Wishing will not make it so

"The U.S. current-account deficit is a problem for the whole world,"said Jacob A. Frenkel, an economist and former governor of the Bank of Israel, at the start of the Davos conference. "I don't see the budget deficit being taken seriously."

The question can be expanded to whether we are taking our economic condition seriously. In 2005 the hot topics are our deficit and the sinking dollar, yet the Bush administration sent no one to Davos this year; in prior years they’ve sent Cheney and Powell.

Wishing and talking are no substitute for economic policy and action.