Is the best way to stick it to the banks to refuse to raise the debt ceiling? One of our favorite guests on the subject, and one of the smartest people publishing advocating on the issue is Chris Whalen. Chris is co-founder of Institutional Risk Analytics and a columnist at Reuters.com.
He recently wrote a piece called “Why Congress Should Vote No on Raising The Debt Ceiling” at Reuters.com, which you can check out here. In this podcast, Dylan and Chris discuss the core reasons behind that premise. “It’s a political question, it’s not a financial issue,” says Chris.
He continues, “We’re told by Tim Geithner and the banks and everyone else that we must issue more debt, or the world will end, much like they said if a big bank fails, the world will end, and that wasn’t true, obviously. Lehman Brothers proves that. So, what I was saying is that, no, if we have the status quo where we’re just issuing more debt and inflating the debt through the Fed, then I think we do have a right to say no on things like the debt ceiling, and I think that the people in Congress, the few people who really want to change things, need to say no to get control of the initiative.”
Chris Whalen’s columns at Reuters.com and his company Institutional Risk Analytics.