... Although I do tend to be pessimistic as well. I do not care much about the financials in this situation, as I don't believe there is much hope from this end.
Politicians have lost their way in the US. Greed, corruption, evil - yes they have all existed for a long time, but they are out of control and in an elevated state. Maybe due to increased population, increased communication/understanding of the world (internet), maybe due to just natural progression - if your not caught or stopped (they usually aren't) - you are going to keep getting worse. Think about how many studies have been done on humans and human behavior... not to mention the numerous studies we probably don't know about. They know how people think, how they act, what they respond to... they know what to say, when to say it, how to say it, where to say it, etc. They are our 'physical' Gods. They have people down to a science.
All people are 'different' and have uniquenesses about them, but IMO there are several classifications of humans, potentially tens of thousands or more. You can call it stereotyping or whatever you want, you can call them democrats, republicans, communists, socialists, etc. This is not how I personally would be naming the classifications... but the fact is that there are people who act/think alike and follow the same ideologies that contribute to who we are as humans and a society and can coincide with how we act, what we do, who we talk to, etc. Albeit, these are human taught classifications and not really something we were born with.
They know what each classification responds to, what they want to hear, what they like/don't like, what they forget, what their interests are, what they buy into, etc. For federal-level politicians, the trick is how to say what you need to say or do what you need to do to a particular group or figure out a way to say something that appeals to multiple classifications, and do it without the other group(s) knowing/hearing about it (assume we would call this being politically correct? - no clue why political correctness even exists)... and this is not very easily done anymore with the creation of the internet and technology in general (mobile phones, video cameras, etc) that catch everything anyone is saying about anything...but its not entirely impossible. Assuming they were not able to bribe there way out of the situation, the strategy right now when you get caught in a situation like this seems to be to apologize, disappear for a while, then come back. (because they know we typically 'forget', based on the aforementioned studies) I assume they will ultimately achieve some type of internet regulations or government oversight to control what information goes 'viral' and what information may be deemed a threat to national security.
For me, if you believe they have knowledge about people and have ways of accessing it... it is scary to think what government developers/hackers could do with a dataset of information like this. Does a database like this exist would be the question (or is it being created)... and where would you put that much information? Who knows... maybe in the new 'spy center' complex that has been established by the NSA to house data/information/servers that will be linked to all of the intelligence 'listening posts' around the world. With four 25,000 sq. feet halls with wall-to-wall rows/racks of servers, you don't really think they are only listening and data mining stuff that is related to terrorism or national security, do you?
So, is the USA debt repayable? It doesn't matter... we are all doomed
I feel like I have slipped passed the line of a rational individual to a conspiracy theorist. I am going to go crawl into a cave now...
I just want to re-quote my post from last month... maybe, at least, the last paragraph has more meaning now?