I have a drinking problem - my wife won't let me do it enough. Recently, I can't lift a pint without hearing about the Yanks' money problems. People say tea parties are destroying the country. I say, it's not the teetotalers, it's the publicans, and don't misunderestimate them! They're crafty - reminds me of my Chinese wife.

She hates it when I go to Jack's bar. But she knows I'd walk out the door if she told me outright. So one day, she sits down, all reasonable like, with a pencil and calculator, and goes through the finances. Don't you want our little ones to go to school, she says? Do you want keep working until you die? What if those kidney stones start rolling out the wrong end of you again? She's talking so reasonable-like, I have to agree.

The result? She gives me an allowance, hoping I don't have enough money for mischief. I still go to Jack's, but I have to take the bus now and eat steam buns for lunch. But in the end she got what she wanted: I can't stand the young ladies a pint anymore. And the girls look at me kind of funny-like when I offer them a swig of the local firewater from the little green bottle in my pocket.

Publicans is the same as my wife, but different. They say, "Hey taxpayers, don't you want more of your own money to go to the bar with?" Because they don't want to help you retire, or pay for your kidney stones, or help send your brats to their fat cat schools. But they won't say it to your face.

Last night someone says to me, "What debt collector will ring the White House doorbell and threaten to repossess the furniture?" Of course, the federal marshals wouldn't let that happen. Unless the marshals were furloughed, I guess.

When I missed a couple of snowmobile payments back home, this debt collector kept calling me over and over again, every 15 minutes. Got my work number too, and even started calling me at the curling club. Very embarrassing. Maybe the debt collectors could get hold of Obama's private numbers and hound him so much he couldn't think straight to run the country. Or use those special red phone hotlines they set up for emergencies: "Hello, this is Mr Zhou again. No, no nuclear attack. Just want to ask when you plan to give us our $1.3 trillion back."

People tell me, America is broke and its democracy is broken. How could a country so rich get in such a mess?

I tell them, think this is a mess? The army walking students into schools, a million people marching on Washington, national leaders getting gun downed, cities on fire. That was a real mess.