NBC News
World to US: Stop 'tap dancing' and solve default crisis
By Tracy Connor

The approach of the U.S. default deadline — with no clear resolution in sight — is being greeted around the world with a mixture of angst and anger.

"It's hard not to believe lunatics have taken charge of the asylum in Washington," the newspaper The Australian declared Monday, predicting significant damage to the global economy if the government can't pay its debts.

"America is diminished by the standoff," the editorial continued. "Government shutdowns, debt defaults and the shenanigans witnessed in Washington have no place in the world's superpower."

China, which is America's largest creditor with $1.28 trillion in U.S. treasuries, went as far as calling for a new world order — a "de-Americanized" model.

That may be an extreme reaction, but international economists and opinion-makers aren't holding back as they assess crisis.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde told NBC News' Meet the Press that the prospect of default, combined with the government shutdown now in its 14th day, overshadowed its annual meeting.

"If there is that degree of disruption, that lack of certainty, that lack of trust in the U.S. signature, it would mean massive disruption the world over and we would be at risk of tipping yet again into recession," she said.

Anshu Jain, chief executive of Germany's Deutsche Bank, said blowing the Oct. 17 deadline would be "utterly catastrophic."

"There isn't life beyond default," he said at a financial-industry conference in Washington over the weekend. "This would be a very rapidly spreading, fatal disease."

The governor of France's central bank, Christian Noyer, told Le Figaro that Washington's inability to pay its bills would be a "thunderbolt for the financial markets," and cause "extremely violent and profound" economic turbulence, according to Agence France Presse.

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