We were actually so irresponsible that China will shoot itself in the foot and work towards abandoning the US Dollar as a reserve currency. They are pushing for an IMF sponsored reserve currency to have a more prominent place in the world markets.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7851925a-17a2-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac.html
This isn't necessarily bad. So long as the IMF is not allowed to peg the currency it could help a great deal. US exports to China would boom and imports would slow. What alarms be about it, is that we have spent so damn much money without a plan that the Chinese have decided they shouldn't loan us much more money.
Funny how the government is really OF the people. Both groups have more resources than any other nation and both spend all of that and more. And it has come back to bite both groups in the donkey.
It will be a good and a bad thing really, just kind of a smack in the face. Not too mention, that frees up about $400,000,000,000 in Tbill annual. If no one buys 'em, the nation is broke. This means the cost of lending just went WAY up. Those variable rates are a real grumble.