well done. I learned and laughed and cried.

The Chinese are masters of bloodless murder, I should know because I am one. They never fight if they can afford it, even if they are (and they have been in the past) more powerful than neighboring countries, but they prefer to tax and exhaust their opponents into submission...

I disagree with your premise, Jonathan. We're in debt, but we certaintly aren't going to get IMF loans to pay it back. So we're not going to be forced to undergo the formal structural adjustment that the IMF requires. And the IMF requires this because it believes, stupidly, ideologically, that this is the correct formula for economic health. This, despite the fact that no one has ever followed their formula to get anywhere but deeper in debt. Since US legislators are not beholden to IMF demands and are not as ideologically cracked as the people running the IMF, structural adjustment here seems less likely - since the imperative here is simple economic health. Sure, there's the regular, run-of-the-mill "free market" crap that strips away social safety nets. But that happens anyway, all the time, when the working class is weak and the rich control the government. I don't think debt has anything to do with it.

Peter,

Glad you liked it. It's rare to be able to tie together beer drinking and structural adjustment.

En Ming Hee,

Why do you think this is? As you know, it seems to be encoded in America's DNA to expand until we've covered the globe and, if possible, the solar system.

saurabh,

Sorry, I wasn't clear. We won't be forced into some sort of structural adjustment because of having IMF loans. But then, no country actually is directly forced. The way it works is two-fold: first, the IMF has lots of sway over the terms small countries can get on international financial markets... meaning that the small countries are not just worried about IMF loans themselves being yanked, but the effect that will have on other loans. Second, the people who run the governments of small countries are generally the people who actually benefit from structural adjustments. It's good for them, horrible for most.

The point I was trying to make is that we will likely go through something AKIN to a structural adjustment, rather than a formal one. The IMF can't force us; in fact, they've previously made cluck-clucking sounds about us, and we tell them to fuck off. However, international financial markets CAN force something like that on us—particularly since many American elites want to see it happen, and will enthusiastically collaborate in the implementation. The imperative for them is not simple economic health—it's gaining more power for themselves relative to other Americans. They will claim to be forced to do something they want to do anyway.

I'm essentially illiterate economically, but it seems to me that this is quite related to what Paul Krugman has called the neocon's "starve the beast" strategy (a la grover Norquist) and that eventually the rich USians will just "be" the government by default, de facto (if this isn't already more or less the case).

The starve the beast peeps are so full of it! Big Gubmint is far too useful a tool for the powerful to ever give up. It's not about wealth, as Jonathan has said. It's about power. The best way to achieve that is to keep education out of reach to all but the children of the wealthiest and those most willing to serve wealth bondage. The crushing debt load for the majority keeps people dependent and scared.

I agree that the general trend in the U.S. will be in a direction that LOOKS rather like structural adjustment. But I'm not sure how international debt is the engine driving that trend, rather than the (sorry to be gauche) capitalist ruling class.