Even the federal government has flirted with debt crises, in 1995 and, more dramatically, in 2011, when it came within forty-eight hours of a technical default on its interest payments. In that second crisis, three agencies issued warnings about American credit, with Standard & Poor’s actually cutting its rating of US Treasuries for the first time.14 Yet another debt crisis emerged, on the same lines, in 2013. Although these were major events at the time, people quickly forgot.
