By Robert Presser on July 22, 2010
Dear G20 leaders,
First of all, congratulations are in order for emerging with anything resembling a commitment to fiscal restraint at all, given the differing economic environments you are all facing. The message was simple and direct: cut deficits in half by 2013 and stabilize debt to GDP ratios by 2016. Boy, are you lucky that the majority of populist journalists ran to file the story before they read the fine print, because otherwise the solidarity you displayed in the group photo would look more like Swiss cheese. Japan gets an exemption from the debt level targets because they are still fighting deflation leftover from the last recession, and the US federal government is busy spending more, not less, to compensate for state budgets that are being slashed to the bone.
