All this talk of financial armageddon if the debt ceiling isn't raised sounds eerily familiar

Where have we heard this talk before? 2008 anybody?

Wall Street obviously wants the ceiling to be raised. If Uncle Sam defaults on it's debt, those Wall Street bond holders don't get paid. What a pity.

Now the Republicans are demanding cuts to social services. Let's not give into them and see what happens. Their buddies on Wall Street won't get paid. That's why Wall Street is making a big stink.

I don't know about you, but I say fuck it. Let the bitch burn. Maybe it's the only way to get real structural reform.

No one in their right mind should want this to happen. Thats why there will be agreement and it will be raised.

My wife & I are not among them.

Then you are among them.

We took a long, hard look at the state of our economy, and the politicians we have elected to "solve" the problems, and then made the decision to protect ourselves.
We disembarked from the Titanic in 2006 when the Captain turned into a known ice field.
Bon Voyage!

Will raising the debt ceiling solve the problem?...

or merely postpone the inevitable while we pray for a miracle solution?

:sarcasm:

would be very bad for everyone, not just wall street. It could drive us into a depression much worst then the "Great" depression.

Real unemployment is much higher than the BLS bullshit statistics. Rising food and energy costs are making the middle class even poorer. We're growing jobs at a snails pace and the only people benefiting from increased GDP are the wealthy.

We are no where near great depression levels.

The Labor force participation rate is currently at a 25 year low. People have left the workforce because there are no jobs. The economy is in shambles.

number by 2.3 and that was before Clinton arbitrarily changed the methodology. That change in methodology may have contributed to the resignation of Robert Reich as Secretary of Labor. Just speculation on my part.

50% only in certain places in certain populations.

Know what? We've got 50% in certain places and certain populations today. The REAL unemployment rate is somewhere around 16-17%, not the 9% they're telling us.

The only difference, that keeps it from being in-your-face obvious is the remnants of the safety net, so we have food stamps and government food banks instead of soup kitchens. The homeless rate is, if anything, HIGHER than it was in the Great Depression.

And the real kicker is, our factories are not simply shuttered - they've been shipped overseas. It is not just a matter of regaining a balance in the economy, giving people jobs and people start buying again. And instead of 25% of the country living on farms (my mom's folks had almost no money for years, but always had food), today that is below 5% - there is greater food insecurity today than there was then.

We are VERY near Great Depression levels.

it is true there are a lot of applicants for the jobs (except experienced ABAP developer for some reason ... unless you count H1Bs).

But there wouldn't even be a job for those applicants to compete for if we were in a depression.

Our actual unemployment rate, calculated in the same way that it was calculated in the Great Depression, is 35%.

The GD topped out at 33%.

kidding.

.....and like in the story, the wolf really is attacking.

Hitting the ceiling would be a disaster, not just for Wall Street, but world wide.

The real question is, will the Dems let the Repubs play chicken with it again? Or will they tell them to just STFU and have the vote.

The corporate masters will not allow this to happen.

We will default sooner or later, unless we hyperinflate the currency instead. I'd prefer to have them keep the wheels on the economy a while longer though before it falls to shit. So how bout we do raise the debt ceiling again so we can all keep pretending we're gonna be alright for a while longer.

www.davidjamesfrancis.com

It is exactly like the end of the world talk we heard at the end of 2008. That ended up in trillions of dollars being stolen by the banksters and they same crowd is crying the same tune now.

The only difference is that the resulting recession would make the one we're in now look like the 90s. If you want to end Medicare and SS, defaulting on our debt would certainly be a way to do it.

What credentials do you bring to the table?

I was just giving my opinion about the debt ceiling.