The fear mongering by the political class on this is agonizing. Threats of no payments on the interest or social security is a form of mental hostage taking that is both unfounded and dishonest and makes the polticians look piggish in their demand to spend ever more of the money they (and the taxpayer) don't have. There are plenty of revenues to cover what was promised to millions of Americans that were lulled into believing that they could depend on DC to look out for their best interests. Instead the vulnerability of those depending on social programs is used like a political chip to be thrown all in to gain public support for their ever insatiable desire to spend more money on their political cronies and bootlickers. Despite what Reid et al would like us to believe, the moral high ground is on standing pat on the debt ceiling and even reducing it now; not with spending more tax revenue taken from our unborn future generations.

Sadder that so many people stopped participating long ago and our government got so out of control.... I pray that more people get on the horns to call their politicians and reel them in to do the right thing for our country! Our most vulnerable people don't deserve this.

Always Appreciative, "ANGELnWard14"

Thanks John for your input here--I agree with your comments.  Both sides are holding us hostage.  Obama inherited a mess--and the legacy on spending from both sides is shameful, but there has to be real accountability and collectively at the local and state level, we need to stop spending money that does not exist for us to spend.

Here is a short stream of comments about this crisis, from Facebook. Click on comments:

www.facebook.com/profile.php

• Here is a short stream of comments about this crisis, from Facebook.

  

  Ian Kirkpatrick I know that many of my American friends are going to call me "libertard", or "Commie", but no-one saved your economy from collapse. The simple fact is that from all practical points of view the $US is the international unit of trading, which just happens to be used as the currency of the United States. This is the great drawback of having your currency as a reserve currency, and the only reason why large corporations have been able to amass the huge amounts of (actually non existent) money they now control. My reasoning?
  Taking the IT sector as the easiest example (using Apple & Foxcomm). - Much of Apple's equipment is manufactured in Taiwan and China. The U.S. has little, or no, foreign currency reserves to enable Apple to pay for the manufacture of its products, thus they must purchase the product for $US. Herein lies the rub: Even an irrevocable letter of credit would be drawn on a bank. The majority of the bank's reserves are held in U.S. treasury instruments, and Foxcomm has to pay for its supplies and payroll in local currency which it must purchase from the appropriate authorities. The net result of all this is that the U.S. government has guaranteed that it will pay the bill for all of this with money it does not have, and jobs which could have been done in the U.S. are being done offshore. Maybe my analysis is illogical, if it is please tell me how.

• Here is a short stream of comments about this crisis, from Facebook.

  

  Ian Kirkpatrick I know that many of my American friends are going to call me "libertard", or "Commie", but no-one saved your economy from collapse. The simple fact is that from all practical points of view the $US is the international unit of trading, which just happens to be used as the currency of the United States. This is the great drawback of having your currency as a reserve currency, and the only reason why large corporations have been able to amass the huge amounts of (actually non existent) money they now control. My reasoning?
  Taking the IT sector as the easiest example (using Apple & Foxcomm). - Much of Apple's equipment is manufactured in Taiwan and China. The U.S. has little, or no, foreign currency reserves to enable Apple to pay for the manufacture of its products, thus they must purchase the product for $US. Herein lies the rub: Even an irrevocable letter of credit would be drawn on a bank. The majority of the bank's reserves are held in U.S. treasury instruments, and Foxcomm has to pay for its supplies and payroll in local currency which it must purchase from the appropriate authorities. The net result of all this is that the U.S. government has guaranteed that it will pay the bill for all of this with money it does not have, and jobs which could have been done in the U.S. are being done offshore. Maybe my analysis is illogical, if it is please tell me how.