Again, keep your eye on the UK.

Will David Cameron's austerity program work? And will the GOP import it to the U.S. in 2011?

Like a shipwrecked sailor on a starvation diet, the new British coalition government is preparing to shrink down to its bare bones as it cuts expenditures by $130 billion over the next five years and drastically scales back its responsibilities. The result, said the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a research group, will be “the longest, deepest sustained period of cuts to public services spending” since World War II.

From the same article:

In Coventry, [John Mutton, leader of the City Council] said that the Council was bracing for an uncertain future.

“It’s impossible to plan,” he said. “We believe in trying to plan our budget for three years, particularly in order to give our voluntary and private-sector partners some stability. But we can’t do that at the moment. We haven’t a clue.”

American CEOs have been blaming the high unemployment rate in the U. S. on the "uncertainty" emanating from Washington. Maybe that's just the excuse du jour. Maybe "uncertainty" will always be with us.