America as Greece?

Ron Johnson, a Republican running for Feingold’s Senate seat in Wisconsin, says America is becoming Greece , collapsing in financial crisis.

True? There is this fact to add to the mix. Over at super economics blogger Megan McArdle’s web page , a commenter complained, in another context, that government tends to think of “ever-increasing spending” as “some sort of natural law we have no control over.”

To which another commenter, Rob Lyman, replied: “It’s not a natural law, but it is just as inevitable as a Greek tragedy. I mean, Oedipus didn’t have to sleep with his mother, he just got a ‘Strengthening Our Communities by Strengthening Our Families’ grant from HHS to do it.”

Alas, alas! How terrible to know , Tiresias moaned , when it does not help the knower .