It is not just the debt that puts us at risk..it is all the unfunded guarantees..real and tacit that will tip the balance.
The US is not in the position to let the State, cities and counties go broke, and we are also in the postion of guaranteeing all of Fannie, Freddies debt, plus FDIC risk, plus all the other alphapet soup guarantees.
We are like AIG..we have taken on guaranteeing more risk than we can ever hope to pay. And then we are praying for things to turn around..or inflate us out of it.
Somehow, these things are always somewhere out there in the future, but the future is moving towards us faster than the calendar. We in deep dodo.