I watched the US President speaking live today from the White House. I wish I hadn’t. The local media (here) characterised him as talking tough. What I heard was a leader who doesn’t know what he is talking about. But he isn’t alone out there in the “debt ceiling” debate land. I have noted before that when the crisis really hit I thought it would spell the end of the stranglehold that mainstream macroeconomics had on public policy. That body of theory had led the world into the crisis by endorsing policies that set the financial system up to collapse. As it was becoming obvious (as far back as 15 years ago) that a major crisis was approaching mainstream economists were in denial and claimed that the “business cycle” was dead. I was wrong in assuming (more hoping) that the mainstream paradigm would be wiped out by the travesty. And as the months pass, their erroneous theories seem to be getting more credibility not less. The debt ceiling debate has reached proportions of madness that I didn’t think were possible in a broadly educated country (at least to primary school level). What must the Martians be thinking of us now. Anyway, certain practical matters not counted on by the ideologues suggest that 3 million Americans or so may find out the truth.