Debt-ceiling debacle

Well, the Septics have got to be thankful that there's hardly anywhere else in the developed world that looks a safer bet for stashing large amounts of loot at low risk right now.

Still, the fact that there was in the end considerable bi-partisan support in both houses for welcoming catastrophe with wide-open arms, means that nobody outside the US will have watched this artificial crisis without drawing some obvious conclusions about that nation's long-term reliability as a safe haven, let alone as the de-facto leader-by-example of the global economic system.

Whether or not the ratings agencies have the cojones to do anything about it is another matter. The long-term issue of national indebtedness won't go away until the Bush tax cuts are reversed out and a very serious look is taken at other entitlements paid for at the Federal level. Let's not mention all the overseas empire not-building.

Obama got caught out. He did nothing when he controlled Congress and before it filled up with delusional loons from the Tea Party. Their cultist approach to the constitution is perhaps little more than sublimated racism, but in times of worldwide insecurity it's really not ideal to have that many apocalyptically-inclined politicians in a position to make (or break) the key practical decisions facing humanity right now.

They know the President is by nature inclined to doing deals and doesn't quite know how to handle people who will go all the way for their belief in the counter-factual.

Should he get a second term, Obama has to hope that the American electorate will have figured out the difference between fact and opinion and will have extirpated these extremists from their bridgehead in Washington.