Ok, we have a “deal” in Washington to raise the debt ceiling.  Big whoop.  With friends like these, we don’t need enemies.  I don’t much time today (end of semester, grading, and all), but I’ll comment tomorrow in more depth.

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with this metaphor for how I see the debt-ceiling deal and it’s spending cuts, new “super-congressional” committees, etc.   Picture the economy as a person crossing the street.  The person is frail, sickly from an infection, and has a broken leg in a cast.  That’s because the economy hasn’t healed from 3 years ago when it got hit by speeding truck called The Great Financial Crisis.   Just as the person is in the middle of the street, we see two cars driven by reckless youngsters drag racing down the street – a totally unnecessary activity.  Both drivers saw the person several blocks away but they kept speeding straight toward the person, yelling at each other that the other one should swerve or stop to avoid hitting the poor hobbled pedestrian.  Now at the very last minute, a shred of sanity prevailed and the two cars keep speeding, but they swerved just enough to miss hitting the economy.  But in the process of swerving, they’ve knocked our economy/pedestrian down to the ground.

The good news is we avoided being run over and possibly killed.  The bad news is that not only are we still sick, infected, and have a broken leg, we might also have more bruises and injuries from the close-call.