[floxy]

Aren't there plenty of countries which aren't exactly super-stable anyway? Might not take much to have select countries pushed over the edge. Especially if you have territorial disputes with neighboring countries looking to take advantage. For the U.S., what if Social Security payments suddenly stopped for 6 months? What if the U.S. lost records of Treasury Bills, and they couldn't be redeemed for a while? What if electricity went out for 30% of the population for three months? I would think it pretty cold comfort that the government didn't topple, because the next election results were a mix of democrats and republicans.