The fact that the US has just bumped up against its debt ceiling with no plan in place to raise it, on the very same day that the man in charge of the world's money was denied bail on a rape charge, may cause you what we euphemistically refer to as "the vapors," meaning "heart attacks, accompanied by wild investments in gold."

We, some random bloggers on the internet, are here to tell you: do not panic, America. Everything is going to be "okay," money-wise. Sure, it's natural to feel some uncertainty and perhaps a faint sense of unease in these times when all the world's financial markets are seized with low-level panic due to some dude's alleged sex crime. You have to understand that these things are 100% psychological. Yes, the job market feels dismal, but that's only because "a worker is about one-third as likely to find a job today as he or she was in 2006." Stop living in the past, workers.

Getting through these psychologically and monetarily challenging times means focusing on the bright side. We're never really "broke" as long as we can use people's pension money to pay our bills today, right? And hey, Americans have been shedding mortgage debt at a record pace! By defaulting!

The important thing is not what we do; it's what we don't do. And what we don't do is panic. Especially not for a Frenchman. Get over it, America. There's always something else to pawn.

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