CNN: FORTUNE -- A few weeks ago, Hedgeye, the investment research firm where I'm a managing director, hosted a conference call for our subscribers that posed the question, "Should U.S. Government Debt Be Rated Junk Status?" Given that debt issued by the U.S. government continues to trade at almost all-time lows in yield, this is a contrarian call to say the least.

But while investors are willing to accept little in the way of return to own U.S. government debt and the U.S. has retained its AAA credit rating, the metrics by which we use to evaluate the balance sheet of the United States continue to deteriorate.

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