People in Glass Houses

It’s a bit as though the proverbial lame and blind are blaming one another. Once again, Barack Obama has pilloried Europeans for their catastrophic handling of the euro crisis, saying they reacted too late, too slowly and too timidly to the financial crisis of 2007, and as a result frightened the entire world. Obama may be right on several points, but to assign self-righteous blame is a strange tactic when one considers how great America’s role as carefree and irresponsible debt accumulator over the past decade has been, and how close the world’s largest economy is to bankruptcy once again.

A financial collapse was again just barely avoided after congressional Democrats and Republicans managed to agree on a transitional budget. But how the gigantic $14 trillion national debt — over 90 percent of GDP — can be reduced in the long term is still being hotly debated. It is feared that sustainable constructive measures like the financial transactions tax, rejected by both sides, will be put off until the 2012 elections to the detriment of not only the Americans.

You live in a glass house, Mr. Obama.