It would be a world wide forgiveness of all debt. If China, Japan,or Germany bitches we charge them 10,000,000.00 for each US soldier lost in WW2 or the Korean War. Wars they started.
Damn right that is how wars get started. In fact, the only reason there are not 20 wars going on right now is because we all owe each other money. Has anyone thought about the 100 trillions in outstanding derivatives that are tied to the debt? Good lord. A default would essentially return us to the stone age. Martial law, etc. No, the only way out is to inflate it which we will do gradually over time. The result of that inflation will simply be a lower standard of living for everyone. It's not rocket science. And like another poster pointed out, our current account deficit is not really the problem, it's unfunded entitlements which is over 5 times our current account deficit.
So what about the wars US started? Anyway, I'll play along with your childishness for a second. Debt is not equal, this would heavily penalize countries without much debt. If debt has no meaning, you can't charge Germany, Japan, China anything - they'll laugh at those made up obligations. So are you advocating US invades all three countries, how do you rate the chances?
What's the alternative? Bankrupt trading partners that won't be able to buy their goods? It's just worthless paper anyway. Who wants to go to war over that or would be dumb enough to declare it against us? A cleaning of the slate with a guarantee of solvent nations and balanced budgets is a much better alternative to the chaos and abyss we are heading for.
Why do we invade? Our military is insurance that they don't invade us. We just tell them the slate is clear, or they can deal with a calamity that will dwarf the great depression. The path the world is on is not a childish scenario.
US will not default as that would be catastrophic. USD will keep its slide down and lose purchasing power as it has been since 2003. Higher taxes and spending cuts are coming. Even if US goes into 10% austerity mode, soon the good results will start to show up. Only 4 more years to handle to hard part in the economy as by 2017 US will not be sending $1T a year overseas to buy energy. That will take care of the debt interest. Government just needs to seek out another $1T a year of savings to pay off the debt in 16 years.
$1T a year? Sounds great but how? The deficits are rising. Obama's best solution is $1.6 T in cuts over 10 years. The raising of taxes on high enders brings in less than $100B a year.
It might not be full scale war but in your scenario there's plenty of motivation on other sides to cause serious consequences. It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has studied scenarios such as this, your view is a very naive and primitive one where the other side simply accepts the situation - hardly how things go in reality. You were saying those 3 countries would end up paying for some deaths in WW2 (relevance?) if they bitch about it. How would you enforce that if not with threat of war? Remember, debt has no meaning anymore as per the first move you suggested.
well, they might be able to work some kind of deal out with China or Japan, but the Good Lord help them if my mother doesn't get her monthly check from her Ginnie Mae fund. Kind of hard to mow down a million senior citizens marching on Washington. I kind of like that inflation idea. She's been complaining about the price of bread ever since it went above 39 cents a loaf, so it's not like it would be anything new.