Free Republic

Some take comfort in pointing out that the national debt is "only" 60 percent of gross domestic product. That ranks the United States about 25th in the world. By comparison, Japan's public debt is 180 percent of its GDP. So we are at least better off than the Japanese, right? Wrong, says Robert D. Arnott, chairman of Research Affiliates, an institutional money management firm based in Newport Beach, Calif. Our debt burden only appears to be lighter than Japan's because we don't count all of it. State and local government debt is not included; neither is corporate debt nor household...

LAS VEGAS There are 6 million empty homes in the United States. Or 6.2 million, to be slightly more precise. Empty houses are normal to some extent -- part of the usual friction of building, selling, renting. But ask the people who study the numbers, and who understand the "overhang" in housing inventory, and they'll tell you: This country has about a million homes too many. The solution, local executives say, will come not from Washington policymakers but from the market itself. When there are too many houses, builders stop building them. That has already happened, and many Vegas home...