Countries rarely default, at least not under the basic understanding of the term. If you or I ca n't pay our bills and creditors come calling, eventually we can declare bankruptcy and painfully move on. Most of our creditors get little or nothing back. And companies to do it all the time -- indeed, it seems a matter of course for U.S. airlines. But countries do n't really go bankrupt. They choose to stop paying, one way or another. The difference ? Countries get new tax payers every day. They are born or they migrate. Countries can not become insolvent. They stop paying to save money. READ MORE: Nine things we missed during the shutdown How do they choose to default ? Politicians can flirt with financial suicide, as some members of the U.S. Congress are fond of doing. But let's be clear, the U.S. was not going to default. The showdown was just politics. The United States has enormous credibility and is at no risk of default, Anne Pettifor, of Prime Economics, told me. In my view there is no possibility whatsoever of the USA defaulting on its debt. So, the USA can not really default, thanks in part to a strong Federal Reserve and international creditors still wanting to buy its bonds, no matter how low the interest rate falls. But other countries have chosen to default, at least in theory. From Argentina to Russia to North Korea, countries have stopped paying the interest or