Give credit where credit due on forecasting credit woes

In 2007, I wrote a column about Jack Mabley's uncanny ability to see problems on the horizon. Jack, the legendary columnist and the man I got to know as a dear friend during the 17 years we sat next to each other, died in 2006. He would have turned 93 this Sunday.

I dug into the archives last year and printed some of Jack's visionary words of caution about our upcoming wars. In February of 2001, seven months before the 9-11 attacks, Jack predicted problems with Iraq and the "unfinished war" that George W. Bush inherited from his father, then-armed forces chief Colin Powell and then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

"They said they saved American lives by stopping the war. But wars involve lives, and if they aren't concluded, more lives may be sacrificed ultimately," Jack warned then. "That has become Bush Jr.'s problem, and it's a whopper."

In September of 2002, six months before our invasion of Iraq, Jack predicted a war in Iraq would be bloodier, longer and more difficult than experts might think.

"Attacking Iraq would be like flipping a rock into a hornet's nest," Jack wrote. "It is irresponsible to the point of near-insanity to go into a war without an exit plan and a detailed plan of procedures in the conquered nation."

But war-forecasting wasn't the only trade Jack had mastered.

"I was cleaning out some papers and old letters and such and came across Jack Mabley's column," says Florence Levy of Glen Ellyn, who stuck one especially pertinent column into her purse so she could show people. "It really amazed me because of what's going on today."

Her husband, Albert, says Jack delivered "almost a Biblical prophesy."

The Levys, who are both 90 and still swim four or five times a week, refer me to Jack's column of June 15, 2003. The headline reads, "Since when is spending more than you make a good idea?"

While confessing that the trillion-dollar figures getting thrown around government were a little more than he could grasp, Jack The Visionary brought government budgets down to a level that would make sense in today's world of Joe The Plumber.

"I think I'm sound on basic economics," Jack wrote. "Especially an immutable law that if you borrow money, it must be paid back. If it isn't repaid, the borrower faces chaos. Whether it is a family getting by on $24,000 a year or the most powerful nation on earth, constantly spending more than you take in and borrowing to stay afloat inevitably leads to economic catastrophe."

That would be the chaos and economic catastrophe on today's front page, yesterday's front page and tomorrow's front page.

Jack was skeptical when he heard President Bush declare in his 2004 State of the Union address that: "We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations."

"It already is too late to reduce the enormous debt that Bush has passed along to his own generation and that generation's children," countered Jack then. "The vast majority of conservatives, whom I respect as reasonable and dedicated, are scratching their heads at the way debt and spending are piling up,"

Jack warned of jobs disappearing, the surplus turning into a deficit, shortages in budgets for education and health care, and billions of dollars in savings being lost in a sinking stock market.

"And college tuitions," Florence Levy adds, noting had Jack predicted that rising tuitions could put college out of reach for most working families.

"At some point, investors, especially foreigners, will stop investing in American debt," Jack forecast.

"A time bomb is aimed at the U.S. economy. It will rundown to zero and explode unless someone defuses it. The present administration is feeding it," Jack continued.

A frugal, yet generous man, Jack tried to come up with a way for us to avoid all of today's financial woes.

"Is there any hope of avoiding this financial quagmire?" Jack concluded. "Very little that I can detect, and I'm an optimist by nature."

Sadly for us, he also was very good at predicting things.