so... yup. can't believe nobody made a thread about this yet.

(note, there's about a billion different articles on this thing, so I'll just summarize myself the key points)

like 2 days left until the US is unable to pay it's obligations and we risk default. Worse, yet, even if a deal is reached in time, the chances that credit rating agencies will downgrade the US's AAA credit status is pretty much inevitable at this point.

Nothing's been done of any real progress at this point, the republican party is close to imploding (even senator McCain made a remake "the Tea Party hobbits need to go back to middle earth). The bill that barely passed the house with the majority votes of the republicans is going to be set to the side by a table measure by the senate meaning they're not even going to vote on it; the House is planning on doing the same with the Reid bill.

The tea party advocates who were elected on the basis that they won't raise the debt ceiling or increase government revenues (which even letting the bush tax cuts expire is seen as that) or they risk losing their jobs- brilliant.

At this point the only way that the debt ceiling can be raised in time is if Obama risks impeachment and evokes a section of the 14th amendment that allows him to prioritize the national debt as paramount to all else, and use an executive order to bypass congress and raise it himself.

The Dow has fallen about 400 points in the past week, the Treasury and States are preparing to decide which bills will be paid out come the 2nd, and who will the get the short end of this stick.

Now the only thing we can really do, is just sit back and watch events unfold in the next 2-3 days.