I believe that Phil is right in his estimate: at this stage it is absolutely clear that the US won't pay its debts. I think you're going to have to show me some headline, article, or book that says this is going to happen or has happened. It is all in WSJ. Compare the rates of debt accumulation to the growth of the GDP and tax collection and you see that the first one is higher than the others. What it tells me is that progressively higher portion of the GDP will go for servicing the debt. Well, we had a lot of this problem back in 1970s with stagflation and interest rates going up to obscene levels through Volcker who was trying to fight Reagan's supply side economics (the big Reagan tax cut dumped a lot of extra money into mostly rich pockets, and the defense spending, also by Reagan, went into outer space too [did the US shoot itself in the foot instead of the USSR?]) and that caused a lot of inflation, big expansion of national debt (because DoD spending went up a lot and tax revenue went down because of tax cuts, and neither Republicans nor Democrats bothered to worry

From my past recollections, recovery from recessions follows a curve that is similar from one to the next. Well, that has been in the background of stable economic fundamentals. This time around the fundamentals have changed. That is the problem. Here is an analysis that worries me: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16639

-kamal high places...for instance as President Wilson demonstrated as he signed the documents allowing a private bank to rule US currency.... (then a few months later, woke up and lamented what he called his fatal decision).....thats how it is in the world... this war of special interests..and its victims... the US citizens now joining
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Yourself now, being very bright, will respond victoriously... Phil, you are the most generous person I ever met!