Banana Republic

Separately, both Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Roach, two leading American economists with differing views on the Chinese domestic economy have pointed out the concern China has with the dysfunctional US political system. Increasingly, the…

Treasuries are more expensive to use as collateral for the borrowing that banks do in the ordinary course of business.

Here’s what Germany’s largest daily newspaper Bild Zeitung has to say about the politics in the US around the debt ceiling.

If you were reading the newspaper back in May, you might have seen a small reference to a statement from Treasury Secretary Geithner to the effect that he could delay the day of reckoning until August. You probably didn't see any specifics,…

This comes from the Washington post: Since 1980, the debt ceiling has been raised 39 times. It was raised 17 times under Ronald Reagan, four times under Bill Clinton and seven times under George W. Bush. Congress is currently in a…

If Cantor doesn’t fold his hand, it will be a political disaster for him and his party and economic disaster for the global economy.

Below is the text from the letter from US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to Congress via Harry S. Reid, Majority Leader of the Senate, informing Reid that the debt ceiling has been breached.

Former US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill calls the people advocating brinkmanship on the debt ceiling deficit "terrorists". The United States looks more and more like a banana republic every day. If S&P wants a reason to downgrade the…

A sovereign nation that issues debt in its own fiat currency cannot default involuntarily. Again, this is the Ecuador risk factor, defaulting for purely political reasons, not because of the inability to pay. It is not clear whether there…

The U.S. narrowly avoided a federal government shutdown this past weekend. While President Obama has hailed the compromise which allowed the government to continue to function, it is already clear that more shutdown battles are coming very…