In the case of the U.S. economy in 2005, however, the opposite might be true: The more things stay the same, the more they are likely to get worse.
Compiling a list of potential threats to the United States this year has a strangely déjà-vu-all-over-again feeling.
Virtually the same list could have been drawn up in 2004, 2003 or previous years: a persistent and increasing resort to debt-financed growth and a concomitant, growing imbalance in the trade deficit, leading the country ever further into financial dependency and leaving it dangerously indebted to rival nations, which could (at least theoretically) pull the plug at any time.
This is occurring against the backdrop of a Vietnam-style quagmire in Iraq, against imperial overstretch and against a related crisis in energy prices, itself spurring an ever more frantic competition for energy security, which will surely intensify global and regional rivalries.
Just as a haystack soaked in kerosene appears relatively benign until somebody strikes a match, so too, could today's seemingly benign economic picture be masking impending disaster. Although America's long-standing economic problems have not yet led to financial Armageddon, this in no way invalidates the threat.
For economy watchers in 2005, the key is to imagine which event or combination of them represents the match that could set this haystack alight.
The Achilles heel of the American economy is debt. When debt levels are as high as the United States is carrying today, further increases in debt created by credit expansion can act as a burden on demand. Signs of this are already in the air, or rather in what has been by historic standards only feeble economic growth during President Bush's years in office.
Think of the mountain of national debt as the policy equivalent of steroids............
