In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, Mike Campbell, a jaded war veteran and inveterate drunk, is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” he replies. “Gradually and then suddenly”.

America’s government – like Mike, no stranger to serial binges and futile wars – is on its own way to bankruptcy. We have lived through the gradual part. Under the next few presidential administrations, the national debt will mushroom beyond the government’s ability to service it, perhaps even beyond the credulity of the country’s creditors. In the coming years expect dollar debasement, debt restructuring or both.

The Economist