[geezerjay]

> I agree the future is hard to predict, but I don’t know about your claim the US engages in similar trickery.

The US clearly engages in the sort of behaviour that was described as trickery. The state is massively indebted and piling on huge deficits each year, and the only thing that keeps lenders lending money is this belief that the US will always repay its debt. Meanwhile the US deficit is used as a never ending source of free money created out of thin air that's injected into the economy, thus contributing to artificially inflate the volume of money being exchanged (i.e., the GDP)