If you didn't know Trump's skull is frighteningly empty

Josh Marshall reports.

Trump proposes US default on its debt.

On CNBC this morning Trump suggested that one strategy he'll use for reducing the national debt is having bond holders accept "haircuts". 

To be clear what that means, he'll try to get people who own US Treasury bonds and are owed X to accept X/2, or some reduced amount of what they are owed.

That's called defaulting on a debt obligation.

. . . .

It is not too much to say that centuries of American prosperity have been undergirded by the "full faith and credit of the United States." 

In other words, the US always pays its debts in full and on time. 

Indeed, it's black letter text in the US constitution that the country's debt can never even be questioned. 

Defaulting on the national debt would clearly be unconstitutional.

That's the constitution part, which is a weighty matter. 

But the entire architecture of the global economy and the United States place in it rests on the certainty and basic risklessness of US government debt obligations. 

. . . .

To be clear, this will never happen. 

But the fact that Trump is proposing it shows that when it comes to macro-economics and global economics Trump is a huge ignoramus who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the US Treasury.

Yet another reason, if one were needed, why the process needs to keep amateurs contemptuous of politics and our political institutions away from the levers of power.

But need I mention the idea has defenders, some of whom have urged it for some time?

Jesus, pick an idea, any idea; it has defenders.

Greece? Puerto Rico? Argentina?

Really?