With war looming, it's time to be prepared. So last week I switched to a fixed-rate mortgage. It means higher monthly payments, but I'm terrified about what will happen to interest rates once financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget deficits... [In 2001] the administration promised to run large surpluses. [In 2002] it said the deficit was only temporary. Now it says deficits don't matter. But we're looking at a fiscal crisis that will drive interest rates sky-high...But unless we slide into Japanese-style deflation, there are much higher interest rates in our future.

Perhaps most obviously, the economic “experts” on whom much of Congress relies have been repeatedly, utterly wrong about the short-run effects of budget deficits. People who get their economic analysis from the likes of the Heritage Foundation have been waiting ever since President Obama took office for budget deficits to send interest rates soaring. Any day now!

But what's really scary -- what makes a fixed-rate mortgage seem like such a good idea -- is the looming threat to the federal government's solvency.

For while debt can be a problem, the way our politicians and pundits think about debt is all wrong, and exaggerates the problem’s size.

not falling for that again.

more importantly, shouldn't it be the right chinned face smiling?

as drawn, it doesn't make any sense.

if they both originally put in $10 to make it $20 in the box, then at the end the guy on the right makes $10, but the guy on the left makes $20.

if its only the guy on the left putting $20 in the box, at the end the guy on the left makes $10, but the guy on the right loses $10.

guy on the right is losing 10 dollars (he puts 20 in, then pays 30 more, but only receives 40), while guy on left makes 10 (he is given 30 for the 20 he put in). that's the point, i think.

oh i get it, they both put in $20 ($40 in box).
lefty sells box to righty for $30.
lefty makes $10.
righty gets the $40 back for a $30 payment.

both make $10.