A man enters the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York City on Friday.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
President Biden is expected to meet with congressional leaders on Tuesday about the debt ceiling, with just about two weeks until the country could run out of money to pay its bills.
Economists and administration officials have warned that a potential default on the national debt — for the first in U.S. history — would amount to financial disaster, wreaking havoc on the domestic economy and rattling global markets, too.
“Our economy would fall into a significant recession,” Biden told reporters last week. “It would devastate retirement accounts, increase borrowing cost. According to Moody’s, nearly 8 million Americans would lose their jobs. And our international reputation would be damaged in the extreme.” Continue reading
Throughout medieval times until the early 18th century, one particularly excruciating European torture was peine forte et dure (French for “hard and forceful punishment”). The prisoner was bound, spread-eagled, face-up on the ground. A board was laid upon their torso, and heavy iron and stones were placed upon them until they ultimately asphyxiated. It could take several days for a victim to succumb. 
The U.S. dollar has been declining for several months, causing it to lose value and igniting fears that the country is heading for a recession.
Nearly 12 years ago I penned a similar cartoon to this one. It featured the sad demise of ‘King Dollar’. The earlier cartoon showed the defeated old King Buck surrounded by his decaying kingdom. The forces of real money, gold and silver, rode triumphantly on horses in the background. 
“The reputation of economics and economists, never high, has been a victim of the crash of 2008. An even more serious criticism is that the economic policy debate that followed seems only to replay the similar debate after 1929. The issue is budgetary austerity versus fiscal stimulus, and the positions of the protagonists are entirely predictable from their previous political allegiances.
Did you know that central banks bought more gold last year than any year in the past 55 years—since 1967?
We’re not living the American dream.
The stress on the financial sector caused by two bank failures in the United States last month is still a threat and should be addressed by a reimagining of the regulatory process, according to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.
