Do not listen to old slogans like this. They might have bee true 50 years ago when the U.S. was the world’s CREDITOR, but we are now the world’s DEBTOR – we have hocked everything to buy that extra SUV and take those extended vacations, having borrowed the $$ from the Europe and Asia (They got the dollars hot off Greenspan’s presses to pay for all that stuff they export to us.).
So we no longer owe only to “ourselves.” … but even if that were the case, and the debts to “ourselves” were magically forgiven, then that “full faith and credit” statement has just been flushed. Now with the dollars in your pocket worthless, and your CDs valueless, and with T-bills, Notes, etc., not even worth a piece of toilet paper, tell me this: What exactly do you have that would be worth the gallon of gasoline that I have?
Tell the Japanese and Europe to dock our rebuilding them after WW2 from what it would cost today and deduct it from our debt to them.=o)
No problem! They’ll just return to us that $160 billion in worthless pieces of green paper – debt paid in full!
Being DEBTORS, Americans can no longer call all the plays in the world, and we don’t have any good options; we certainly don’t have any simple ones!