Playing chicken with the Chinese

President Bush’s monetary and fiscal policy is borrowed from Sheriff Bart in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” who, faced with an angry mob, whips out his gun and points it at his own head, then drags his hostage inside the jail.

The United States, which buys most of the world’s industrial output, is the debtor who is too big to fail. By running a huge deficit and allowing the dollar to decline, the president is playing chicken with the Chinese.