Imagine a conversation taking place in a financial advisor’s office last week. A worried couple looks anxiously around, because the conversation is about the economy.
 They just asked a question that hangs in the air: “They can’t be that stupid—can they?”
 And for all the reassurances that Congress will eventually raise the national debt so the U.S. government won’t default on its financial obligations, nobody could say that no, it absolutely won’t happen.