CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Should more countries create independent fiscal advisory councils to infuse greater objectivity into national budget debates?
Jailed swindler Bernie Madoff recently summed up a lot of people's feelings about fiscal policy, declaring that "the whole government is a Ponzi scheme."
Perhaps this was just wishful thinking from a man who will die in prison after his own record-breaking $50 billion pyramid scheme collapsed in 2008. Personally, I suspect Madoff's unenviable place in the record books will be secure for quite a while. Still, with many of the world's largest governments facing a lethal combination of unsustainable conventional debt, unprecedented old-age pension obligations and a downshift in growth, one has to wonder what the fiscal plan is.