No Roses, Very Little Sunshine

Just a gentle reminder, dear readers, of the global economic scenario should we reach Friday with no debt ceiling deal.

Three of the world's most powerful bankers warned of terrible consequences if the United States defaults on its debt, with Deutsche Bank chief executive Anshu Jain claiming default would be "utterly catastrophic." 

"This would be a very rapidly spreading, fatal disease," Jain said on Saturday at a conference hosted by the Institute of International Finance in Washington. 

"I have no recommendations for this audience...about putting band aids on a gaping wound," he said.

Jain, JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon and Baudouin Prot, chairman of BNP Paribas, said a default would have dramatic consequences on the value of U.S. debt and the dollar, and likely would plunge the world into another recession.

Wall Street is scared, people.  The Masters of the Universe are now in panic preparation mode.  If the rest of the world has decided that America is an insane ungovernable mess due to the GOP, they will take action to save themselves, and leave us holding the anvil in the middle of the deep end.

Here's my current theory:  the GOP is going to default at this point and is waiting for President Obama to use the 14th Amendment to suspend the debt ceiling on executive order, setting up what the GOP hopes is a Constitutional crisis and grounds for impeachment, or a SCOTUS slapdown of the President, or both. Suddenly you'll have Republican after Republican warning of "tyrant Obama" and things will rapidly devolve, and they may very well get violent, if not deadly.  Suddenly the GOP shutdown is no longer the issue, but a "lawless President who must be removed from office."

This is what the GOP is hoping for.  President Obama is smarter than this, and we'll see how he handles these clowns.