Where does the debt lead us? -- PTS

Robert Samuelson, a well-known and respected economist as far as I know, writes about the government debt here, in an article in this week's Newsweek Magazine.  The bottom line of his argument: because we are in unchartered waters, along with Japan and other Western industrialized countries, there's no way of knowing the consequences of this pileup of debt until we face a crises that provokes a sudden loss of confidence.  Samuelson doesn't say what this crises might be but presumably it would be the inability to continue selling debt in the amount required to keep financing budget shortfalls.  He does suggest that when the crises occurs the solution will be to default on the existing debt with consequences to be determined since we and other responsible countries have never done this before.  These are interesting times.