Vad händer om amerikanska kongressen inte höjer skuldtaket?

Obama sitter i nuläget med två problem kring halsen. Dels den partiella nedstängningen av den amerikanska staten som republikanerna tvingade fram i förra veckan, men nu hotar republikanska kongressledamöter dessutom med att inte höja statens skuldtak innan deadline den 17e oktober. Den partiella nedstängningen av den amerikanska staten är egentligen ingen jättehändelse även om den kommer att påverka den amerikanska tillväxten under det fjärde kvartalet. Misslyckas kongressen med att höja skuldtaket innan den 17e oktober riskerar den amerikanska staten däremot en default på sin skuld, vilket kommer att få effekter både på den amerikanska och globala ekonomin.

De kontinuerliga höjningarna av skuldtaket har länge setts som en självklarhet för många (mig själv inkluderat) - vad har USA egentligen för val? Men nu hotar republikanerna alltså med att riskera en djupare recession om inte deras krav kan mötas. Om skuldtaket inte höjs kommer statens upplåningsräntor att stiga, vilket kan få relativt snabb effekt i och med att den amerikanska staten kommer att behöva omfinansiera skulder värda 441 BUSD mellan den 25e oktober och 18e november:

Om den amerikanska staten inte vill defaulta på sin skuld kommer utgifterna dessutom att behöva skäras ned på drastiskt vilket kommer att slå hårt mot den amerikanska ekonomin. Lite längre ned listas 12 uttalanden från en rad kända namn och organisationer rörande de potentiella effekterna av ett fast skuldtak. Det mest intressanta kommer kanske från the US Treasury:

"A default would be unprecedented and has the potential to be catastrophic: credit markets could freeze, the value of the dollar could plummet, U.S. interest rates could skyrocket, the negative spillovers could reverberate around the world, and there might be a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse”

1. Gerald Epstein, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst: “If the US does default, that will make the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy look like a cakewalk”
2. Tim Bitsberger, a former Treasury official under President George W. Bush: “If we miss an interest payment, that would blow Lehman out of the water”
3. Peter Tchir, founder of New York-based TF Market Advisors: “Once the system starts to break down related to settlement and payments, then liquidity disappears, as we saw after Lehman”
4. Bill Isaac, chairman of Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp: “We can’t even imagine all the things that might happen, just like Henry Paulson couldn’t imagine all the bad things that might happen if he let Lehman go down”
5. Jim Grant, founder of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer: “Financial markets are all confidence-based. If that confidence is shaken, you have disaster.”
6. Richard Bove, VP of research at Rafferty Capital Markets: “If they seriously default on the debt, what we’re really talking about is a depression”
7. Chinese vice finance minister Zhu Guangyao: “The U.S. is clearly aware of China’s concerns about the financial stalemate [in Washington] and China’s request for the US to ensure the safety of Chinese investments.”
8. The U.S. Treasury Department: “A default would be unprecedented and has the potential to be catastrophic: credit markets could freeze, the value of the dollar could plummet, U.S. interest rates could skyrocket, the negative spillovers could reverberate around the world, and there might be a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse”
9. Goldman Sachs: “We estimate that the fiscal pull-back would amount to 9pc of GDP. If this were allowed to occur, it could lead to a rapid downturn in economic activity if not reversed quickly”
10. Simon Johnson, former chief economist for the IMF: “It would be insane to default, but it’s no longer a zero-percent probability”
11. Warren Buffett about the potential of a debt default: “It should be like nuclear bombs, basically too horrible to use”
12. Bloomberg: “Anyone who remembers the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. little more than five years ago knows what a global financial disaster is. A U.S. government default, just weeks away if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling as it now threatens to do, will be an economic calamity like none the world has ever seen.”