instead of the word debt because they may just agree with them that there wouldn't actually be a debt default. >> it is unclear, we literally don't know what would happen because it never happened bef e before. so a legal authority is not all obvious. so there is a question, for the treasury department, to decide if we pay off the bond holders, but not our medicare bills. we're going to pay back the banks, but not china, or social security checks. that being a legal question. the political optics of republican s forcing the countr into paying japan before china, is dubious. the second question is if the computer systems can do that. obviously, we computerize the checks going out, we're sending about 100 million of them -- march, 100 million. so we don't know if we can re-program the computer systems