When Their Eloquence Escapes You

The first is the projected deficit in the coming year, nearly 11 percent of the country’s entire economic output. That is not unprecedented: During the Civil War, World War I and World War II, the United States ran soaring deficits, but usually with the expectation that they would come back down once peace was restored and war spending abated.

-The Times

De do do do, de da da da
Is all I want to say to you
De do do do, de da da da
They're meaningless and all that's true

The Police

When what was how? Abated? Who? Is this a . . . what day is this?

Money, like law, is basically an exigent phenomenon, and any claims that it even approaches the status of universal convention are bogus. I mean, if you're poor, it's real enough, but at the level of a trillion-dollar annual deficit it is basically a totally self-referential metafictive device.