Dalrymple has written often of the debt situation in Europe and what it portends for the EU. Now, at the Library of Law and Liberty, he takes a look at the situation in America:

The American situation is far from unique; in the two countries in which I spend most of my time, Britain and France, the inability of governments of whatever stripe to put public finances on a sound basis is by now plain for all to see. A slowdown in the rate of growth of the national debt is what is now regarded by much of the population as the most ferocious and heartless austerity.

He makes this important point about the Keynesian approach:

The name of poor old Keynes is regularly invoked, as if he had ever supported deficit spending that (in the case of France) has lasted nearly half a century without interruption. Government deficits are not run any longer, if they ever were, to stimulate demand when demand contracts in the private sector: they are run to create economic dependence on government and as a permanent unearned subsidy (unearned, that is, by the economy as a whole) of the living standards of the entire population.

The concluding economic outlook is not comforting, though it will come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention.