Waiting for Godot......

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-14/treasury-bills-reopen-and-arent-buying-it-one-bit

Treasury Bills Reopen... And Aren't Buying It One Bit

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/14/2013 21:39 -0400

Having been closed during the ebullience of the US equity trading session today, we are assured by any and all prognosticators that Treasury-Bills would open to a glorious fanfare of buying as the world their pet rabbit scooped up the 30bps yield for a few days work - since a deal was about to be inked... Not so fast... Most worrisome is that it is not the November/December bills (i.e. the bills in peril from a 6-week extension) but the imminent danger bills that are underperforming. The 10/24/13 (i.e. just past the official "end of the world" date) are 6.5bps wider in early trading at 33bps and as US equity futures roll over very gently, the supporting cast of JPY carry trades are also losing their momentum... time for another rumor of a deal stat!

T-Bills ain't buying it...

And the ever so supportive visible hand of the JPY-carry mob is drifting south...

Charts: Bloomberg

and....

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/the-shutdown-talks-are-in-chaos.html

MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2013

The Shutdown Talks Are in Chaos

A lot of readers, when we’ve discussed the budget/shutdown/debt ceiling negotiations, have done the equivalent of declaring it all to be kabuki, that the fix is in.

While I have no doubt that any resolution of this impasse is certain to make matters worse for what is left of the endangered species known as the American middle class, what is going on in DC is not a pretty scripted stagefight. The negotiations are in a mess. Anyone who says they know where things are or what the outcome will be is kidding themselves.

This has all the signs, even from what little that can be seen with confidence, of a negotiation that has gone off the rails. From the New York Times:

Relations between the principals, which in this case was Obama and Boehner have broken down. Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell are trying to broker a deal

Both sides have rejected each other’s version of what they think is a clean and simple deal. Obama insists on a clean continuing resolution (as opening the government) and a clean lifting of the debt ceiling. The Republicans were willing to only push out the debt ceiling limit to only to November 22, which Obama rejected. McConnell then offered to Reid to increase the debt ceiling through January and keep the government operating until March, but Reid nixed that. The New York Times reports:

The core of the dispute is about spending, and how long a stopgap measure that would reopen the government should last. Democrats want the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration to last only through mid-November; Republicans want them to last as long as possible.

The Democrats’ demand shows a newfound aggressiveness. Previously, they had favored a so-called clean bill that would reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling without any policy changes attached. With Republicans on the defensive, it remains unclear whether the Democrats are using a negotiating ploy to raise the likelihood that any final deal will include their priorities as well as the Republicans’…

The dispute may involve debt ceiling technicalities, but at the core of the fight is a more fundamental question: with polls showing that Republicans are carrying the brunt of the blame for the shutdown, can Democrats demand total surrender, or should they offer concessions to complete the deal?…<

The Collins plan would maintain sequestration-level spending through Jan. 15, when formal budget negotiators would be required to complete a House-Senate agreement on spending and taxation over the next decade. That date was already a concession. Ms. Collins, along with Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both Republicans, initially wanted to finance the government for six months at those levels. The initial proposal by Ms. Collins would also have extended the debt ceiling only to Nov. 15, but at the request of Senate Democratic leaders, she and Mr. McConnell pushed it back to Jan. 31...

But Democratic leaders have balked, and they flexed their muscle Sunday with a group of Democratic and independent senators negotiating with Ms. Collins.

The reason this is not pretty is that things get ugly starting Thursday at midnight, when Treasury says the debt ceiling starts to bind. Neither side is even close to an outline of terms (what in the private sector we call a “letter of intent” where both sides agree on the key deal points and go off to draft detailed terms, which in this case would be the language for a bill). The Senate has cumbersome procedures, so a bill can’t be passed in a mere few hours. This means we are in time is of the essence mode. Yet we have acrimony on both sides (the Democrats believe Boehner has operated in bad faith, which is poisonous for negotiations, but they don’t want to dislodge him because any replacement is likely to be even more difficult to work with). We also appear to be not at all close to agreeing on an outline for a deal. The Republicans are upset at the Democrats

While the magic date of Thursday does not mean a default happens then, what it almost certainly means is the government goes into a more severe shutdown mode to conserver more cash, which will cause more disruptions. As bad as that is, the real critical date is around October 31-November 1. Even then I don’t see this Administration defaulting on Treasuries, it will sacrifice pretty much everything it can to do that. But some investors may not believe that, and if retail investors start exiting money market funds with Treasury exposures (even though fund managers have exited the particular bonds that would be at risk) we could see serious disruption to the repo market (money market funds are big investors in repo). Remember, a run is destructive whether the fear is well founded or not.

Now I don’t anticipate that things will go that far (and if anything were to get ugly, you could also expect this Fed to use its unusual and exigent circumstances powers to intervene). But it looks as if the Dems are willing to use Mr. Market to cow the Republicans. And as an aside, this should belie the commonly-touted Democratic cover for Obama that he is weak. He’s only pretended to be weak to shift blame to the Republicans for what he wanted to do when what he wanted to do entailed selling out his base.

At least as of now, the Democrat posture has become to add demands at a late stage. That is a Mafia bargaining tactic, when you believe you are making an offer they can’t refuse. The Democrats believe that they can push the Republicans because they are suffering a much bigger hit than the Democrats in the polls over the budget impasse. And the longer the delay, the only thing that it will be possible to negotiate and pass is something with hardly any moving parts. That also favors the Democrats.

Keep in mind also that market mood has played a big role in the seriousness of the talks. When the stock market has rallied on the hopes that a deal is on track, then the talks start to go awry, and when Mr. Market has gotten upset, the negotiators at least make credible noises that the discussions are on track. Who knows whether the Congresscritters are more worried about their own portfolios or those of their big backers, but either way, falling stock prices do seem to focus their minds.

S&P futures have been down about 11 points, which is not a freakout level move, and bond market trading will be thin today since it’s a bank holiday. So unless the stock market decays further during the day, I’m not sure Mr. Market will apply enough pressure to move the negotiations forward today. But another day of impasse risks a big increase in collective anxiety levels. Both parties are going to be under big pressure to have some sort of deal in principle by Thursday, even if they don’t have it passed by both houses and ready for Obama’s signature. If the two parties can announce a deal by Thursday, a likely date when it will be wrapped up, and how Treasury will manage things until the debt ceiling has been lifted, that would probably do. It would be messy but workable. But getting to there from where we are now is a very big task.

And some further things to keep in mind: this fight is in danger of becoming a cliffhanger, yet it is also planned to set the stage for the big deficit-cutting deal which the Democrats and traditional Republicans intend to cut social safety nets, most importantly, Social Security and Medicare. We’ve discussed at considerable length in earlier posts why trying to reduce government spending is not a good idea (we aren’t even close to the conditions where it might be warranted), how the projected Medicare cost increases, which are the lynchpin for the debt scaremongering, are considerably overstated, and how cutting deficits now will worsen, rather than improve, the government debt to GDP ratio. The rich might think that they will profit from this auto da fe is the rich, and they are likely to suffer too.

But Obama and Boenher could not get a deal done in 2011, when conditions were much more favorable. The Democrats now see the Republicans as bad faith actors. In the last round of talks, where the Democrats rejected the Collins offer, the Republicans are making it clear they are feeling bruised and badly used by the Democrats. It doesn’t matter whether all these hurt feelers are objectively justified. What it does mean that if Obama and the Democrats win by pushing the Republicans against the debt ceiling wall and wrestling a capitulation from them, that short-term victory could well poison the negotiations over a Grand Bargain. Parties that distrust and dislike each other have trouble coming to any sort of agreement, particularly complicated ones. That is perversely the best hope for ordinary Americans, that Obama wins this battle and in so doing, loses his Grand Bargain war. But don’t hold your breath.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-14/white-house-postpones-meeting-congressional-leaders-gop-says-nothing-firm

White House Postpones Meeting With Congressional Leaders, GOP Says "Nothing Firm"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/14/2013 14:44 -0400

default

headlines

White House

Headlines just hitting:

*MEETING BETWEEN OBAMA, CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS POSTPONED
*WHITE HOUSE MEETING POSTPONED TO ALLOW FOR FURTHER TALKS
*WHITE HOUSE STATEMENT SAYS DELAY TO GIVE MORE TIME FOR TALKS

Seems like there is no deal for now then... and sure enough that hope premium in stocks is fading.

Via AP,

The White House says a meeting between Obama and congressional leaders has been postponed to give Senate leaders more time to resolve a standoff over the nation's debt and the partial government shutdown.

Obama was scheduled to meet Monday afternoon at the White House with the Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. A new day or time for the meeting wasn't announced.

The delay comes as all sides are expressing optimism that they are getting closer to an agreement to end the two-week partial shutdown and avert a potential default on the U.S. debt.

The last meeting between Obama and the congressional leaders was Oct. 2.

More Senate GOP aide: WH meeting, talks still being finalized, "nothing solid for several hours, if then."

2:40 PM - 14 Oct 2013

Senate GOP aide: "Full conf mtg later this afternoon to share all the details of what McConnell and Reid are discussing, nothing's firm."

2:39 PM - 14 Oct 2013

The U.S. Has REPEATEDLY Defaulted

October 14, 2013

Print Version

Source: Washington’s Blog

Some people argue that countries can’t default. But that’s false.

It is widely stated that the U.S. government has never defaulted. However, that is also a myth.

Catherine Rampbell reports in the New York Times:

The United States has actually defaulted on its debt obligations before.
The first time was in 1790, the only episode Professor Reinhart unearthed in which the United States defaulted on its external debt obligations. It also defaulted on its domestic debt obligations then, too.
Then in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, the United States had another domestic debt default related to the repayment of gold-based obligations.

(Update.)

Donald Marron points out at Forbes:

The United States defaulted on some Treasury bills in 1979 (ht: Jason Zweig). And it paid a steep price for stiffing bondholders.
Terry Zivney and Richard Marcus describe the default in The Financial Review…:

Investors in T-bills maturing April 26, 1979 were told that the U.S. Treasury could not make its payments on maturing securities to individual investors. The Treasury was also late in redeeming T-bills which become due on May 3 and May 10, 1979. The Treasury blamed this delay on an unprecedented volume of participation by small investors, on failure of Congress to act in a timely fashion on the debt ceiling legislation in April, and on an unanticipated failure of word processing equipment used to prepare check schedules.
The United States thus defaulted because Treasury’s back office was on the fritz in the wake of a debt limit showdown.
This default was temporary. Treasury did pay these T-bills after a short delay. But it balked at paying additional interest to cover the period of delay. According to Zivney and Marcus, it required both legal arm twisting and new legislation before Treasury made all investors whole for that additional interest.

Many consider Nixon’s decision to refusal to redeem dollars for gold to constitute a partial default. For example, University of Massachusetts at Amherst economics professor Gerald Epstein notes:

Forty years ago this month, on August 15, 1971, President Nixon “closed the gold window”, refusing to let foreign central banks redeem their dollars for gold, facilitating the devaluation of the U.S dollar which had been fixed relative to gold for almost thirty years. While not strictly a default on a US debt obligation, by closing the gold window the US government abrogated a financial commitment it had made to the rest of the world at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 that set up the post-war monetary system. At Bretton Woods, the United States had promised to redeem any and all U.S. dollars held by foreigners – later limited to just foreign central banks — for $35 dollars an ounce. This promise explains why the Bretton Woods monetary system was called a “gold exchange standard” and why many believed the US dollar to be “as good as gold”. When Nixon refused to let foreign central banks turn in their dollars for gold, and encouraged the devaluation of the dollar which reduced the value of foreign central bank holdings of dollars, the Nixon administration effectively “defaulted” on the United States’ long-standing obligations ending once and for all the Bretton Woods System.

James Grant says in the Washington Post:

The U.S. government defaulted after the Revolutionary War, and it defaulted at intervals thereafter. Moreover, on the authority of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, the government means to keep right on shirking, dodging or trimming, if not legally defaulting.
Default means to not pay as promised, and politics may interrupt the timely service of the government’s debts.
***
Things were very different when America owed the kind of dollars that couldn’t just be whistled into existence. By 1790, the new republic was in arrears on $11,710,000 in foreign debt. These were obligations payable in gold and silver. Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury, duly paid them. In doing so, he cured a default.
***
But in the whirlwind of the “first hundred days” of the New Deal, the dollar came in for redefinition. The country needed a cheaper and more abundant currency, FDR said. By and by, the dollar’s value was reduced to 1/35 of an ounce of gold.
By any fair definition, this was another default. Creditors both domestic and foreign had lent dollars weighing just what the Founders had said they should weigh. They expected to be repaid in identical money.
Language to this effect — a “gold clause” — was standard in debt contracts of the time, including instruments binding the Treasury. But Congress resolved to abrogate those contracts, and in 1935 the Supreme Court upheld Congress.
The “American default,” as this piece of domestic stimulus was known in foreign parts , provoked condemnation in the City of London. “One of the most egregious defaults in history,” judged the London Financial News. “For repudiation of the gold clause is nothing less than that. The plea that recent developments have created abnormal circumstances is wholly irrelevant. It was precisely against such circumstances that the gold clause was designed to safeguard bondholders.”
The lighter Roosevelt dollar did service until 1971, when President Richard M. Nixon lightened it again. In fact, Nixon allowed it to float. No longer was the value of the greenback defined in law as a particular weight of gold or silver. It became what it looked like: a piece of paper.

John Chamberlain argues at the Mises Institute that the U.S. defaulted on its:

Continental Currency in 1779

Domestic debt between 1782 through 1790

Greenbacks in 1862

Liberty Bonds in 1934

States Have Defaulted Also

States have also defaulted. The Wall Street Journal notes:

Land values soared. States splurged on new programs. Then it all went bust, bringing down banks and state governments with them. This wasn’t America [today], it was America in 1841, when a now-forgotten depression pushed eight states and a desolate territory called Florida into the unthinkable: They defaulted on debts.

And Catherine Rampbell explains:

There were two episodes when a spate of American states defaulted on their debts, in 1841-42 (nine states) and 1873-84 (10 states). The havoc wreaked by these state-level defaults is part of the reason that so many states now have constitutional balanced-budget requirements.

China Alleges that the U.S. Has Already Defaulted By Weakening the Dollar

James Grant argues:

If today’s political impasse leads to another default, it will be a kind of technicality. Sooner or later, the Obama Treasury will resume writing checks. The question is what those checks will buy.
***
This is the unsustainable conceit of the world’s superpower-cum-super debtor. By deed, if not audible word, we Americans say: “The greenback is the world’s great monetary brand. You have no choice but to use it. Like it or lump it.” But the historical record of paper currencies is clear: Governments always over-issue it. The people finally do lump it.”

(Indeed, the average life expectancy for a fiat currency is less than 40 years.)

And our creditor – China – has said that America has already defaulted by printing too many dollars. For example:

A Chinese ratings house has accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt, state media said Friday, a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order.
“In our opinion, the United States has already been defaulting,” Guan Jianzhong, president of Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd., the only Chinese agency that gives sovereign ratings, was quoted by the Global Times saying.
Washington had already defaulted on its loans by allowing the dollar to weaken against other currencies – eroding the wealth of creditors including China, Guan said.

That might be Chinese propaganda. But the point remains that the U.S. might not be able to print money forever without facing consequences from its creditors.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-14/guest-post-puerto-ricos-debt-crisis-%E2%80%93-another-domino-keels-over

Guest Post: Puerto Rico's Debt Crisis – Another Domino Keels Over

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/14/2013 13:54 -0400

Bond

default

Detroit

Gross Domestic Product

Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum of Acting-Man blog,

Puerto Rico's Bonds Collapse

If one looks at various sovereign states, it seemingly doesn't matter that their public debts continue to rise at a hefty clip. The largest ones are considered to have economies that are big and resilient enough to be able to support the growing debt load. Part of the calculus is no doubt the notion that they contain enough accumulated wealth to allow their governments to confiscate even more of their citizens property and income in order to make good on their debts.

Then there are the small and mid-sized states in the EU that are getting bailed out by their larger brethren, or rather, the tax payers of their larger brethren. However, things are different when the territories or municipalities concerned are considered too small and have no such back-up. Detroit was a recent case in point, and it seems that the US territory of Puerto Rico is the next domino to fall. Here is a recent price chart of the Puerto Rico 20 year bond maturing in 2033, which currently yields 10.6% and trades at 46 cents below par:

Puerto Rico's 20 year bond crashes – click to enlarge.

Amazingly, this junk is still rated 'investment grade' by the major rating agencies, even if barely so (both Moody's and S&P have slapped their lowest investment grade rating on the bonds, with a 'negative outlook').

As a good friend of ours remarked, once the inevitable downgrade to junk occurs, there will be a wave of forced selling from bond funds that are statutorily mandated to only hold investment grade bonds. Apparently Puerto Rico's bonds were extremely popular with US muni bond funds due to their tax exempt status, which increases the effective yield considerably.

Now financial regulators are 'investigating the Puerto Rico bond strategies' of these funds – in what will no doubt be a prelude to a plethora of investor law suits:

“U.S. mutual funds that loaded up on Puerto Rico bonds, including Oppenheimer Funds, are now the target of an investigation by a state securities regulator, who says investors may not have been aware of their exposure to the island's fiscal crisis.

The probe by Massachusetts' top securities regulator could spark other investigations because many other state-specific municipal bond funds include Puerto Rico debt in their portfolios, according to analysts.The bonds are exempt from federal, state and local income taxes in all U.S. states, making them attractive to mutual fund managers across the country.

William Galvin, the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, said he is investigating three large fund managers, Fidelity Investments, OppenheimerFunds, a unit of MassMutual Life Insurance Co. and UBS Financial Services , to determine how they sold mutual funds with heavy concentrations of Puerto Rico debt and how they disclosed the risk.

"Puerto Rican bonds are like sugar in a bakery product. They are always included. Now the question is just how much and what were investors told," Galvin told Reuters.”

(emphasis added)

This prompts one question on our part: what the hell were the managers of these funds thinking or doing? Investors in their funds may “not have been aware of Puerto Rico's fiscal crisis”, but isn't it a fund manager's job to be aware of such things? Here we have more proof that there is far 'more money out there than intelligence to guide it' to paraphrase J.K. Galbraith. We can thank the Fed for said surfeit of money.

A Long Simmering Crisis

Judging from stories in the press, Puerto Rico's fiscal troubles were not exactly a big secret. By now officials from the territory are making emergency visits to Washington, presumably hat in hand.

The NYT writes:

“In a meeting with bond analysts in New York on Monday, the president of the Puerto Rican Senate, Eduardo Bhatia, said officials in the United States Treasury and White House had been analyzing the situation carefully, “wondering how they can help Puerto Rico send a very strong signal of stability right now.”

“We are waiting for some sort of an announcement from the Treasury and the White House,” he said without clarification. He also complained that analysts and investors did not appreciate the tough austerity measures that Puerto Rico pushed through in recent months.

Puerto Rico, with 3.7 million residents, has about $87 billion of debt, counting pensions, or $23,000 for every man woman and child. That compares with about $18 billion of debt for Detroit, with a little more than 700,000 people, or about $25,000 for every person in the city. Detroit and Puerto Rico have been rapidly losing population, leaving a smaller, and poorer, group behind to shoulder the burden.

Detroit, at least, was able to seek relief in bankruptcy court, but Puerto Rico is in a legal twilight zone. Territories, like states, have no ability to declare bankruptcy.Another territory, the Northern Mariana Islands, tried in 2012, but its case was rejected. Top Puerto Rican officials say that the territory is not bankrupt and is working through its problems responsibly.”

(emphasis added)

It seems that the 'strong signal' mentioned above is sorely needed. How Puerto Rico's officials will 'work through the problem responsibly' with a debtberg amounting to $87 billion is not quite clear to us. As to the inability of the territory to declare bankruptcy, bankrupt is bankrupt, whether anyone declares the fact or not.

Puerto Rico's 20 year bond yield – click to enlarge.

A bailout or a federal takeover of the territory's financial management are apparently additionally complicated at the moment by the misnamed 'government shutdown' in Washington:

“[..] the coming weeks will be critical, and how Puerto Rico comes through depends, to some extent, on factors beyond its control. If its financial problems worsen, it may need some form of sovereign debt relief for which there is no direct precedent — and that would probably be subject to approval by a Congress now paralyzed and focused on a fiscal situation closer to home.

“A lot of people believe that the Territorial Clause of the United States Constitution gives Congress the power to impose control,” said Robert Donahue, a managing director with Municipal Market Advisors, who has been discussing the situation with members of the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico, a group representing 16 cabinet-level agencies and the White House.

One idea being considered is that Congress might establish a financial control board, perhaps like the one that helped guide the District of Columbia through a turbulent period from 1995 to 2001. One of that board’s first steps was to appoint a financial official with power to override the mayor and City Council. But with the federal government shut down, Mr. Donahue said, “there’s really no path.”

(emphasis added)

If Puerto Rico were part of the EU, it could at least rely on the fact that the bureaucracy in Brussels never sleeps.

Still, why were bond fund managers so utterly blind to the developing problems? Barron's reported already in August that the territory was in grave economic and fiscal trouble. In fact, it seems it has been in recession since 2006! In addition to its debt, it has a $30 billion pension hole as well. One positive is that its new government has taken measures to bring the deficit and debt under control, but this may be a case of these measures simply coming way too late in the game.

“Puerto Rico's debt load would rank third among the states, behind only California and New York. And its debt burden relative to key financial measures—gross domestic product, personal income, and population—is off the charts. Puerto Rico's debt per capita, for instance, of $14,000 is 10 times the average of the 50 states. In addition to its debt, Puerto Rico has more than $30 billion of unfunded pension liabilities.

The backdrop in the U.S. territory isn't promising: The economy has been in recession since 2006, the unemployment rate is 13.2%, and the budget has been structurally imbalanced for nearly a decade.The poverty rate is high, government employment accounts for a quarter of all jobs, and transfer payments make up 40% of income. More than a quarter of Puerto Rico's nearly four million residents receive food stamps.

"There's a debt spiral in Puerto Rico that will not turn out well unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the economy," says Dan Heckman, senior fixed-income strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis. "We've been advising clients to stay away from Puerto Rico. The government is doing all it can, but it has to climb out of a very deep debt hole."

[…]

Puerto Rico has taken painful and politically unpopular steps to cut bloated government payrolls, raise taxes, and shore up its badly underfunded pension system. A new government elected in 2012, led by the populist Governor Alejandro García Padilla, is committed to putting Puerto Rico and its various bond-issuing authorities on a stronger financial footing. Default and restructuring aren't in the government's vocabulary.”

(emphasis added)

Maybe “default and restructuring are not part of the government's vocabulary”, but the markets evidently believe that said vocabulary may have to be enlarged fairly soon.

Puerto Rico's 15 year yield is at an even higher 11.27% – the yield curve usually tends to invert when insolvency and default are considered increasingly probable – click to enlarge.

We find the Puerto Rico debt crisis quite interesting for three reasons: first of all, it is yet another symptom of the world's addiction to debt coming home to roost, in spite of the countless attempts to paper the problem over with even more debt. Secondly it demonstrates that systemic risk has not magically 'disappeared' since the 2008 crisis, but has merely been shifted around. In the past, many banks would probably have found themselves in hot water, as they likely would have held quite a few PR bonds. These days, investors are bearing the vast bulk of the risk. Of course, in light of the financial system's interconnectedness, it ultimately doesn't really matter who is first in line when it comes to financial impairment.

Thirdly, we would point out that this is precisely how wider credit crises tend to begin: one corner of the credit universe begins to burn (in this case, municipal and territorial debt, beginning with Detroit and a few smaller entities), and eventually the flames engulf all or most of it, as many of those hit by losses are forced to sell whatever they can still sell. It is of course possible Puerto Rico's crisis will blow over without wider-ranging ramifications taking shape – but in a sense it is just be the tip of an iceberg.

Major holders of Puerto Rico's debt, via Barron's.

Catharsis Ours

Monday, October 14, 2013

Treasury Bills Reopen... And Aren't Buying It One Bit

MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2013

The Shutdown Talks Are in Chaos

White House Postpones Meeting With Congressional Leaders, GOP Says "Nothing Firm"

The U.S. Has REPEATEDLY Defaulted

Guest Post: Puerto Rico's Debt Crisis – Another Domino Keels Over

Puerto Rico's Bonds Collapse

A Long Simmering Crisis

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