POTENTIAL MELTDOWN (4)

The deadline for raising the U.S. Government's debt ceiling is next Tuesday, and there is still no plan for getting Congress to raise it. Well, that's not quite true. There are in fact two plans, one from the Republicans (the majority party in the House of Representatives) and one from the Democrats (the majority party in the Senate). The only problem is that neither party is likely to accept the other's proposal.

No way to run a whelk stall, as they used to say. Let alone the biggest economy on Earth.

Walter Blotscher