The Inconvenient Truth Facing Deficit Hawks

washingtonpost.com — Add NASDAQ’s Robert Greifeld to the list of the CEOs who believe that the growing federal deficit is an existential threat to the country. At the Brookings Institute on Monday, Greifeld laid out a frightening vision for what would happen to the marketplace if the long-term deficit were left unchecked. “It is the same kind of deleveraging that we have felt since the financial crisis of 2008, but this could be on a much grander scale,” he told the audience. “As all prices adjust, market forces could even reach a point where investors refuse to buy U.S. Treasury bonds.” Scary scenarios like that one have been a common thread in many leading corporate executives’ pronouncements about the U.S. fiscal situation. But recent events and the current market seem to belie their arguments.

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