Doug Casey: The situation is completely and irredeemably out of control. It's a farce. Quite laughable, except for the fact it's so deadly serious.

Can they reduce the debt ceiling or the amount of debt? Or even slow down its growth at this point? No.

The situation is beyond redemption because most US government expenditures go to pay entitlements—Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and numerous other types of welfare.

Those things will be very hard to cut at this point; breaking the doggy dishes of millions of corrupted Americans would cause unrest. Plus, the so-called "defense" budget, which mostly supports the military/industrial complex while fomenting conflict. It's actually much larger than disclosed because it should include $50 billion of foreign aid, the cost of running outrageously large embassies over the world, the CIA, and black budgets of all types.