The Yellow Fever economy

This is a long read, but an apt metaphor as the effects of our diseased economy--based far too much on debt--accelerates toward its day of reckoning:

We know the phrase, "a deer in the headlights." For a few seconds, a deer is immobilized. But then it runs. People don't. You have heard that a frog will not jump out of a pot of water if the water warms slowly to boiling temperature. It's not true. But people will stick with hopeless projects and dreams for years, only to lose everything. Few events confirm this better than Memphis in the summer of 1878.
In a fine article, "Epidemic," published in 1984 in American Heritage, the author described the two weeks leading up to the plague.

Like someone alone at midnight hearing approaching footfalls on the stairway, Memphis waited while the disease came nearer. On August 9 word came of yellow fever in Grenada, Mississippi, only a hundred miles to the south. But boosterism whistled brightly. "Keep cool!" said the Memphis Daily Appeal four days later. "Avoid patent medicines and bad whiskey! Go about your business as usual; be cheerful, and laugh as much as possible."

That paragraph has stuck in my mind for over 20 years. I have watched the debt of the United States government ratchet upward relentlessly, just as yellow fever moved up the Mississippi in 1878. The boosters – on Tout TV, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and virtually all academic economists except for the Austrian School – have assured us that deficits don't matter. They have also warned us not to take patent medicine, such as a the twin ideas of a Federal budget surplus and a gold coin standard.  "Laugh as much as possible," they have assured us. "Don't worry. Be happy." Economic growth will let the government meet its obligations. ...

Think about this. The Federal government plans to spend at least $2.1 trillion more than it takes in over the next 17 months. This is no secret. It was the basis of the deal.

We can see where this is headed. Think of New Orleans in late July of 1878. The plague has hit. The deficit will eat into the debt ceiling, month by month. Up the mighty Mississippi of government spending will come the plague, city by city. 

The news reports are clear. The yellow fever economy is coming. But most people sit tight. They listen to the boosters. "Keep cool! Avoid patent medicines and bad whiskey! Go about your business as usual; be cheerful, and laugh as much as possible."

Don't.

The 'boosters' would have the public think the Tea Party is somehow responsible for the US losing its AAA credit rating.  That's like blaming the guys who told you to quit smoking when your doctor diagnoses you with cancer.  Thus does the misdirection continue while the debt plague makes its way through the nation.

Do you have a quarantine plan?