The standoff, as well. China is worried about getting paid back on its investments. The yields on onemonth treasury yields continue to head higher this week. Its just another sign that investors are getting increasingly worry worried about the government defaulting on its locations i would argue theyre not worried enough, but we can talk about that in a mip. China and japan arent the only ones calling for a solution out of washington. Howard schultz is urging leaders to push for a shutdown. He says the following, utterly disappointed by the level of ir responsibility and dysfunction we are witness to with our elected Political Leadership. It is our responsibility to address this crisis of competent that is needlessly being set in motion. During the last debt ceiling debate, youll remember schultz made headlines by calling for americans to stop making political contributions until lawmakers struck a bipartisan deal on the countrys debt revenue and spending. Dallas fed president Richard Fisher is urging the same message for those in washington. He warnings that the standoff in congress could drive the country to the edge of defaulting on its sovereign debt. In speaking in texas yesterday, he said i deeply hope and i dont think well default, but it will come down to the wire. Its an embarrassment for my country and, guys, i wrote a column about this today. One of the things i worry about most is a lot of people talking about saying were going to have a problem, but unless the markets truly do crater and send that message, my worry is theres a proversion, but ultimately we dont get there because we wont have the pressure applied to congress to do anything about it. How does it work at the New York Times when is there a meth or something where you all talk about this . No, not particularly. No. The first paragraph of the lead story in the New York Times, with increasing anxiety that the United States might actually default. And then your whole column is that the United States might actually default. Right. Its like the whole paper seems to be i dont know, its not doing the president s handy work saying, you know, you really should be he said when he was interviewed by john harwood, this time its different and you should really worry because these markets are going to start getting its almost like are you all on the same page in terms of forcing republicans to come to the bargaining table . Is it like some i got my karl rove talking points yesterday, but did you get them today . No, no, no. Look, theres a real worry around this country that were not going to get there. But its in the lead story of the times and its your column. Its like youre all on the same page. I think were all thinking a lot of the same thoughts. If it does happen or at some point, who does if it does happen, i go to but who do you think controls whether or not it happens right now . I think theres two issue going on. Its the crazy republicans . Within of the things that weve heard in the past 24 hours is actually that president obama and i was reading this in ben whites newsletter this morning that president obama biogene sperling suggested that perhaps they could reach some kind of very shortterm deal just for a couple weeks. If the president were to extend that, then what had what happens . The question then becomes are you held hostage all over again . But what if the president did say, you know what . There is some merit to the idea that we do a lot bit here with i want the sequester, i dont like it. Lets work on that a little. I agree that longterm entitlements, we should take one step or develop a plan to get a plan for that. Lets talk about that. So well delay this for three weeks or six weeks. Lets get this our ducks in a row on how were going to approach that. The president wouldnt say that unless its. Would anybody be in the. The guy if he doesnt play ball and it does happen, that the first time it happened in u. S. Well, it did happen one or time. But it would be president obama. They might think that it and also if it doesnt work out well, the rest of his agenda for the next three years is off the table. This would be paramount for everybody were talking about. What do you think is the prevailing view . Who would take responsibility . I think that the dangerous view is that maybe they could pin it on president obama. But then again but the president can present a very united front. Npr was talking about this. Hes one guy. The republicans have a much more difficult position. I think there are two schools of thought. I dont think theyre united. Even the most raf yid tea party i know theyre characterized as being antiamerican and not caring about their country. You would have to take a cynical view of what theyre talking about. If it was just to tarnish president obama, i would they want want to default on debt. I think theyre both deep down patriot. Its just different means of how you get there. I dont think you could find a Single Person that would admit that they would want to default for any political reason. But here i think you on both sides, there are a lot of political subcontexts. Right. I still im with fisher, though. I think that if we go further along, but i and also and we go further along and then we get there . And then we get there. But even if it was the 17th. Im seeing everyone saying we cant prioritize. It might not be under the rule of law, you might not be able to pay china. And do you want to pay china before you pay your Social Security . No. But between the 17th and the 30th, or whatever it is, if you went over on the 17th, there would be such pressure. I just dont think anyone my prediction. And i dont think youre really predicting that someone doesnt get an interest payment, andrew. No, no. My prediction is i suspect what happens is im not sure we get there at 11 59 with 59 seconds. It may take another day or two, but the payments get made. And it may take that long. You may have to go over the october 17th day to get a strong reaction in the markets. I get the feeling what theyre basically saying is, look, dont assume that these guys on the far right arent crazy enough to do this. Thats what i think theyre kind of saying. Dont assume that theyre not crazy enough to put us in default. I