complete accounting might take months to put together once the government reopens and the Treasury returns to adding to the country’s debt. But economists said that the intransigence of House Republicans would take a bite out of fourth-quarter growth, with knock-on effects for employment, business earnings and borrowing costs. Those effects would be global. “We saw huge effects during the summer of 2011, with consumer confidence hitting a 31-year low in August and third-quarter G.D.P. growing just 1.4 percent,” said Beth Ann Bovino, the chief United States economist at Standard & Poor’s. “Given that this round of debt ceiling negotiations” is coming during a shutdown, she said, “the impact on the economy could be even more severe.”
Posted on: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 19:52:07 +0000