CAROL ROTH: America’s financial position is so bad it’s now a national security threat.

The IMF has come out explicitly and reinforced what its analysis has shown implicitly for quite some time: the current financial position of the U.S. is unsustainable. This shouldn’t be a surprise, as this has been echoed by analysis from the Treasury, the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) and just about anyone not detached from reality.

This unsustainability creates not only an economic security issue for the U.S., but a national security issue as well.

After exploding the already massive size of government another 40+% over the past four years, public debt to GDP is again at levels exceeding 120%. For context, the IMF and others have noted in the past that a sovereign balance sheet becomes unwieldy at around 70-80% debt to GDP.

If the U.S. were an emerging market, such a balance sheet would likely cause a currency crisis.

There’s a lot of ruin in a nation and Washington seems determined to find out exactly how much.