Petty squabbles in Washington are putting the country at risk. In about three weeks the United States will face risk of default on debt. Meanwhile, congress is still having problems looking past personal greed for the good of the country. Read full story below.

Stock Market News – US Preparing For Default..

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Squabbling in Washington over the debt ceiling is again raising the specter that the United States may be forced to delay payments on its debt. While the stigma of a default would be damaging enough to investor sentiment, the chaos from a breakdown in financial markets’ systems that might result would be even scarier.

A failure to make payments on U.S. Treasuries, however brief, would create widespread damage in short-term funding markets, which are crucial to daily operations of financial institutions, investment firms and many corporations, said analysts and investors.

In the event of a default, confusion would be rampant as trading systems struggle to identify, transfer and settle bonds that have matured but have not been repaid. Interest rates would surge and investors would likely sell stocks and commodities as they fled risky assets, analysts said.

But that doesn’t mean investors would necessarily run to the safety of Treasuries. Many U.S. government bonds could be shunned as investors worry about which issues are in default – even longer-dated issues that could have a coupon payment due that would potentially be in jeopardy.

A default could also trigger a wider paralysis in the financial system that could quite quickly stall the economy, as happened at the height of the financial crisis in September 2008.

For starters, money market funds are not allowed to hold defaulted collateral. These funds pulled back on making loans in 2011, when the ceiling was last an issue, and some analysts fear this time could be worse, potentially creating broad funding problems and send the cost of borrowing in short-term markets, including those in repurchase agreements or loans based on Libor – surging.

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