Robert J. Samuelson

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Up Against a Wall of Debt, Part II
Are the United States, Japan, Great Britain, and other first-world nations in danger of defaulting on their debt?
November 6, 2009

In my latest NEWSWEEK column, I suggested that the unthinkable had become thinkable: some advanced society—say, the United States, Spain, Italy, Japan, or Great Britain—might someday default on its government debt. It wouldn't pay its creditors all they were owed or wouldn't pay them on time. Just a few days later, and completely coincidentally, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a report that, without saying so, added credence to this unsettling hypothesis. ( Click here to follow Robert J. Samuelson ).

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Up Against a Wall of Debt
How much can governments borrow?
October 29, 2009
Public Plan Mirage
It pretends to control costs and improve access when it doesn't.
October 26, 2009
Restarting the Job Machine
Why Stimulus 2.0 might backfire.
October 16, 2009
A Path to Downward Mobility
Today's youngest Americans are likely to be worse off than their parents.
October 13, 2009
The Great Escape
How we narrowly avoided a depression.
October 3, 2009
The Health-Care Ego Trip
Obama and his allies see themselves as instruments of national destiny.
September 28, 2009
The Banks Bail Out Uncle Sam ... Not Really
If the FDIC is really in trouble, who can offer it a lifeline?
September 22, 2009


Cover Stories (3)
Cover Story
A Darker Future For Us
It's not just the financial crisis: higher taxes, energy costs and health spending also threaten growth.
November 1, 2008
Cover Story
Bottom Dollar
THE GREENBACK'S FALL IS STOKING FEARS OF A GLOBAL CRISIS. BEHIND THE SLIDE: A WORLD ECONOMY WILDLY OUT OF BALANCE.
March 21, 2005
Cover Story
How Our American Dream Unraveled
After World War Ii, We Believed That Prosperity Would Create The Ultimate Good Society. We Were Wrong.
March 2, 1992

QUOTE FROM ROBERT SAMUELSON
open quoteBefore we get too giddy about any U.S. economic "recovery," we should remember that the preceding collapse was global. No recovery can succeed unless it, too, is global. Will that happen?
close quote