HURRICANE KATRINA: THE STORM AND THE METAPHOR

Shelter anyone?

We're not prepared for an economic hurricane either

By Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation and the author of "The Race to the Bottom"
Published January 22, 2006

AS ITS BROKEN LEVEES AND drowned pumping systems made so painfully clear, if the Big One was widely predicted in New Orleans, it was never genuinely feared. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, disaster preparedness and prevention are no longer completely academic subjects.

If only such realism could be injected into U.S. policymaking before a widely predicted economic disaster finally strikes.

Hurricane-force winds of overspending are building storm surges of debt that tower over the levees and pumps available to American leaders. These mounting imbalances could wash over the economy and leave America and the world submerged in a deep, long-term downturn.

This building economic storm has generated at most pro forma acknowledgments. Even worse, discussing crucial international dimensions of the looming emergency is usually considered taboo, even though numerous, ongoing policy mistakes on this front have heightened America's and the world's vulnerability.