US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the United States is facing a catastrophic debt crisis if Congress fails to raise the statutory debt ceiling to fend off a default.
“It would be devastating,” Yellen said to Axios in an interview from Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday. “It’s a catastrophe.”
“Of course, it makes me nervous,” she added
She said the United States could default on its debt by summer, which would lead to a global financial crisis.
Yellen said that “we’ll have a financial crisis and I believe we would have a recession in the United States.”
“Spending would have to decline to match the tax revenues,” Yellen said, which would deprive the US government of the ability to support the economy with stimulus.
She added that furthermore, “psychological consequences” like people fearing to spend money could then “further impact spending and deepen a recession.”
The top US financial official noted that a full-scale American debt default would also impact the global economy.
“Americans would face higher borrowing costs, and it would cause a good deal of turmoil globally as well,” Yellen said.
The US Treasury has taken "extraordinary measures" to fend off the default as the country reached its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling. The Treasury has warned that the “extraordinary measures” would only help for a limited time.
Yellen has stated that the actual date on which the Treasury would no longer be able to use these measures is "quite uncertain," and could come in June.
She added that if Congress fails to raise the debt limit, the US could see a downgrading of its debt "at minimum.”
“The president and the leadership of Congress are responsible to find a way to get the debt ceiling raised,” she told Axios on Saturday.
Nvidia would be barred from shipping advanced artificial intelligence chips to China under bipartisan legislation unveiled Thursday, Bloomberg reported. A Chinese expert said the move is shortsighted, noting that tightening restrictions despite domestic industry opposition will only accelerate China’s tech innovation and further diminish Nvidia’s chances of reentering the Chinese market.
Known as the Secure and Feasible Exports Act, the bill would order the US Commerce Department to halt export licenses for sales of chips to adversaries, including China and Russia for at least 30 months. Any processors more powerful than those already approved for export to those nations would be subject to the measure, the Bloomberg report said.
The legislation comes as the White House weighs whether to allow Nvidia to export the....more below
A high-ranking ICC official, Nicolas Herrera, secretly financed the sanctioned UPC armed group in the Central African Republic, according to court materials obtained by Sputnik.
Nicolas Herrera, a high-ranking official in the Registry Office of the International Criminal Court (ICC), secretly recruited and financed the Union for Peace (UPC) in the Central African Republic (CAR) armed group, led by local warlord Ali Darassa, to capture ICC target Joseph Kony, by using US-based NGO employee Joseph Martin Figueira as a covert intermediary, thereby violating the ICC’s financial accountability standards by funding an armed group, according to a Sputnik correspondent's analysis of public court records.
The conviction of Joseph Martin Figueira, a Belgian-Portuguese anthropologist found guilty of espionage and collaborating with militants in the Central African Republic (CAR) in November, has uncovered a complex financial trail linking ICC staff to the country’s armed militants, evidence ...
Hundreds of retired Israeli police officers have urged the regime’s president, Isaac Herzog, to reject Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a pardon in corruption cases.
On November 30, Netanyahu, who faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of public trust in three separate cases, submitted a formal pardon request to the office of Herzog, claiming the long-running corruption cases were tearing the regime apart.
In a letter to Herzog, about 400 former officers, including ex-commissioners and deputy commissioners, said Netanyahu’s request contains “not even a hint of admission of guilt,” making it unacceptable.
They warned that “such a step without [Netanyahu’s] confession and remorse is liable to ignite severe violence in Israeli society.”.....more below
