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But why did the US lose their AAA rating? It has nothing to do with how much debt we have. It has far more to do with a non-functioning congress that simply decided it wasn't going to pay it. As has been said several times in this thread, it's political, not about the numbers themselves.

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Ignoring sanctions the US has not defaulted on its debt since the 70s. Those periods where a new budget has not been approved resulted in the US being late to fulfill invoices but all of the coupons on the bonds still went out.

If that didn't happen a lot more than just the government's credit would unwind. That's the primary reason debt is still purchased despite the obvious fact that it will never be repaid.

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