British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once made an astute observation about countries that put off difficult decisions on war and peace, in the vain hope that foreign aggressors will halt their aggression:
“[I]f you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
The United States, most fortunately, does not face a current threat to its existence on the level of what Britain faced from Nazi Germany in World War II.
But the principle that Churchill espoused holds true for the financial situation in which the United States and many other nations find themselves because of reckless spending and unchecked debt.
Greece, for instance, has only “a one in 10 chance of sidestepping default, according to credit traders who are betting the country will be crippled by $490 billion of debt — more than $40,000 for every man, woman and child,” read a recent Bloomberg News analysis.