Thursday Miscellany!

[maxomai]

• Last night, Twitter was all a-tweeting that the Prime Minister of Libya was kidnapped. This morning we found out that he was let go. This means that Libyan politics are officially less crazy than American politics.


• Speaking of which, I want to know who's funding these idiots and how much those campaign donors stand to gain on the US defaulting on its obligations. Billions? Trillions?


• Four former US intelligence officials went to Russia to present the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence to Edward Snowden. (Snowden is doing just fine, btw.) Meanwhile, the NSA is whining about all the media coverage of their spying on us.


• This is your daily reminder that the destruction of Syrian WMDs is going along just swimmingly.


• Scientists have measured the collapse of a quantum wave function in slow motion. Nice hack!


• Best tweet of the week:
  
  

  "Ironically, the God Particle still can't explain why the Catholic Church has mass."

Comments

Need the hip-waders; it's getting deep in here

[arkham4269.livejournal.com]

So somehow Benghazi was this terrible blow to Power & Prestige(tm) of the United States but defaulting on our financial commitments is okay?

BTW, remind me again. Which party demanded that Washington should be run more like a business? How many business do you know can just default on their loans and it's okay?

(Well beyond big business which expect public bail-outs but you know what I meant)

[dondodson.livejournal.com]

So you want to take me up on my offer?

http://dondodson.blogspot.com/2013/10/demagoguery-is-their-default.html

That New York Times story is a riot. Democrats keep talking about how bad a default would be, but we are in no danger of defaulting. Fully paying our debt service costs takes up 9% of our monthly tax revenue, leaving the other 91% for other things. Sure, defaulting would be bad, but its not going to happen. The worst case scenario is that Obama will have to establish some budget priorities and *gasp* live within our means.

[maxomai.livejournal.com]

If I had t-bills in my immediate possession (instead of as part of some other vehicle), I wouldn't sell them to you at a 33% discount. I don't put the chance of default that high. Paddy Power, the Irish bookies, put it at somewhere between 16% and 25%.

Now that Boehner is proposing a short-term debt extension, I might go for a 5% discount. Of course, that could change this afternoon.

[dondodson.livejournal.com]

I'd even be willing to agree to sell the bonds back to you at the same price if a debt ceiling increase happened before we reached the limit. But if we reach the limit and don't default, that is on you.

The point is that if we reach the debt limit, we will not default. The Treasury collects enough tax revenue every month to service the debt, and the 14th Amendment requires us to honor the debt.