Random gripe

To all the people who talk ominously about how the Social Security trust is just a bunch of IOUs, i.e. U.S. Treasury bonds, in the hopes of fooling people into thinking we have to screw with Social Security to avoid paying it all back: if the U.S. government defaults on 2 trillion worth of debt, our problems are going to be a lot freaking bigger than angry old people. I don't know if anyone can imagine a world where investors don't trust the U.S. government's debt. But I think everyone can agree it is decidedly on the wrong side of the apocalypse. Considering how close to the edge we're playing the global financial system's confidence at the moment, it's probably not even something we should joke about. So stop it.