The debt deal being discussed right now is not, I can only assume, very popular with the likes of Lockheed Martin, General Electric, or our new neighbors Xe Services — formerly Blackwater — as it includes major cuts in military spending that could mean reduced profits for the region's defense industry, which surely would use it as an excuse to lay off workers.

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The deal would cut $350 billion from defense budgets over 10 years, the Post reports, and "analysts said" this would undermine the local economy for several years. “That would have dire consequences,” Michael S. Lewis, of Lazard Capital Markets, said. “Jobs would be stopped, and there would be long-term implications for the industrial base. All that expertise and production in making jet fighters and tanks will go elsewhere.”

Scary, no? But it turns out Lewis is the only analyst the Post spoke to — or who was mentioned in the story, anyway. And while $350 billion sounds like a lot of money, consider how said defense budgets have risen over the past 10 years. I don't think I need to remind you what all of that money was spent on, nor what the result has been.

So let's take the long view over that of the lone "industry analyst" around which the Post based this story about our pending catastrophe.