Fr. Parrish

We've defaulted on American. Say that to an elite and watch the reaction. Nobody argues with it. They reach for "you can't default when you print the reserve currency," as if the only creditor that counts is a bondholder in Zurich. The Treasury will always pay its coupons. That's the trick. The default happened somewhere else: the pension a machinist was promised, the house a 28-year-old was told he'd afford, the degree sold as a ticket to the middle class, the dollar a grandmother saved that buys half of what it did. Every generation after the boomers got handed the bill and a smaller slice of the country. A government that keeps its promises to creditors and breaks them to its citizens hasn't avoided default. It picked who gets paid.