What Happens If The Debt Ceiling Isn't Raised?

It's tempting to move poly ticks to generally disgusting, but this stuff clearly ties in with PM.

Honestly it wouldnt surprise me if they did sell it to some country for some oil, nothing Washington does suprises me anymore. I'm just waiting til the empire collapses and buying as much silver; hopefully some gold, as I can til it happens.

I agree! Re-election is a disincentive to doing what needs to be done.

Moody's and S&P are jokes with regards to their grading. Aren't they the same services that rated Credit Default Swaps as a AAA investment? Give me a break, please, just one. They just predicted on CNBC that Boehner's plan has about a zero percent chance of passing. I know that a lot of people are all over the president for all of the budget problems but they've been out of control ever since 9-11. I am not a big fan of the president but he inherited a heck of a mess from the previous administration. I just don't see how gold investment can lose as bad as everything is going, but I just have a sneaking feeling that the Fed and the Treasury are going to find.a way to put the screws to those of us who are trying to find a way to cover our rear ends. Does anyon know if that $600 trigger for 1099 reporting made it into law or not? If it is law it's going to be crazy filing a 1099 every time we sell something.

I think the $600 ,1099 issue was repealed. Even if it wasn't you can sell to individuals and not have to worry about it(barter and/or trade work well also).

The debt ceiling will be raised. All that's going on in Washington right now is that the parties are wrangling around trying to make the other look as bad as possible.

I personally wish it wouldn't be raised. I wish the government had to live within its means like the rest of us do. It's been said before in this thread but it bears repeating: If the debt ceiling isn't raised the government will still be able to pay Social Security, entitlements, military salaries, etc. There's no way Congress will cut off those funds, that means they might get voted out of office in 2012 and then they might have to go out and do productive work for a change.

Don't forget the food, water, medical, and ammo supplies.



Yep, repealed, signed, sealed, and delivered. This was a dumb idea from the start but at least the politicians were able to figure that out once they heard from an enraged nation about it. As soon as they saw which way the crowd was going, they got out in front of it "to lead". :-/



Same here. So many of the government officials and politicians are saying that it will be the end of life as we know it if the government has to live within its means for once. My thought is that if 300 million Americans can do that, then so can their government.

Actually, the congress has a terrible problem right now and it is one of which they are completely unaware. They "don't get it" as far as government waste and spending go... but the American people DO... and we WILL hold them accountable for this mess and their incompetent handling of it. They are acting as if they MUST spend to get re-elected. NO! They MUST stop the spending madness if they wish to get re-elected! This is THE issue facing this country and many Americans are well aware of it. All of the politicians who are supporting inaction and business as usual via these insignificant spending cuts are VERY unlikely to get re-elected in 2012, IMHO.



I don't think that many are making light of the situation as much as we are making light of the light-weights who are pretending to address a VERY serious problem. Their dog and pony show is not fooling anyone with an IQ above room temp. America today is like an accident victim who has arterial bleeding and the politicians are trying to put a few 1/2" band-aids here and there to "solve" the problem. These not only will not work, they cannot work... and the majority of voters in the US are very well aware of it. Somehow, though, congress does not seem to be aware of it and is content to tinker here and there instead of getting a serious solution drafted, passed, and signed.



The market has already factored a debt downgrade into debt prices, so the actual event of lowering the sham AAA rating to sham AA rating (which is also too high) will be virtually a non-event in the market.



Interest rates have already been held at too low a level for too long a time. If they do not rise from this so-called credit down-grade, some other mechanism will be pushing them higher soon anyway. For those of us who have savings to invest, higher interest rates will only add a little value to our savings. Savings should be valued. They are what powers the economy by providing capital to loan to the people who produce. If government gobbles up all of the capital in the economy by borrowing it, they will spend it on non-productive things and the economy will not grow, jobs will not be created, and the depression we are now in will worsen. If we look at interest rate history, we will see that there have been MANY years in which US interest rates have been in the 4-5% range and the economy was booming. We do not need interest rates of less than 1% to have a good economy. What we need is MUCH less government in the way of productivity.

We are past the time when our greatest concern has to be those who receive the public largess. It is now time to make a maximum effort to see if this nation can be saved. Political business and spending as usual will ensure that this nation suffers a financial, political, and social collapse. The effects of that will be HUGELY worse than any proposed or actual spending cuts.



I agree, Bruce. Merely returning government spending to the 18% of GDP that we had for decades will not solve our dept problems. In fact, spending 18% of GDP is what brought us to this situation. It certainly cannot solve the very problem that it created. If the government were to live on 12% of GDP, we would have a vibrant economy AND full employment.

As to politician terms of office, I would favor ONE 6-year term per person in their life-time... and that does not mean that they can be in different offices for 6 years each. There are MANY capable people in this country who could and would serve their country for a term of office. We do not need professional politicians whose only goal in life is to live it up in the public trough.

It's too bad that the Founding Fathers never wrote into the Constitution that government must operate as a small surplus and that this surplus should go into a "rainy day fund" for emergency use only... and then carefully define the nature of what constitutes an emergency. In reality, the FF's never considered this because they probably thought that only an insane individual would even suggest running a government deficit. They never suggested term limits for the very same reason. They did their government service and then returned to their real lives, running a business or a farm. Who would ever want to spend 1 minute more in DC than was absolutely necessary?