The short answer is, no one really knows, and we’ll be flying by the seat of our pants shoud Congress not come to some sort of deal on the debt ceiling. Big-fish Wall Street investors and the Federal Reserve all the way to the couple with their retirement savings and the kid saving up for college would all in an uncertain and perilous situation.
The U.S. is in debt, deeper than deep, more deep than any other entity, ever, in the history of the world, which means, at one level, it’s broker than broke, owing more than $32 trillion. But, at another level, it’s also richer than rich – too rich, in fact. To paraphrase that self-proclaimed ‘master economist’ Josef Stalin, if you owe $1000 to the IRS, woe is you – but tens of trillions to who knows whom, well, that’s a statistic, and who’s going to call it in?
The Chinese, perhaps, who already make most of our stuff. How would the U.S. get parts for its planes, trains and automobiles, to say nothing of everything else from diapers to aspirin to all of our widgets, were it ever to go to war with China?
Or people may just stop trusting in the money printed by the government, keeping in mind that credit has the same root as credo. And this would go way beyond America, to everyone across the globe. All those rolls of bills you have tucked in a drawer or your wallet may overnight become worth about as much as toilet paper – even less so, for the latter would still have some use.
On that note, perhaps stock up a bit. But, more to the point, put your faith not in man, far less in mammon, but in the Lord, the Almighty, who provides for His people, no cash or credit required.