I keep waiting for a news article that doesn’t gloss over the real impact of defaulting.

One of the reasons news doesn't explain the rules of default must be that oligarchs want us to be in the dark. If we understood how rich the United States is, our oligarchs reason, we would want a share of that wealth. If we think the US is poor, we're not so demanding.

But anyone who can understand the rules of baseball or football, who can play poker or Monopoly, can understand the rules of defaulting.

If the US were to default the same thing would happen to the US that happens to a person if they fail to make a payment on a loan.

1. Foreclosure, the lender seizes assets to cover the default.
2. Your credit rating goes down and cost of borrowing goes up.

Today, before default, the US defines what money is. If we create a dollar that's worth a dollar. No other country has this power.

The world lets us do this for them because a dollar is considered the safest way to store value. That's why the US dollar is the world's dominant reserve currency.

However if we default, there goes the safety. It's gone, and that kind of trust, built over hundreds of years, once lost will never come back.

Then we really will be as poor as the oligarchs want us to think we are.

BTW, if this is true, why are the oligarchs who own all our sources of news, willing to let a default actually happen? I think it's a good chance it's due to inbreeding, narcissism, stupidity, selfishness and resentment. They don't believe they will suffer personally if the US turns into an economic basket case. Maybe they won't. For sure, that's all they care about.

If "news" were run like journalism this would be the horserace of the millenium. A story with a billion angles. We'd all tune in every night to hear how bad it'll be. But they clearly aren't interested in that. They're interested in keeping their jobs. That probably also explains why we're not responding to the climate crisis or the pandemic.