Their invested savings and IRAs are needed now to live. Stock market values shrink, stock brokerages fail, mutual funds run out of money. Public spending ceases. All service businesses such as homebuilders, computer, software and other manufacturing and sales stop. Luxury items remain unsold.
Employers keep laying off workers to stay alive.
Government employees go unpaid. It appears to replicate the Japanese recession, but worse. This debt is now in the trillions of dollars. When the other nations of the world realize we may not be able to redeem the bonds, and their money is lost, they will also go under. We will no longer be able to buy on credit.