FT.com's most popular story of the year reported a warning that the US is on a "burning platform" of unsustainable policies and practices. It came in an August report from David Walker, head of the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress.

In an Financial Times interview, he drew parallels with the end of the Roman empire. There were "striking similarities", he said, between the US's current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including "declining moral values and political civility at home, an overconfident and overextended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government". He condemned current US policies on education, energy, the environment and immigration as "unsustainable".