Zero Hedge (a frequently interesting site, if one with, sometimes, a flavor of Armageddon about it), has extracts here from a report on the daily projected cash flow balances for the US Treasury. There’s plenty to see there, but the report’s key paragraph is this:
The table above summarizes our cash flow projections for the first two weeks of August, assuming that there has been no increase in the debt ceiling. The projections assume that Treasury will be able to at least roll over maturing debt on August 4, 11 and 15. That’s probably becoming a more questionable assumption given all of the statements coming from the rating agencies. As the table shows, we now show Treasury with a negative cash balance of $15.5 billion on August 15, which implies that Treasury wouldn’t have the resources to pay $30.6 billion in interest on that day.
Meanwhile, and reasonably enough, Brit Hume worries over the approaching deadline (“time is too short to come to terms on a deal that would substantially alter America’s budgetary landscape”) and how the politics of all this could play out.