Unlike Greece or some of the other weakened eurozone states, the US is not facing default because of its inability to pay. Its overall debt levels are manageable, at least in the short term. The explanation for the crisis is purely political – the Republican-controlled House of Representatives refuses to increase the debt ceiling. This is economic illiteracy of the highest degree: because the limit is an arbitrary figure, it takes no account of the size, health or spending demands of the economy. The figure which policy-makers plucked out of the sky in 1917 when they first devised this wheeze was $5 billion, which is enough to fund today’s US military apparatus for all of three days.