Bleak fiscal futures

David Leonhardt writes about massive deficits and debt today, citing some comments and new work by UC Berkeley's Alan Auerbach and William Gale. As those authors are quick to point out, they have been warning about looming fiscal imbalances for some time. What is particularly shocking is recent developments in the credit default swap market: a rise is the implicit/perceived probability of default by the U.S. government from 1 to 6 percent.