It Befell in the Days of Uther Pendragon...

...when he was king of all England and so reigned, that there was a mighty Duke of Cornwall who held war against him long time. And the Duke was called the Duke of Tintagel.

Or let us put it in modern terms:

Geithner confesses the desperate nature of the situation. The government is broke. Geithner fears the world knows this when he says: "Suppose we have an auction and no one shows up?" Geithner knows that we cannot finance our deficits using traditional credit markets. The deficits are too large and the government has no credibility regarding the required spending cuts. Geithner was admitting that markets would not allow the US government to continue its profligate ways. That admission is major news[.]

Is it? It was, for Uther, that which destroyed his life and his kingdom: a duke who could not be brought to order. In our case, the rest of the world, expressing itself in financial markets, may be unwilling to continue to underwrite the order. Can we make peace, or can we not? Nothing rests on the question except the whole world.