There is always someone worse off than yourself...... (Lone Ranger)

After a bit of a hiatus (sick kiddies, sick wife, lack of sleep, stressful time at work), I will now try to blog a bit more regularly.

This caught my eye, to the point that I almost choked on my cup of tea (thus causing a colleague to ask whether I was trying to impersonate a coffee perculator, but I digress. Not that I would be reading the internet at work much less posting at work).

The following is cut'n'pasted from Mish's site (globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com). Mish is a free market/Austrian economics advocate and is required reading. If I can ever work out how to link sites, I will link his site to this one. Anyway, back to the quote (which Mish links from a news site). US Vice-President Biden, already reknowned for his way with words, has come out with a corker:

Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.

“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.”

Link to whole thing is here.

While the economic literacy of Government in this country is appalling, at least no one has (yet) attempted to claim that the only way to avoid bankruptcy is to spend. Although.....

One of the key differences in the stupendous levels of debt in Australia compared to the US is that nearly all debt in Australia is privately held (households, businesses, banks). Is the stupidity exhibited by Biden much different to our fearless Prime Minister urging heavily indebted households to get out there and spend? Wonder what the Commonwealth Government deficit will be in 2010-11?