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The WSJ's weekend interview with Stanley Druckenmiller, the legend behind Duquesne Capital and one-time fund manager for George Soros, is worth reading in its entirety.
This passage stands out in particular. In it Druckenmiller wonders why top administration officials are more worried about default than controlling the spending that is making the debt pile up in the first place.
Mr. Druckenmiller is puzzled that so many financial commentators see the possible failure to raise the debt ceiling as more serious than the possibility that the government will accumulate too much debt. "I'm just flabbergasted that we're getting all this commentary about catastrophic consequences, including from the chairman of the Federal Reserve, about this situation but none of these guys bothered to write letters or whatever about the real situation which is we're piling up trillions of dollars of debt."
He's particularly puzzled that Mr. Geithner and others keep arguing that spending shouldn't be cut, and yet the White House has ruled out reform of future entitlement liabilities—the one spending category Mr. Druckenmiller says you can cut without any near-term impact on the economy.
At the end of article, Druckenmiller says: "We don't have a choice between Paul Ryan's plan and the current plan, because the current plan is a mirage. . . . That money is not going to be there."
You can read the piece in its entirety here.
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