I bet our leaders are real glad this isn't Greece or the masses would be at their doors demanding their heads ... and they should be.
As of this writing, the stock market has seen a six day sell off. Earlier in the week Wall Street's movers and shakers were saying "don't worry," and I was saying that when that was said was the time to worry, and investors did. Six days of pulling money out of the stock market because they fear Washington won't reach an agreement. Others are confident a deal will be reached. Why they are this confident is unknown. What they base this on other than ignorance and fear is also unknown. But let's pretend for a moment a deal is reached (and one may be, but I see no solid evidence of that happening and neither do investors), in some ways it really doesn't matter.
If a deal is reached by Tuesday, America gets to keep paying its bills. Forty percent of its bills are paid for by credit, so that 40% will be solid. In other words, your grandmother keeps getting her Social Security checks, the VA doesn't shut down, soldiers will get paid, doctors who accept Medicaid will be reimbursed. If a deal isn't reached, all of those things are up in the air and more. But if a deal is reached, the stock market has already declined, a slowly growing economy is growing even more slowly, and it looks like America's credit rating will still take a hit because the people elected (mainly Tea Party Parrots whose negotiating skills are learned directly from children, and Republicans who let their closet racism get in the way) decided to play bullshit games with something the rest of the world finds very important, particularly one of our biggest lenders, China. If the credit rating is lowered, interests rates go up. That only really effects people who have things like credit cards, or are buying a house, or sending a kid to college, or are borrowing money.
Ignorance and faith are keeping people from storming the gates, but they aren't keeping people from pulling their investments and buying gold and silver. Maybe when their credit cards skyrocket and their retirement disappears they'll care, but by then it will be too late, and those people who said everything will work out (they were so sure) will say, "What the fuck happened?" The writing is on the wall, and if the debt ceiling is raised for a short six-month term, we're going to face this all over again in an election period. If things are this difficult now, imagine how bad they will be then.
California, in a rare step of forward thinking, has borrowed five billion plus dollars to offset the financial crisis that will arise if the government defaults. California rarely does anything on time or with long term planning. This time, however, it has, and it could save our schools from closure and those on Medi-Cal from being denied services. I have not seen reports of other states doing this. Maybe they are part of the group that believes all will be well come August 3, the day after an agreement must be reached.
I don't have a crystal ball to see into the future. I know the debt ceiling debate has never reached this point before. I don't expect the leaders to make everything all right because I don't have faith in them. I'm also not ignoring this very important subject. I've been watching it like a hawk because it will effect my life. I'll leave ignorance and faith to the ignorant and delusional. When the banks limit your withdrawals and your credit card bills suddenly take 200 years to pay off, you can get mad. In the meantime, though, continue watching reality TV. That "reality" seems much better than what is playing out in Washington.
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