Fantasy-Hoping Tea Partier Ted Yoho Vs. Fact-Based Experts

As part of the ongoing efforts to drive the United States federal government as well as the whole nation over that cliff, there is a discernible faction within the Republican Party known as "default denialists" proclaiming that the debt ceiling isn't that big of a deal and that, hey, defaulting wouldn't be that bad.

One of these idiots is from my state, and worse he's from my alma mater of University of Florida.  Rep. Ted Yoho (Tea Party) is on record saying he won't raise the debt ceiling, and that the United States ought to go broke as a wake-up call of sorts.

His one-liner: "I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets."

Yoho's degrees, by the by, are in Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine.  Not in business or finance (both of which ARE taught at UF).  Any financial experience he has mostly relates to running his vet office.

In the meantime, there's a slew of people who actually HAVE college degrees in business and finance, and at least a sizable amount of working in the fields of business and finance, who are absolutely freaking out over the possibility that the U.S. will default.

“We can’t even imagine all the things that might happen, just like Henry Paulson couldn’t imagine all the bad things that might happen if he let Lehman go down,” said Bill Isaac, chairman of Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp and a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., referring to the former U.S. Treasury secretary. “It would create chaos in financial markets...”

The market shocks would be enough to tip the U.S. back into recession and drag the world economy down, according to Desmond Lachman, a fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. The event could prove to be the trigger that reverses a weak and fragile recovery, said William Cunningham, head of credit portfolios for the investment arm of Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. Lehman’s collapse was a similar spark, he said.
“Is this the straw among other things that tips an economy without drivers of growth back down into a negative spiral?” Cunningham said...

Labeled technical or not, a default is still a default, said Jim Grant, founder of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer.
“People have typically turned to Treasuries as a safe haven, but what will happen when they realize it’s not safe anymore,” said Grant, who has followed interest rates since the 1970s. “Financial markets are all confidence-based. If that confidence is shaken, you have disaster.”

You'll notice a lot of the financial sector experts quoted in those paragraphs kept referring back to the Lehman Brothers collapse, which is regarded as one of the prime elements of the 2007-08 Financial Crisis that led to the Great Recession.  They are pointing to a track record, a historical moment well-documented of where a global economic collapse occurred due to a large-scale default that went into the billions of dollars.  (and the Lehman Brothers collapse occurred because the federal government refused to help)  The United States default we're facing due to the impending debt ceiling cap?  That will be in the trillions of dollars.

Failure by the world’s largest borrower to pay its debt -- unprecedented in modern history -- will devastate stock markets from Brazil to Zurich, halt a $5 trillion lending mechanism for investors who rely on Treasuries, blow up borrowing costs for billions of people and companies, ravage the dollar and throw the U.S. and world economies into a recession that probably would become a depression. Among the dozens of money managers, economists, bankers, traders and former government officials interviewed for this story, few view a U.S. default as anything but a financial apocalypse.

Just for the record, my degree from University of Florida is in Journalism, which gives me some expertise writing this blog.  I've got a Masters in Library Information Sciences from University of South Florida, which gives me some expertise in research, finding relevant resources, and sharing of information.  I may not have a degree in finance, but I know where I can find the ones who do and I can ask them.  And what they're saying carries more weight than a Teabagging whack job who's ruining one of my university's reputation by talking like a self-serving idiot.

It's like Yoho wants to drive this car over the cliff just to prove something.

Dear University of Florida: can you revoke Ted Yoho's degrees?