U.S. has binged; soon it’ll be time to pay the tab

From Gretchen Morgenson at the NYTIMES.com:

'SAY this about all the bickering over the federal debt ceiling: at least people are talking openly about our nation’s growing debt load. This $14.3 trillion issue is front and center — exactly where it should be.

Into the fray comes a thoughtful new paper by Joseph E. Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics... 

“There may never be a single defining moment of crisis,” the authors write, “but rather a drift into ever-higher inflation and interest rates, ever-lower growth or deeper recession, and eventually hyperinflation along with rapid currency depreciation. Most economists would view such a prospect as a progressive strangulation of a nation’s well-being.”'

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/business/economy/29gret.html?_r=1