patrick.net

Possible but less likely here in Federation Territory.
America seems to have endless credit.
We are deflating and the Fed is keeping inflation in check. Many areas of the US have stable real estate prices and secure jobs.
Loose monetary policy does take time to take effect. Hopefully the reins will tighten before more disastrous bubbles develop.
I don't want the dollar store to become the five dollar store.

May 1970.
April 1992.

Yes, people can and will riot when they have sufficient reason to.

State/Federal/Local govt. pension plans are a massive problem which, if not slashed, could push us into Greek-like economic troubles. Given the deficit spending trends, it's a mistake to assume that the US is 'too big to fail'. We have a situation of govt employees retiring at age 50 or 55 with pensions that payout 50% - 90% of their highest earning years (often they artificially inflate the last earning year with overtime + sick pay) with insurance benefits on top of that. It's recently come to light the number of govt pensions exceeding $100,000/year + benefits, including some law enforcement officers in CA (as I recall) making over $500,000/year.

It's a situation which, if left unchecked, will result in average Joes toiling at work at age 67 in order to subsidize the Caribbean vacations of 52 year old govt retirees. Let the states and local govts go bankrupt so that their lavish pension plans can fight it out in bankruptcy court like any other creditor.

Whats happening in Greece is that the public are being asked to pay for the failures of the speculations of the rich and very rightly are rejecting it.

So yeah, whats happening in Greece has already happened in the USA, and was met with a collective yawn.