Monday, July 18, 2011 US Debt Ceiling - For the debt ceiling, a slew of politicians/officials from both sides

spoke to the press and on the Sun news shows but everyone was just repeating their standard talking points. It appears like the McConnell Option could become the fallback plan of choice although there remains opposition to this strategy on both ends of the political spectrum. NYT/The Hill China has accused the US of damaging relations between the two countries after Obama hosted the Dalai Lama at the White House on Saturday London Telegraph Germany and its satellite economies must withdraw from EMU, leaving the Greco-Latin bloc with the residual euro and the institutions of monetary union The IMF should stand ready with flexible credit lines to tide Latins through the first weeks of this rupture London Telegraph All but one of 49 economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal last week said Greece will be forced to restructure its debt WSJ Trichet repeated that the ECB would be unable to accept defaulted paper as collateral; the ECB chief also criticized the current management of the sovereign debt crisis by European officials. Reuters Italian, Spanish yields are approaching the 7% point-of-no-return level. Bloomberg