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THIS PROPERTY CONDEMNED BY ORDER
Let's say we do indeed pull the lever and jump to "Ludicrous Speed," as you joked about in your last column. What happens next? I mean, if my wife and I buy too many expensive cars, the banks can swoop in and repossess the cars. Or the house. Or the boat. Or everything; we are that small.
But if USA defaults, who’s going to swoop in, and what can they take away? It's not as though China will send over a ship full of city managers to occupy LA, New York and the like— and they can't simply load up the continent and bring back to the homeland.
So what is the endgame? I do not know and won't pretend to know. But jeez, fool that I am, I actually pay my bills and live within my means.
Therefore, I ask you, Mark. Aside from a bit of hair pulling, shouting, and finger-pointing, what happens if we default?
Harold O
Los Angeles, California
MARK SAYS: What you're saying sounds as if it ought to be right: When a sovereign nation defaults, its debtors can't repossess the Parliament and Treasury and sell off the furniture. And that's true, up to a point: Iceland, for example, was one of the first countries to get clobbered in the downturn, after taking a wild ride through the Oughts in an attempt to become a global player. In effect, it all but defaulted on the rest of the planet. It decided it would prioritize domestic liabilities, in order to ward off riots, and let the world go hang. Iceland can do that because it's peripheral to the global finance and trading systems. To return to being a placid but reasonably comfortable parochial backwater not only has a kind of logic about it, but is do-able - if you're Reykjavik. It's not an option for the United States, which is a central underwriter of the global system. Just to take one example, if America defaults on its foreign debts and it chooses to become the Weimar Republic writ large, New York would in an instant cease to be a global financial center. There would be no more Wall Street. There would be nothing going on in Lower Manhattan. As you say, if Joe Schmoe defaults, the bank takes his house. If America defaults, it collapses the system.
BLAME BUSH (EVER SO MODERATELY)
As a liberal-leaning centrist who obsessively reads NRO, I often chortle (I work at home, so I can chortle) at your posts and columns. And I think that in this week’s column, your points on Obama's unrestrained spending are all well-taken, but they'd carry a lot more punch if you raked the GOP over some coals too. Is there any reason to believe that the GOP would cut spending? Did Bush ever make a concerted effort to cut spending? Bush may not be a narcissist, but if a Democratic president had presided over a similarly catastrophic economic crisis after advancing similar policies (like making a priority of home ownership among people who clearly can't afford it), you'd be ladling out vicious lashings, and deservedly so.
I know you've got a profusion of targets these days, but why should anyone trust the GOP to offer a better alternative given the Bush years?
Andrew Gilbert
MARK SAYS: Actually, I've got a pretty good record of raking the GOP over big-government, big-spending coals, going all the way back to the earliest days of the Bush era. And I don't "trust" them to be anything other than less worse. I think it's pathetic that, after over a decade of GOP dominance, departments the party was supposedly committed to abolishing - the Federal Departments of Education, Energy, etc - were not only still in business but more lavishly funded than ever.
IT’D BE RACIAL PROFILING, TOO
While reading your most recent weekly column, I thought of the following illustration of how Obama relates to Bush. If Obama were pulled over for doing 80mph in a 35mph zone, his excuse would be, “Well, officer, Bush just came through here doing 50mph, so what’s your problem?” Am I wrong?
Gerry
Maryland
AN END TO SPENDING?
The Democratic Party seems set on riding the American decline into mediocrity, adding any entitlement to the tchotchke-filled spending bag along the way. They were never comfortable with world power and were always clumsy in projecting it.
However, I think the average American enjoys our premier status and is willing to forgo bankruptcy in order to save our position in the world. In fact, I think that is what the Tea Parties are all about.
Most Americans cut checks to the federal government and expect nothing in return (except, God willing, a little retirement stipend). I think if the Republican party focused exclusively on the deficit over the next 5 to 10 years and made some headway, they could demolish the Dems. The far left only knows how to spend, and with no money left it will be hard for their ideas to stay viable.
Patrick Keenan
Pearl River, New York
CORPSEMEN EVERYWHERE
To go off on a little tangent on your “Unsustainable” column, I was wondering: As Commander in Chief of the U.S. armed forces, was the President aware that he commanded the U.S. Marine Corpse (and within that corpse is the USMC Drum and Bugle Corpse), the U.S. Army Corpse of Cadets, the U.S. Army Corpse of Engineers, and the U.S. Army Medical Service Corpse— not to mention the Peace Corpse?
David R Ross
Woodland Hills, California
WHAT DOES MARK KNOW ABOUT PANTIES?
Mark, I would ask that you please use your massive intellectual ability and enormous linguistic skills and investigate the following.
In numerous posts in the Corner on NRO, I have seen the word “pantywaist” used; the most recent being your post today.
Now, far be it from me to correct such famed and erudite writers as are found in NRO, but I do have a story to relate to the question I ask. In the 9th grade, Coach Porter made me run laps until I collapsed for calling a classmate a “pantywaist.” After the punishment, Coach Porter definitively explained to me the meaning of that word. Based upon his explanation, I believe the word is “pantywaste,” which adds an entirely different, er, nuance to the word.
Of course, I'm only bringing this up because every time I read the word my legs cramp up and I get the heaves. Could you run that down for me and perhaps remedy my reading affliction?
Dexter Turner
Thank you for your kind (and unkind) letters from America, Canada, Britain, Australia and around the world. Mark reads all mail, but especially enjoys the vicious ones. Each day Monday to Friday we pick six of the best for our Daily Delivery. So drop a line to Mark's Mailbox, and on Friday if you're chosen to be the one and only Letter of the Week you'll join our roll of winners from four Continents and receive a copy of Mark Steyn From Head To Toe. It would help if you could indicate your city or town, or, at any rate, your state, province or country. If not, at least let us know what planet you're on.
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