During this latest calamity that the United States is facing with the debt ceiling, I’ve noticed some very interesting comments coming out of the right wing. Now they are convinced that the debt ceiling is no big deal. I’ve heard comments like “the debt ceiling, it’s no big deal; we’ve got the money to pay the bills.” I heard this last night on Real Time with Bill Maher and the person who said it was Carol Roth, an economist who should know better.
The worst part about this is the politicians who are in a position to decide and have the power to choose, think the exact same thing. Are these people out of their minds? So what if the United States have the money to pay the bills, you and I might have the money to pay a credit card bill in the bank but if we exceed our credit limit and don’t pay down the debt, guess what? Our credit score suffers just as it did in 2011 when Standard & Poor’s downgraded US government debt for the first time in over 200 hundred years.
There is a certain sense of responsibility when you call yourself the biggest and greatest. The world looks to you for leadership and if you default, what does that say for the rest of the globe? The mindset would be “if this can happen in the US, it could happen anywhere.” Do these people understand the message they are sending if the debt ceiling is hit and there’s no agreement? Do they understand what will happen to capital markets if this occurs? The United States Dollar is the reserve currency of the world. All one has to do is to look at a chart of the USD on any given day and then compare that to all other global currency. I would venture to say that it the USD is trading higher, and then most other currencies will probably be trading lower and vice-versa.
Many years ago I attended a week long sales training course, I believe it was called Power Based Selling and it was put out by Heimann-Miller. It was really more about sales phycology as opposed to anything else. In it they defined four different types of people: Consciously Competent (CC), Consciously Incompetent (CI), Unconsciously Incompetent (UI) and Unconsciously Competent (UC). Most people fall into the category of Consciously Incompetent meaning that they know what their shortfalls are and strive to improve upon them. Consciously Competent are in essence the egomaniacs of the planet as they believe they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread and wonder why the rest of the globe isn’t like them? The Tea Party wing of the GOP falls into the category of Unconsciously Incompetent as I don’t think they’re quite aware of just how incompetent they really are! These folks won’t listen to experts in any given field. Global warming? You mean listen to scientists? No, can’t do that. Economists on global economics? No, most of those people aren’t Americans.
Now I happen to know some folks who are bi-polar and it really is a terrible disorder. I know a 19 year old who got thrown out a university because he couldn’t agree with his fellow classmates on anything. Especially on a Friday night when these kids want to drink beer and party (aah the good ole days). Yet they were “wrong” and he was right. He next tried to get into a major state college in the Garden State but was told his grades weren’t good enough (this particular college wants A’s or B’s; not C’s or D’s). Yet they’re wrong and he’s right.
Some of these folks in the GOP are so adamant about principle that they will not budge on anything and they aren’t concerned that they may well drive the US and eventually the global economies into a recession. Their latest ploy? Raise the debt ceiling and let’s talk about cutting Medicare and Social security. Time will tell how this all plays out but the clock is ticking and we only have 4 days left…
Further reading: Central bank intervention can’t be far off as US debt talks stall