Reuters (April 25)
The U.S. “standoff over the debt ceiling is a white swan, or an entirely predictable, very frequent event that has the potential to be as catastrophic as its darker sibling.” Arriving at the “deadline without a congressional fix would lead to a calamitous default,” which could “exacerbate the very risks that sparked last month’s bank failures.”
Tags: Bank failures, Calamitous, Catastrophic, Congressional fix, Deadline, Debt ceiling, Default, Exacerbate, Predictable, Risks, Standoff, U.S., White swan
New York Times (September 27)
“The only solace in the current American standoff with Iran is that President Trump seems not to want to risk a war. That is of some comfort in a crisis that has left the United States looking weak and untrustworthy. But the crisis could still descend into armed conflict, and that is largely attributable to Mr. Trump’s poorly considered strategy.”
Time (June 18)
“German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a political crisis that could reshape Europe’s migration crisis and potentially end her ten years in power” as a standoff “over Germany’s liberal migration policies threatens to collapse the fragile coalition that Merkel presides over.”
Tags: Coalition, Collapse, Europe, Germany Merkel, Migration, Political crisis, Standoff
New York Times (August 5)
“The latest quarterly report on economic growth showed real G.D.P. up only 1.4 percent over the past year, a marked slowdown from year-over-year growth rates posted in 2012. Much of the weakening can be attributed to self-imposed wounds, including the fiscal-cliff showdown at the end of last year and this year’s payroll tax increase and automatic budget cuts, whose effects now appear likely to carry into the second half of the year.” The recovery could stall as the report suggests “Americans do not have the requisite economic security to absorb those imminent blows, let alone other inevitable setbacks, including another possible standoff over the nation’s debt limit.”“The latest quarterly report on economic growth showed real G.D.P. up only 1.4 percent over the past year, a marked slowdown from year-over-year growth rates posted in 2012. Much of the weakening can be attributed to self-imposed wounds, including the fiscal-cliff showdown at the end of last year and this year’s payroll tax increase and automatic budget cuts, whose effects now appear likely to carry into the second half of the year.” The recovery could stall as the report suggests “Americans do not have the requisite economic security to absorb those imminent blows, let alone other inevitable setbacks, including another possible standoff over the nation’s debt limit.”
Tags: Budget cuts, Debt limit, Fiscal cliff, G.D.P., Security, Setbacks, Slowdown, Standoff, Tax increase, U.S.