This month Erskine Bowles – the American political figure who co-headed a bipartisan fiscal panel last year – is launching a desperate new crusade. As Europe writhes in fiscal meltdown, Bowles is quietly appealing to American chief executive officers to join a new “CEO fiscal reform council” on how to tackle America’s debt headache – and prevent the nation from following Europe’s fate.
His idea is that by bringing business leaders into the debate, this could break Washington’s fiscal gridlock and reduce the risk of America heading into “the most predictable financial crisis in history”, as he says; where the “Super-Committee” of politicians failed, in other words, CEOs might (possibly) succeed in forcing action. Or so the hope goes.
Personally, I do not expect that any “CEO council” will actually cut America’s $14.3tn debt pile soon; nor, for that matter, affect Treasury yields (which are anyway ultra low now, as investors flee the eurozone).