And by commitments, I don't just mean its budget and its 16 trillion in debt. I include all the debt we took over from the banks and the bottomless pit of AIG.

And by commitments, I don't just mean its budget and its 16 trillion in debt. I include all the debt we took over from the banks and the bottomless pit of AIG. I include all the private pension funds that are insured by the government. The President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, Richard W. Fisher, painted a rather bleak picture of what our liabilities actually are when he spoke to the Commonwealth Club. Fisher said back in 2008, before the collapse of AIG, that our liabilities exceed $99 trillion. His speech is here: http://www.dallasfed.org/news/speeches/fisher/2008/fs080528.cfm Of course, we can walk away from these things or inflate our way out, but those are just different endings to the same bubble. Confidence that the bubble will not collapse is the only thing keeping this bubble from collapsing.