Last night someone got all in a snit because I said Cantor is fighting for his political life and his powerbase.
Supposedly, today in the meeting he didn’t say a word.
The old guard got to him...and must have told him to shut up. Now we will see if he stays the course with no deal.
Wall Street bankers are scared to death if the debt ceiling is not lifted. Do you know how many financial deals, products and etc will come to a grinding halt when this debt ceiling ponzi scheme comes to a halt. They will take a severe haircut, thus they will pull all strings of power in Wash DC to prevent it. In DC many politicians and high level gov workers (especially SEC, Treasury) must think about a lucrative post gov career, and Wall Street can get them on a short list for corporate boards, think tanks and etc that meets once a month or quarterly a very nice locations as well as perks and good pay for very little work, if these gov types do what they want. That is the dirty secret about corporate lobbyists. Otherwise men like Cantor faces the prospect of trying to revive their professions after being out of practice while serving in Congress if bankers don’t get what they want. That is the trap of being in Congress, corporate America is not stupid. Over time Wall Street and corporate America will get their tentacles around the long serving Congressmen’s lack of alternative career after leaving or losing. The only men can serve in Congress are very rich men or ones who serve very short terms and return to civilian life. IMHO the best way is have citizens vote directly thru referendum, thus bypassing the problem of reps refusing to do the will of the people after they get to office and tempted by lobbyists. The people in the EU are slowly realizing that political parties are worthless and reps will bend to bankers/corporate demands. They solved it by referendum. Iceland defaulted, and life returned to normal because once a true bottom is reached with no austerity sucking their income away paying the IMF and foreign loans, people can restart based on real bottom prices for goods and services. Iceland may not be able to borrow money to create another boom boom decade, atleast the people can live and restart without severe taxes and fees imposed on them and their children. Greece and Portugal will eventually do the same. They will take power from their reps and decide by national referendum. Bankers and elites know that and they are fearful.
The “old guard” needs to be gone in 2012.