Could the U.S. Default on Debt?
Richard Posner warns it’s not just Greece that risks seeing its government default on debt. The U.S. has dug itself in deep and also faces that possibility, he says.
“The deeper the financial hole that the government has dug for itself by incompetent economic management — and our government has dug itself a very deep hole… the more difficult it is to climb out of the hole on the backs of holders of entitlements and recipients of government services. The political resistance is too intense. It’s at that point that the bondholders, and holders of other contractual rights against the government, have to start worrying about the prospects for outright default or default through inflation. These are possibilities in our future, just as in the future of Greece.”
