Larry Summers was asked...

...by Charlie Rose the other night, "What would happen if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling?"

"It would be 'the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy' on steroids." (In other words, you don't want to find out.)

The tea party Republicans in the House, on the other hand, think this is all hogwash.

Now while it's hard for me to believe that the unthinkable could actually happen (especially after the TARP vote in the fall of 2008), I've decided that there would be one positive result from a U. S. default: the end, once and for all, of the tea party movement.