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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Debt Ceiling: Could A Deal Cost The Economy A Million Jobs?

There has been a lot written about what would happen if the government doesn't end up raising the debt limit. My colleague Alex Altman perhaps puts it best in this Swampland post, when he says:

On one side, the Obama Administration, Capitol Hill Democrats, Wall Street whizzes and budget experts have been wearing out their thesauruses looking up new words for “catastrophe” as they try to explain to the public that failing to raise the $14.3 trillion federal debt limit by Aug. 2 would result in a radically different country on Aug. 3.

And over at Moneyland, Josh Sanburn has dug a little deeper to explain what a debt default would feel like for the average American. The effects on the stock market might be temporary - a drop followed by a rebound when a deal is struck. Mortgage rates, though, would be likely to rise and stay there even after an eventual deal, which, all things being equal, is likely to keep housing prices depressed.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, If it does, then there's about 4 million federal employees to choose from, and another 16 million state and local ones. cutting half those positions would stop the "debt clock'.. I was playing with it today! Problem solved.