Canary in a Coalmine.

Words.

"THE great Calvin Coolidge reputedly said that “the business of America is business.” These days the business of America is carpet-chewing rage. American politicians are intent, not on improving their country’s competitiveness, but on gouging each other’s eyes out.

...Optimists argue that S&P’s decision may act as a wake-up call. Yet in Washington it is being treated as another battle cry, with Republicans raging about “the Obama downgrade” and Democrats railing against “tea-party terrorists”. The roots of America’s current polarisation are distressingly deep. The parties have reorganised themselves along ideological lines, as white conservatives have abandoned the Democrats and northern liberals the Republicans. The ideological factions have built mighty propaganda machines stretching from Washington think-tanks to the studios of Fox and MSNBC. And ideologues have resorted to previously taboo weapons, such as the threat of default.

...The civil war is creating two obvious problems for American business: paralysis and uncertainty. The Obama administration is still pockmarked with vacancies because Congress refuses to approve routine appointments. Important trade deals have been languishing for months. The Republicans are fighting a war of attrition against Barack Obama’s health-care reforms and his new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

...The direst consequences of all this lie in the future, however. America’s health-care system consumes a sixth of GDP but produces only mediocre results. America’s schools produce run-of-the-mill results despite generous funding. The immigration system leaves 11m people in the shadows and condemns many of the brightest graduates of American universities to years of grovelling before bureaucrats if they want to stay in America. Many give up and take their skills back to India or China.

...American companies are sitting on a gigantic pile of cash; Apple alone has $76 billion in the bank. Why won’t corporate America invest in America? It does not help that domestic demand is feeble, and that the global economy is in turmoil. But American politicians deserve some of the blame.

...Even more dangerously, the gulf between business and the rest of the country is widening: opinion polls show that American businesspeople are losing faith in their country even as ordinary Americans are losing faith in business. Calvin Coolidge’s statement was once denounced as the height of bourgeois complacency. Today it sounds like a reminder of an America that is in danger of disappearing."

THE ECONOMIST: American idiocracy