John Wilkes Booth

i'd like to add, this is a good question. one that i don't know the answer to, either. it's sort of irresponsible sounding but i do have to wonder if it really came down to it, who can demand that the US pay their debt and actually enforce that?

everybody talks about the debt like its this monster under the bed that's gonna come get us some day, i dunno man i really don't know anything concrete enough to make me seriously worried. i see people in the US freaking out cause china owns so much of our debt while their economy is growing... meanwhile china is desperately reliant on the continuing stability and prosperity of the united states just for china's own economy to function. their whole strategy is built on exports, so there's really no hope for self sufficiency in the near future for them. the idea that a middle class of consumers in china could sustain their massive production based economy is a dream. they've basically run their environment into the ground with the model they have, and are acting basically as the world's industrial park.

edit - also, if the debt is really the issue, then i'd think a better strategy would be reverting back to say 60's style america where we trim a lot more off from the top earners. they've gotten sort of cocky over the years but worse comes to worse it makes more sense to do that than to give up military dominance.