"Who owns U.S. debt? Some $2.4 trillion of the $4.7 trillion held privately is owned by foreign investors. Japan holds about $600 billion, or 24 percent; while China's share is $500 billion, or about 20 percent. Britain, Brazil and the oil-exporting countries own about 6 percent.

"Middle East and Russian holdings of U.S. debt may, in fact, be higher. Because these nations might seek to avoid disclosure, Belgium, Caribbean banking centers and Luxembourg ”which represent 8 percent” may actually be vehicles for their investments.

"The seriousness of the country's rising national debt is compounded by the projected 2008 budget deficit of $380 billion ”more than 2 percent of GDP; and the current account deficit that is is expected to exceed $700 billion this year” more than 4 percent of GDP.

"The U.S. financial system has been badly affected by losses on subprime mortgages and the credit crunch. Losses are already in excess of $300 billion. The banking system needs additional capital, despite having raised more than $200 billion so far. The U.S. government has engineered the sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase, nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, bailed out the insurance giant American International Group and announced a plan to buy bad loans tied to the housing market made by banks. The Federal Reserve has provided almost $500 billion to support the financial system, and the cost of the plan to buy back banks' bad loans is pegged at $700 billion.

"The result of all this is that glabal confidence in U.S. financial markets has greatly suffered. The largely unregulated growth of securitisation and off-balance-sheet vehicles -“ the shadow banking" system - “now threatens the financial system and perplexes many foreign observers. Byzantine U.S. accounting practices ”off-balance sheet debt, mark-to-market requirements and derivative accounting” and the failures of the rating agencies, basically a U.S. phenomenon, have also undercut investor confidence here and abroad.

"Yet lenders to the U.S. government have suffered significant financial losses. Not from nonpayment of interest or principal, but because the currency in which the debt is serviced and paid back ”the dollar” has lost substantial value relative to other currencies.

"Consider a Japanese investor who bought 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds in 1985, when the exchange rate was $1 = 250 yen. Based on the current exchange rate of $1 = 105 yen, the value of the investment has dropped 58 percent. European investors who bought U.S. government bonds in recent years suffered similar financial losses. If they bought U.S. bonds when the exchange rate was 1 euro = $ 0.85, their investment would have lost 46 percent of its value with today's exchange rate of 1 euro = $1.56.

"Such losses to foreign buyers because of the dollar's declining value are not that unusual. What's scary for these investors is that these kinds of losses are tantamount to default. Is Washington effectively defaulting on its debt obligations by refusing to defend the dollar? Even today, when the dollar fell around the globe as news of the proposed $700-billion Wall Street bailout spread through the world markets, Washington did nothing.

"On Oct. 30, 1938, the weekly radio program Mercury Theatre aired "The War of the Worlds." As adapted from H.G. Welles' novel and directed by Orson Welles, the effect was stunning. The broadcast's first half was presented as a series of dramatic news bulletins about a Martian invasion. Many listeners who had missed, or ignored, the opening credits assumed that the invasion was real. Local police were swamped by phone calls from panicky listeners. Some people fled their homes.

"The financial equivalent of this broadcast today would be: 'We interrupt regular programming to announce that the United States of America has defaulted on its debt" But, unfortunately, this would be no fantasy news event.' "

The Bush administration has turned this nation into a debt ridden third world country.

And impeachment is still off the table.