This doesn’t mean default, as interest on Treasury bonds, notes, and bills will be right up there with the military and NSA. If Washington defaults on its bonds, Washington’s power will be gone with the wind regardless of whether the Treasury pays the military.

Whatever the outcome, Washington has already cooked its goose. Washington’s prestige and credibility have been hammered.

China, Washington’s largest foreign creditor, has responded to Washington’s inability to govern itself with a call for a de-Americanized world. The state news agency, speaking for the Chinese government, said that the “days when the destinies of others are in the hands of a hypocritical nation have to be terminated, and a new world order should be put in place.”