I am fully aware of that. However, what you have to ask yourself is: is the Chinese autocracy interested in shrinking in to itself and fighting a losing battle with its restive population, or might it decide that the best way to stop any trouble of that kind by exporting it? Remember, the one-child policy has lead to a large number of young men with no available women. That sounds like a recipe for either war or revolution right there. And, if you’re looking for somewhere to carve up, decaying Russia right on your border sounds nice.

I expect to see an increase in Chinese militarism and nationalism, because both of those are classic ways of ensuring social cohesion. Remember, China has its own problems with Islamic fascism, and I think that their government will be less squeamish about how it approaches that.

Even if they “only” decide to demand that the US repay the debt – this debt makes Versailles look like a fart in a thunderstorm.

The only reason that the US’s debtors – the Chinese Autocracy – is giving the US this amount of credit is because it can then use just the interest payments to finance its entire military budget, and also neuter any complaints the US might have. Contrary to any paranoid ravings amongst the paleo-Right (and also, I might add, amongst people like Wesley Clark), there will never, ever be a US-China war (why? What’s the next step after US troops land in Shanghai or Chinese troops in San Francisco? The nukes come out, and we all die). However, China can now hold the threat of total economic collapse over the US’s head, if it doesn’t shut up about Chinese imperial ambitions in, say, Africa.

More power to China, in one respect btw. A ‘superpower’ that behaves like this doesn’t deserve that position and won’t keep it.

This game of trying to make meaningful cuts and no tax increases is a farce and S&P can see that no solution to these deficits or this economy is forth coming. I have reservations myself on the work of S&P. The only reason I lean toward believing them is because this division that made this decision is separate from the division that gave the okay on the subprime housing loans. (by the way, that division made a ton of money giving the AAA status to those subprime loan notes).

Look at the budget deficits and you have to say okay, we’re going to cut deficits in 10 years without tax increases. How can you ?? Future deficits are projected based on current laws on the books, such as doctors receiving less reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid. Once Congress rolls over on this again and very likely the Alternative tax and roll it over to the next year, the deficit will actually be bigger. Likewise, the CBO uses the tax rates that are going to go back up after 2012. Think Congress is going to let that pass or are they going to shut down the Senate like they did in 2010? Without those tax rates going back up to where they were scheduled, you have to add that on to the debt. And Social Security trust fund will have to be paid back too in the near future. So that aircraft carrier we paid for with a “loan” from the SSTF, we’ll have to finally pay for the carrier and any current ones. Basically you’ll be buying 2 carriers for the price of one.

S&P can clearly see that cutting 2 trillion dollars of additional deficits probably won’t even cover these 3 things that will make more deficits that aren’t even counted for yet. Without a Congress that is willing to make drastic cuts and/or tax increases, we won’t even come close to a balanced budget. The economy would have to grow at Chinese rates and as I can see, we aren’t going to work for Chinese wages.

The Republicans need to realize that they can’t go in all kinds of crazy directions forever, make stupid mistakes forever, and then just talk themselves out of the hole they dug the next second.

Hugo Schmidt-
It’s obvious that we’re not going to pay it back all at once. Thankfully, though, we don’t have to. You just have to make the payments that are due at a certain time. The costs of servicing the debt, by the way, were 1.6% of GDP, before his whole kerfluffle started. What Republicans have done may just make it more expensive.

So, the Republicans, in panicking and running around with their hair on fire, in demanding a quick, and rather stupid means of ending the financing of future debt, have most likely made it harder, not easier to pay off this debt over time, which if you’re at all cognizant of what’s going on, would be the only way it was going to happen.