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.
Any moment now I am expecting John Cleese (a veteran of Monty Python) to jump out of the bushes and announce the creation of the Ministry of Silly Wars, with Donald Trump as the deranged leader. For you youngsters out there, Monty Python’s skit, The Ministry of Silly Walks, helped make the members of MP legends. I had to reference Monty Python because the line of bullshit the Trump administration is feeding the American people and the world about the amazing, obliterating US attack on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, is more ridiculous that all of the silly walks pictured in the following video:
My hopes that Donald Trump would finally act like a responsible adult are dashed. He’s a dangerous buffoon. While the team around him are working frantically to maintain the fiction that Trump has a vision and is calling the shots on the foreign policy front, he is careening around the globe like an out-of-control cue ball on a billiards table. It started a week ago… first, he claimed...
Tuesday marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Fujian, China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults. Official media said China is about to enter a three-aircraft-carrier era, with the Fujian expected to enter service by 2025.
After the launch of the Fujian on June 17, 2022, it carried out its first sea trial from May 1 to 8 in 2024. Since then, the Fujian has completed multiple sea trials, accumulating more than 100 days of sea trial, China Central Television (CCTV) News reported on Tuesday.
Wei Dongxu, a Chinese military affairs commentator, said that the aircraft carrier Fujian has been making steady progress in sea trials, and is expected to be commissioned within this year, CCTV News reported.
With a full displacement of more than 80,000 tons, the Fujian is the world's first conventionally powered aircraft carrier to feature electromagnetic catapult technologies, according to CCTV News. The report noted that it will carry a wide variety of carrier-borne...
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China and Central Asian countries have explored and formed the China-Central Asia Spirit, which features mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, and the pursuit of common modernization through high-quality development.
Xi made the remarks in his speech at the second China-Central Asia Summit in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
Xi said that the Chinese side has decided to establish three cooperation centers and a trade facilitation platform within the China-Central Asia cooperation mechanism.
When addressing the summit, Xi said these institutions include the China-Central Asia poverty reduction cooperation center, the China-Central Asia education exchange cooperation center, the China-Central Asia desertification control cooperation center, as well as the China-Central Asia trade facilitation cooperation....more below
