[Azred]

I was telling Noty the other day that my belief now is that we are beyond the point of no return--no one's attempts to balance the budget or reign in spending will solve the overwhelming debt problem. In short, it is only a matter of time before the system crashes and burns.

The time to solve this stuff was 20 years ago, when solving it was still possible. At this point, either dramatic revenue increases have to be enacted--raising the taxes on all individuals and closing all corporate tax loopholes--or extreme cuts in spending, primarily on military and entitlements (no more Social Security) will have to enacted. Possibly both. The problem here is that no politician who wants to be reelected will do either of those things; thus, the problems will remain unsolved.