The markets are very nervous – and rightly so – about the debt crises in Europe and the United States.

Yet the frustrating thing about both crises is that they should be relatively easy to avert. They are not mega-tsunamis or planet-killing asteroid strikes that are beyond all human control. Nor are they mysterious: there is no need for a new Keynes to tell us what is happening, because anyone who can read a newspaper and do basic arithmetic knows exactly what the problems are. They are foreseeable and were foreseen, and indeed have both been rather unmissable for some years now.

Above all, they should be very easy to solve, given the political will. The solutions are not rocket-science. Everyone knows what needs to be done, and what will eventually have to be done.

In the United States, the government must stop spending as much as it does. The federal deficit is unsustainable. Sooner or later, there must be cuts, and there will be. Delaying the evil hour only makes it worse. Even the flawed Class of 2008 understood that there comes a time when unpleasant decisions cannot be put off.

In Europe, there is a limit to how much the more prudent nations can prop up the more feckless in order to maintain the pretence of a single currency. Does anyone, even the most sincere European federalist, really believe that Greece can and will remain a member of the eurozone indefinitely?

Everyone in the business world knows what has to happen. So – at least privately – do most politicians. So why delay? Everyone is agreed on the decisions that need to be made, so the sooner they are made the better.

Yet the political class seems paralysed with indecision. President Obama, obsessed with his re-election next year, has failed to take control of negotiations with Congressional leaders by advocating bold measures: once again, he has shown himself to be a reactive President, rather than one who seizes the initiative. Meanwhile, across the Pond, the European Establishment is terrified that suspension from the euro of Greece – and then probably Portugal and Spain, and maybe Italy and Ireland – will undermine the credibility of their whole cherished project of European integration.

It is tragic that in the whole pack, there is not one real leader with the guts to say, “We all know what we are going to have to do. Let’s just do it.”

For the real tragedy is that nothing magical is required here, only the courage and honesty to do what clearly needs to be done – in other words, leadership.

A group of 52 “academics” has written to the Observer newspaper to criticise the British government’s deficit reduction plan.

Those of us blessed with the gift of memory were at once reminded of the letter that was sent to the Times in 1981 from no less than 364 “economists” to criticise the policies of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Although it is possible to argue that the Thatcher reforms were too rapid or too severe or both, few these days would argue that they were unnecessary. Mrs Thatcher found Britain “the sick man of Europe” and left it with a competitive modern economy. She achieved that in the face of considerable opposition from so-called “experts”, like those who signed the Times letter. How many of those opponents later had the guts to admit they were wrong? What happened to them afterwards? Are any among the signatories of the Observer letter?

The media gave the Times letter a lot of publicity at the time. It would have been useful if they had followed up on the story and pointed out the conclusion that we should not be so trusting of self-styled “experts”. That is in fact a basic lesson, one that has had to be repeated many times, not least in 2008 and its aftermath. The philosopher Santayana was wise to say that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

Indeed, we should ask who is the real “expert”? Academic degrees are less important than the judgment and experience necessary to make the right call under pressure.

So it was no surprise that another of the lessons confirmed in 2008 – and in 1981 – is that entrepreneurs tend to be better at reading the situation than most professors. After all, if the professors were that clever, they would probably have gone into business for themselves. Some do, but the proportion of academics who are also successful entrepreneurs is very small.

Yet even those who have been proved to be clueless in practice continue to enjoy comfortable salaries – usually thanks to the poor taxpayer – and the status that encourages the media to take them seriously when they write silly letters to the newspapers.

Of course, this does not mean that the government’s deficit reduction programme is above criticism. Many of us would argue it is still too little too late. As to where the cuts should be made, it is clear that there is a lot of dead wood in our state-funded universities – although that 364 is down to 52 may at least be a sign of progress.

Devotees of the Terminator franchise breathed a sigh of relief last week: Thursday, 21 April is the latest date predicted for “Judgement Day” – the total destruction of civilisation – but we still appear to be here.

In much the same way, in 2008 many prophets of doom, including some highly paid “experts”, were predicting the total meltdown of the capitalist system, but, like the Terminator writers, they had to keep putting back the date of the fulfilment of their predictions as time passed without the anticipated disaster.

In fact, most of the world recovered fairly quickly from 2008. This should not be surprising. A brief study of the last 300 years of capitalism shows how crises are a regular occurrence, but so are recoveries, and the overall growth in prosperity has continued. Free markets are very resilient.

However, although cyclical crises and recoveries are to be expected, there remain structural problems in many Western economies that need to be addressed. By far the most dangerous is the US federal budget deficit.

Standard and Poor’s, the aptly named credit rating agency, has issued a warning that the US government’s credit status may be downgraded in two years time if nothing is done about it.

The markets take that prospect very seriously. While it remains extremely unlikely that the federal government would ever default, the loss of its AAA rating would be a body blow to business confidence. Although America is not as dominant as it once was, the increasing integration of the global economy makes it truer than ever that “When Wall Street sneezes, the world catches a cold.”

Gold shot through the $1,500 an ounce barrier at the news – when the smart money feels insecure, it buys commodities.

Confidence is not helped by the casual response of the US Treasury, which continues to claim that it has the situation well in hand. It does not – and everyone in business knows it. The longer the Administration denies the problem exists, the worse the problem will get.

Yet we remain optimistic. The last two years have confirmed our belief in the recuperative powers of business in a free market. We are doing our part. If only our political leaders would do theirs.