I am guessing they would not be able to handle what I believe would happen if they did that.
Debt default fears will spread to US and Japan, warns Citigroup’s Willem Buiter
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“Against this backdrop, the US and Japan - dubbed the “fiscal sustainability deniers” - cannot keep ignoring the question of how safe their public finances are, the team said.
The fears about default will encompass the two economies “before long”, they argued - particularly if a default is defined not just as a failure to meet the debt contract, but also as inflicting severe losses on debt holders through deliberately-engineered inflation or weakening the currency.
“Both Japan and US public finances are unsustainable, in our view, and in the absence of credible and substantial fiscal tightening both would eventually face painful discipline through the markets,” the economists wrote.
It is only a matter of time before the US will have to raise funds by issuing debt offering “significantly higher” returns to bondholders, to reflect the level of risk surrounding it, they added.”
“Citigroup’s Willem Buiter: an economist worth listening to
The Dutch-born scholar, a professor of political economy at the London School of Economics and former Bank of England Monetary Policy member, has never been afraid to speak his mind – even about past and present employers.
In 2008, Dr Buiter turned his fire on his hosts when the Fed invited him to its annual retreat in the Teton Mountains. “The Fed listens to Wall Street and believes what it hears,” he told an audience of central bank officials from the Fed and around the world. “This distortion into a partial and often highly distorted perception of reality is unhealthy and dangerous.”
U.S.O.F.C.: If the Fraud Stops, the Financial System Collapses
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjan11/financial-crime01-11.html