Shutdown Countdown, Part 5

Me, two weeks ago on Tea Party Republican efforts to threaten default on the debt ceiling:

Here's the problem with this particular game of chicken:  The people that stand to lose the most here, especially from the threat of a sovereign debt default, are the investor class.  They are the ones who spent billions to get the GOP into power, and the threat of default will annihilate the bond market.  The big players, especially the hedge fund giants, stand to lose hundreds of billions from a treasury meltdown as interest rates on long bonds skyrocket and yields drop like lead elephants on gravity steroids.

They will not allow the Republicans to toss satchel charges into their cathedral of cash.

Obama can win this battle if he holds his ground.  Eric Cantor is bluffing and he knows it.  I figured it would take far longer for the Tea Party to march out onto the rope bridge and begin cutting, but they're talking about doing it within a week of winning the House.

The Republicans will get reined in on this one damn quick. Count on it.  This is not a card Cantor and the Tea Party crazies will ever, ever be allowed to use.  All Obama has to do is ask Wall Street's big boys to remind Cantor who is in charge here, and while it's not Obama, and it sure as hell isn't Eric Cantor either.

Incoming House Speaker John Boehner, yesterday:

“I’ve made it pretty clear to them that as we get into next year, it’s pretty clear that Congress is going to have to deal with this,” Mr. Boehner, who is slated to become House speaker in January, told reporters.

“We’re going to have to deal with it as adults,” he said, in what apparently are his most explicit comments to date. “Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations and we have obligations on our part.”

Called it.  Blowing up the debt ceiling and risking default?  Never, ever going to happen, people.  And Orange Julius damn well knows it.

[UPDATE]  Alan Simpson, of Simpson-Bowles Austerity Plan fame, is betting that the Republicans will indeed destroy America's economy by refusing to raise the debt limit and use it for blackmail to get "significant spending cuts", the kind of draconian cuts that Simpson recommends, of course.

[UPDATE 2] And as a matter of fact, Republicans using the debt ceiling as a hostage to force the Simpson-Bowles plan is exactly what Alan Simpson is counting on happening.