The politicization of debt repayment has really put this concern front and centre fpr global bankers, investors, politicians, and sophisticated commentators like Martin Wolf. the FT's economics columnist:
America flirts with self-destruction The fallout of a US government default, particularly one that lasts, is beyond prediction By Martin Wolf Financial Times October 1 2014
Is the US a functioning democracy? This week legislators decided to shut down a swath of the federal government rather than allow an enacted health law go into operation at the agreed moment. They may go further; if they do not vote to raise the so-called "debt ceiling", they risk triggering default on US government debt - a fate far worse than the shutdown or fiscal sequestration. [clip]
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Pish. The same people who s ream ruin over such bric-a-brac are the first to claim that normal politics can solve the _real_ disasters of climate change. The more anti-human the policies of the Obama Administration become, the more hysterical liberals & other pundits become over the terrible fates that await us at the hand of the loony Republicans.
I think, from the perspective of ruling elites, the Constitution has been rather more successful than Jim Farmelant allows
Carrol