debt ceiling

There is a lot of love being spread around for the GOP in the political threads ATM because of the shutdown. However, I am curious about the economics of how this will play out. What sort of services will be affected (apparently visa seekers are going to have problems) and how this will play...

For discussing news about the approaching debt ceiling. Looks like the can may be kicked a little bit further down the road: GOP Weighs Short Debt-Limit Rise (Wall Street Journal)

I've been seeing a good bit of buzz lately about the idea of the US Treasury minting a $1 trillion platinum coin as a means of circumventing the debt ceiling debates. The White House even has a petition about it...

How does this country deal with, or even survive an influx of kooks into the halls of power? You know, the ones who refuse to believe the warnings from every single credible source that failing to raise the debt ceiling would be catastrophic for the U.S. and global economy. I respect anyone...

Instead of working on serious plans to deal with our deficit and the debt hike, the GOP is playing games. Raising the debt limit has often been a political tug of war, but rational cooler heads have always prevailed. The wild card now is the Tea Party, where "rational" and "cooler heads" goes...

Republicans want to make a constitutional amendment a condition for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling. This constitutional amendment would cap government spending at 18% of GDP (which has never been done since 1966, and even Paul Ryan's "radical right-wing social engineering" wouldn't qualify)...

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the bonds in the SS trust fund already counted in the debt? "Intragovernmental holdings"? I'm well aware of the intermediate and long-term issues with the social security system but it would appear that we can run the SS system for several years...

My understanding is that a lot of people have no idea what exactly would happen if the debt ceiling is not raised. Read an article a week ago saying that computers make something like 3 million (or billion) payments each day, and you couldn't stop them if you tried. The elite consensus seems to...

"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." so, if the debts are valid, is having a "ceiling" on them valid? No matter...

Seems the little drongo might actually make money if the debtr cieling is not raised and the government goes into default. http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/27/eric_cantor_conflict_of_interest I don't fully understand how this sort of financial wheeling-and-dealing works, but...

I am of the opinion that the Tea Party is just a rebranding of a typical sort of populism on the right that pops up every now and again. When push comes to shove, they will fall in line with what the Republican bosses say. If that's wrong, here is an important test...

Are you annoyed like me that house republicans might use the threat of not raising the debt ceiling to extract concessions from the president and senate just as they did recently with the CR for 2011? Well, democrats had a golden opportunity to do something about before the last congress ended...