Has anyone else noticed that this is kind of looming?

America needs to sort itself out, as the two leading political parties seem to be stuck in a rut over what to do about defaulting on it's several trillion $s worth of debt. The Republicans are trying to make it a political issue with which to get leverage over Obama. The Democrats are slightly more concerned that if they do default, then the country is fucked for the foreseeable future. But the Republicans won't alter their stance on taxing the wealthy.

In turn, yesterday several million £s worth of value was wiped off of 3 leading UK banks, two of which are predictably the ones the public sort of own (well, sort of own when they're doing badly). Several (I think 8 out of 90?) also failed the test to show that they have enough financial security should another collapse occur.

Which has led to global pessimism towards the situation with the Euro. Most banks and financiers are starting to treat Italy and Greece as separate entities rather than part of the Euro, meaning that for the first time the single European currency is in real danger of collapsing - or at least being irreparably tarnished.

Oil prices dropped a fair bit, always a bad sign. And gold went through the roof, as did faith in the Swiss currency.

FUN THREAD EH?!

I just bought a house. I suspect it's a GREAT time to have done so...