The Broader Market

If you have been following the U.S. debt-limit negotiations, you will undoubtedly have heard U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s repeated warnings that failure to raise the debt limit would have catastrophic consequences for the U.S. economy: The credit rating of the United States would be downgraded, interest rates would rise, the safety and security of the dollar would be questioned, and the American economy would plunge back into a deep recession.