thought we would never i dont want to speak for the paper, but thats a personal view. And honestly, look, we have crossed these lines of no return in the last few years. The sequestration was supposed to be such a horrible outcome that neither side would get up to that line and not blink. We get never want sequestration to take place it off the top where you would want to cut things in a more measured and rationale way. But the davenlg of the sequestration hasnt been even the democrats like it. And i think thats part of the reason the markets have not reacted more. And, you know, putin, you saw putin. Any opportunity, right . Every chance he gets, he goes, i wouldnt show up, either, if i had his problem. Things are going swimmingly over there with you two. Especially in terms of im not going to say anything. Im worried about the umbrella at night. Lets check on the markets this morning. Yesterday, i saw it stabilize down about 80 and into the close as nothing happened. It went near its lows, down 136. This is wait and see today on both sides. You can see theres not a whole lot down, but not a whole lot happening. Just the slightest thing could get us because the slightest olive branch on either side, how oil should be going down, although the dollar keeps weakening. I thought that was one of the most interesting things barry knapp said yesterday was that the closer we get to screwing up, the more valuable bonds become because the economy slows even more. In a per verse way, the stock market could go down, but the bond market could go up. Lets look at the ten year. Are off for me. 3 , 2 , i have no idea which comes first at this point. The dollar, just for me, joe kernen, i wish it would go you know, i wish it would be under 1. 30 on the euro. This is as high as weve been rooently. You have to think long and hard about the euro. Just this year for one percenters. I may go to the poconos. Im not saying that id go either europe or cabo. Thats your thing. What do you think about tokyo . How is the the yen has gotten stronger, too. The yen has gotten a little bit stronger. Argentina. What about argentina . I think people down there go down there to hide, dont you . What goes on there . Buenos aries. Youve been . I have been. Its beautiful down there. But you have not been to randy and georges complex. No. George clooney and randy gerber. Finally, lets check gold. What do you do with gold . I dont know. You figure you buy it b dont you . Arent we a super power any more . Putin say the says were not. Were in the low 1300s. Time for the Global Markets report. I know russia likes whats happening here because theyre laughing. What about are you guys still burned from the 18th you know, i know what happened back then. Youre not taking any you dont like whats happening there, do you, ross . Youre not over there snickering. No, no, i dont think anybody is snickering, joe. Look, we like business and markets and i dont think anybody likes politicians a huge amount. So, you know, theyre all the same. Right . Right. And youve had some experience with, you know, partisan people on far left and far right trying to come to some type of agreement. Its not easy. Its like w said, its laughed, its hard work. The important thing is, here in the uk, weve had a Coalition Government that has survived. Run british politics is in itself an extraordinary fact as we are not set up for Coalition Government. We are set up for opposing parties. Everybody watched the prime ministers question times as punching judy. So the fact that weve had a Partnership Government is extraordinary to us over here because we used to be quite divided in politics, as you know. And in terms of markets, because we have deviivisive politics ine states, were down to the session lows right now in europe. The ftse 100 was down, what swb 16 points yesterday . Were currently 7 to 3, decliners outpacing advancers. Losses ashdz 0. 75 for the ftse today. 0. 5 or less for the rest of the European Equity markets right now. The ftse mib still the outperformer. Its been a pretty good week for the ftse mib. It looks like it has the plan to get state aproflt or eu approval for a state bailout. The ftse is underperforming, mainly because of the retail sector. We had a survey out overnight in the british retail consortium, which wasnt quite as positive as we might have thought. We have had had huge rosters and positive data. Maybe suggesting the boost weve seen in consumption recently has been drawn down from savings. And on the back of that negative broker downgrades to the likes of martin expenser. Basically underwriting lenders loan from about 75 of the loan to value up 95 for people getting worried the Housing Market is now getting frothy, as well. As far as debt markets are concerned, you just put treasury yields up there. Yields a little higher today. Nothing to shout home about. Eye at that timan yields, 4. 3 is where we stand. You get the sense right now essentially what weve got is something of a buyers strike rather than anybody else deciding theyre going to put any sales into the equity markets. Back to you. Ross, maybe you want to listen because maybe john knows exactly whats possible here. Lets get to washington and john harwood. When someone from the white house starts introducing a shortterm deal and negotiating, in the meantime, the president probably knew that he was going to propose that, right, john . They talk about this. Is that yeah, but thats always been on the table. The republicans wont do that, either. How long are they talking about . A month . Six weeks . The white house hasnt said. I think theyre trying to figure out any way to get it raised. The other thing that they said, jay carney at the briefing yesterday was that he was pressed on whether there could be some sort of a process solution in the fashion of what congress did in january. Weve been up against the debt limit before in january, and republicans will willing to not do anything, just to say, well, well suspension enforcement of the debt limit for a few months on the condition that the senate pass a budget. And if they dont pass a budget, they wont get paid. No budget, no pay, which they did. That kind of an agreement for some sort of process tweak at the same time is something that jay carney didnt rule out yesterday. So you could have a debt limit increase and then some agreement that were going to have a budget conversation. Did you say tweak or twerk . Tweet. By the way, on the question you asked earlier about people not wanting the debt limit to go up or anybody agreeing o debt limit to go up, there was a member of the Republican Caucus yesterday who said that a failure to raise the debt limit would actually bring stability to the world Financial System because it would be that moment where we say to the world and everybody gets it straight, were broke. Yeah. We had joe barton on yesterday. It sounded to me like joe barton would be very willing it is acknowledging the noegdz that we do owe china one that struck me that, wow, we do owe those guys 1. 3 trillion. But not raising the debt limit is different than not making a debt payment. If you can ease fine the craziest guy in the tea party, i dont think youll find one guy that wants the u. S. To miss a debt payment. Yeah, i dont care. Until they think it would wait until they have to choose between sending the Social Security recipients a check and sending if checks to chinese banks. My kwn is, when we wake up on the 18th. Is it waking up on the 17th or the 18th . I believe its the 18th. I dont think that amount of precision exists. I think thats the point. I think that certain people who negotiate this think this deadline, we can force it and thats why we can play chicken. If youre really, really stoop and you dont have any brains in your head, is to is a negotiator to say, well, we dont know if its midnight on the 16th or the 17th or is 18th, so lets push it. And with a potential with the potential consequence of a market crash, thats dumb. I dont care anybody really probably wants that, either. Im still trying. You dont have the button. I keep forgetting to put my button on. But i have a way to do this, john. What the what is it . Yesterday, after i was talking about it, i figured you could transmit this ip foe to the people that matter and get something done. Whats that idea inspect. Lets talk about what the white house wants to do with sequestration. Discretionary spending knot the republicans big beef now. Im not sure about that, but that discussion is going to happen. Yes, it will. And supposedly the stuff is still on the table, still yes. And thats still something that we could plan to have a plan for. Yep. So instead of being just set in stone that you wont negotiate at all, just give some body language. No, no, no, joe, youre misinterpreting. Its not set in stone not to negotiate, its not to negotiate until you do x, until you put the fire and then well negotiate. Its a gray area. But he can do it. Hes the one that has to do it, isnt he . Maybe the call. Say look, john here is the irony about this, joe. The republicans are saying, please negotiate. I believe that that negotiation will happen. And when it happens, i suspect it will go better for republicans than it goes for the administration and democrats because i think the white house may well be willing to accept a deal that alleviates some sequestration, that puts longterm cuts on entitlement without tax increases. That because, remember, the core demand for democrats is when you do these things, you get tax increases. But the party that is saying please negotiate wbl theyve ruled out the democratic solution already. Theyve said over the weekend, were not going to raise taxes. Theres a fundamental contradiction within their position. Please negotiate, but only on our terms. And, you know, the admin straegz has to figure out how much of that they can take. How much animosity or bad feelings are there from the 2011 thing that biden brokered . Does the president really feel like he that was the worst decision or the worst thing thats happened in his presidency . I think he feels like that was a very i think if you asked him the worst day in his presidency, he would say newtown. But beyond that, i think what happened on 2011 was a bit of a tripwire for him. His attitude, both publicly and privately has changed since then. He felt like he was being pushed by people who were being unreasonable with consequences, you know, the downgrade and the consequences that have lasted. Now, the flip side of that, of course, is it helped him politically, helped him win reelection. But that episode is why he has drawn such a firm line about negotiating under this particular threat. And i do think it was important. Since then, you were talking about biden being most democrats think that the deal they cut with republicans on the fiscal cliff at the end of last year was a bad deal from their point of view, that the white house settled for not enough revenue. In fact, this they had gotten some more revenue, they may not need my more right now. The republicans think that was an awful position for them to be put in, which is why dont they want to come what was awful . The idea of raising taxes without getting any of their entitlement issues pushed through. They felt like they got taken on that. But their entitlement issues are not really their issues. How much have you been hearing them talk about intiethsment this year . Not at all. I do feel like the president got snookered back in 20121. That is crazy. Its why they want to come back and raise taxes. Its impossible for you to see the other side. No. But the other side talk to Mitch Mcconnell about the fiscal deal. You have a drink with Mitch Mcconnell. They still think he took the administration to the cleaners on the fiscal cliff deal and thats what most democrats in the senate think. The president still feels burned from when he did the extension on the bush tax cuts for a year or two. So noib can do anything i have to say, though, the idea of just kicking this and i hate the term of kicking the can down the road. But to put this off for a month or who months, main streets wants certainty. Becky, i want to go back to the underlying point you were making a grand bargains. A grand bargain would clearly be in the best interest of the country. When you look at who wanted a grand bargain more than the other side, the president wants a grand bargain more than anybody else. The reason the grand barga