**[Economist: Countdown to U.S. Fiscal Crisis Has Begun]** Odaily Planet Daily reports that Kent Smetters, head of the Penn Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania, believes that "doomsday" will arrive in the United States between 2045 and 2050, marking the critical point for the U.S. economy. By then, the cost of interest payments on federal government debt will become so enormous that even large-scale tax increases will be futile. Smetters stated that at that point, the U.S. government will face either explicit or implicit default, both of which would have catastrophic consequences. Explicit default would turn the U.S. into a global debtor, while implicit default could theoretically be achieved through debt monetization (leading to inflation) or cuts to Social Security and Medicare spending. Smetters remarked, "This is when panic begins to spread, and trust in the government is lost. It is also the reason for the collapse of other societies. Looking back at Rome, France, Spain, Britain, and Germany, nearly every empire has fallen due to debt." (Jin10)