This left business observer argues that Tea Party Republicans are out of the control of the financial ruling class who are now starting to take notice especially when foreign financial authorities are starting to issue warnings. The status of the US dollar as a safe-haven is at stake for the Empire--without that the Empire couldn't exist. Empire directors sell US government paper to some extent like the Mafia use disguised threats to get protection money. As long as the Empire can use the threat of violence against any adversary, the world's capitalists will buy this paper in order to safely store their ill-gotten wealth. Because he sees the Tea Party actions undermining the credibility of this safe-haven, he also views the crisis as much more serious than I do.
I still tend to see that this crisis has largely been engineered by the ruling class in an effort to move public opinion in the direction of accepting cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Taking advantage of crises or creating crises is one of the prime methods that ruling class directors have been using in recent decades to shape public opinion to serve their interests. If I am correct, I think we should see a settlement made, at least to keep the government open, in the next few days, but much later if Henwood is correct.
Look at what Obama would like to do: Obama would like to keep the government funded and keep us paying interest on our Treasury debt. But he would also like the old Bowles-Simpson “Grand Bargain” of cuts to Social Security and Medicare. He came into office talking about that, and he hasn’t really lost his drive to do it. So he’s got what is essentially an orthodox austerity agenda, which would please most of the mainstream parts of Wall Street and the Fortune 500.See also this article from World Socialist Web Site entitled " Amid government shutdown, Obama signals cuts to Social Security, Medicare".