This is such an obvious question. Yet how many people on CNBC or MSNBC have ever answered it for you? You are left to assume that the US is such an incredibly efficient and hard working nation, that everyone trusts us to pay that debt off at some point in the future…. Right? Anyone? Bueller? (Ferris Beuhler’s Day Off reference for our non-US readers).

June 6, 2011, 1400 PDT, SEBASTOPOL – Rarely will you see CNN Money post a story that tells unvarnished truth without spin. But since the subject was Meredith Whitney, her side was going to get told. Collapsenet members will know that over the course of the last year we diligently documented, analyzed and forecast the budget crises that are now enveloping the states.