[Pan_Yan]

They know extreme austerity measures, large enough to make the difference, could cause a tailspin and send us spiraling into a very painful recession or worse. It would perilously reduce tax revenues for all levels of governments and raise unemployment to unacceptable levels.

Am I reading this wrong? Is he saying that somehow government austerity will cause the same things that massive overspending have caused?

[LibsRJerks]

We’re nowhere near as prepared as we should be, but we’re paying off our large credit card debt very aggressively, not purchasing much of anything, and we bought a manual water purifying system. I also always, always buy extra at the store and have at least a few weeks worth of food stores.

Oh, and we’ve also stocked up a bit on “defense” items.

[blam]

"Am I reading this wrong? Is he saying that somehow government austerity will cause the same things that massive overspending have caused? "

Yes.

The system will ultimately collapse from default or high inflatiom/hyperinflation.

The US government presently borrows 43% of what they spent. If that were stopped, we would rapidly plunge into a deflationary spiral and default. Keep borrowing and we will eventually hyperinflate.

There is no way back from here.

Some sort of serious collapse is in our future...when? Who knows. They're just 'kicking the can down the road' as long as possible. Every politician is hoping that it doesn't happen on his 'watch.' He wants to get his 'goodies' and get out of DC before TSHTF.