US Treasury default in the near future?

In today's Wall Street Journal these market statistics are being reported.....

Yet CMA DataVision calculates that professional investors with real money in the game still think there is a 3% or so chance that the U.S. might default within five years. And that 0.34% annual insurance cost is pretty hefty compared to the gross yield on five-year Treasury bonds, right now just 2.1% a year.

From here.

So, basically, one has to pay about 15% of the treasury bond yield of around 2.1% as insurance against default, in other words pay a hefty price as insurance against losses on principal. The reason why there is a concern on default is that modern governments no longer have the option to inflate out of their financial problems. Inflation used to provide an ability to reduce the expenses of excessive debt if an indebted government could create inflation. This can still be done, but bond markets are onto that trick these days and as a tool of sleazy governments to reduce their obligations is one that has become ineffective. At the first sign of inflationary problems, interest rates will rise dramatically to compensate for that inflation or the risk of inflation which will make refinancing this debt prohibitively expensive. As a result of inflation, the government will be faced with huge interest bills and a soft economy in which they are expected to take resources from to pay the increased interest and debt.

Good luck. Its not going to be much fun.