>"That might be relevant if someone on the thread had claimed such a thing."

It's extremely relevant to the argument at hand.

In case you didn't read the article, it's about Detroit going bankrupt, to which other commentators have drawn an analogy to the country that makes no sense. That's what we're talking about here.

But I'm glad you feel good pride in finding something tangential to the real topic so you can say, "Nuh-uh! You're wrong!". Yes, we can decide tomorrow to cease paying interest on our public debt, which would put us into default. Brownie points for you.

No, the analogy being drawn between Detroit and the USA is that they both have shit-loads of debt.

Of course the feds would inflate debt away with QE rather than defaulting. The real tangent is to claim that this makes such a world of difference that we don't need to worry about the federal debt.

BTW: Although your statement that "the federal government cannot default" was literally false, my response to it was overly pedantic.

Just clarifying. There are many that believe that the US can be forced to default. I didn't mean to imply that you were one of them.