Chance of U.S. government default less than 10 percent, economists say: Reuters poll

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/30/us-usa-fiscal-poll-idUSBRE98T15G20130930

(Reuters) - There is a less than 10 percent chance that Washington's budget feud will lead to the United States defaulting on any of its debt, according to a majority of economists polled by Reuters since Friday.

Barring an 11th-hour deal between deadlocked Republican and Democrat lawmakers to continue funding the federal government, a partial government shutdown will start Tuesday.

However, 40 out of 51 economists at major banks and research institutions said there is a less than one-in-10 chance that a government shutdown on Tuesday will escalate into a potentially ruinous default on government debt payments later this month.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has said the Treasury will run out of money to pay its debt by October 17 if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling.

[PeteSelman]

1. Apparently, these people don't know the baggers very well.

They do not give a fuck at all. They will do the same thing they're doing right now. I think we need to face the fact here that unless someone shuts those idiots down and puts them in the corner the country is lost forever. And I don't see that happening. Boner is scared to death of these assholes.

It's easy to make jokes about how stupid these people are but they hold the fate of the entire country in their hands.

It's not funny, it's never been funny.

We're well and truly fucked here and there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done about it .

[underthematrix]

2. I disagree with this article. The GOP specifically came to Washington

to shut down the government. There's no way, they will raise the debt ceiling. These are enemy combatants of the state and they will do everything they can to destroy this country. I believe many of the teabaggers are foreign agents.

[HereSince1628]

3. Yes, I think that's more true than not.

Where I differ, somewhat, is I don't think it's agents of foreign powers. I think it's the insatiably greedy politically activist billionaires like the Kochs.

I'd suggest that the activist, mostly domestic, billionaires want exemption from all federal regulations/control/taxation. That could be available either by control of the federal government or destruction of the federal government.

As the billionaires are frustrated by control of only one chamber, rebellion, sabotage, and blackmail of the federal system is now the most effective available path to achieve their goal.

[Orangepeel]

4. In polling, that's called a framing error. The wrong group of people were asked

The economists should have been asked about the consequences, but not the likelihood.

A bunch of economists at research institutions have no special expertise in estimating the chances that the ideologically driven, willfully ignorant members of the House majority will drive the country off a cliff.