Panic

The word "panic" is making it's way to the headlines as the date of a U.S. default draws closer.

US debt crisis: Republicans abandon vote as panic grows

Mr Boehner and other party leaders had delayed the vote for more than four hours as they tried to twist arms, but gave up at around 10pm when it became clear they could not muster the necessary 217 votes from the 240 members in the Republican caucus.

Congress now only has four days to meet a deadline set by Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, to raise the national borrowing limit or risk defaulting on loans or failing to make millions of routine payments to Americans. 

See it here;  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/8669681/US-debt-crisis-Republicans-abandon-vote-as-panic-grows.html

It's interesting to listen to the talking heads on the news repeat the plea; "Why doesn't Congress just get together and compromise so we can fix this thing and move on!"

That plea is so simplistic...it's almost comical.

Let's say I had a client come to me and tell me he has $40,000 per year of take home pay and his problem is that he has rung up about $80,000 on credit cards.  He wants to know what the solution is...and he is hoping I will give him a simple answer so that he can move on with his life.  He tells me that the simple solution would be to go to his credit card company and ask them to increase his credit limit to $100,000....so that he would then have $20,000 more to draw on so that he can continue making the payments to them on the $80,000 he already owes! 

The bank says, "no" they will not increase his limit because they aren't sure they want to throw more money into what is already appearing to be a bad situation.

The client then says to me, "I don't know why the credit card company is being so difficult...why don't they just compromise with me so they we can put this whole thing behind us and carry on with life!"

Silly.

Friends I don't know the answer...and I getting more convinced all the time that there simply ISN'T an answer.  We appear to be standing at the edge of the abyss without any way of moving left, right or stepping back.  The only way we can move is forward...and the abyss is a long way down.

Is it possible that if we step off the abyss we will land in water below and survive?  Of course it is...but that first step off is a big one and quite simply we are standing in uncharted territory.  No one knows if we will land in water, land on the beach, land on an air mattress someone left on the beach...or crash into the jagged rocks and be smashed to bits.