But even a country as large, populous and economically powerful as the US cannot borrow money indefinitely. Sooner or later the creditors will come knocking on the door. Voters in all the Western powers just cannot seem to grasp this. They think the good times are here forever.
Exactly. And yet administrations from both parties love to give bailouts with borrowed money, and congress follows their lead. I believe that the Obama "stimulus" bill contained authority for Obama, or whover is POTUS, to bail out banks (in Europe or whereever) without any congressional approval. And then there is the IMF. They have so many ways to keep screwing us, but Obama says raise tax rates so everybody will "pay their fair share."