CNN news 2011-07-29 加文本

cnn news 2011-07-29

All right, but you know where we're going to begin. The debt, minute by minute the nation inches closer to the brink of default. The countdown less than seven full days before the federal government could run out of money and be unable to pay its bills. 

But in Washington a stark message is delivered in the dueling speeches by the president and the speaker of the House. Their parties are desperately divided and you and I are about to pay the price. 

We're covering all the angles from Wall Street to the White House. Ali Velshi getting really creative and looking at the cost Americans could face even before time officially runs out. And of course, Dan Lothian with the politics and the posturing. 

Ali, let's start with you. The markets open this hour, OK? How is the debt issue going to impact things today and the rest of the week? 

I know yesterday, you kept saying give me a little more time, give me a little more time, I'll let you know when to worry.  But how many times can we...

We're now -- we're not worried yet. We are watching. And you know, Kyra, you know how I am. I'm watching this every minute. When Asian markets open I watch it all around. Basically, stock markets are betting that Washington will come to its senses and there will be a deal. 

Now that means if we get a deal you'll probably -- you might see some run off in your 401(k), your IRA. Generally speaking, not likely. What you're going to see if we don't get a deal is a sharp reaction in stock markets which will affect your 401(k), your stock investments. What it will do is it will -- it will affect those companies that need to borrow money. 

I want you to think back to 2008 during the credit crisis. The companies affected the most were those who had to borrow money when credit -- when lending shut down internationally. And you know what happens when companies don't -- can't borrow money? They do the first thing that they can think of. They do the most effective way of cutting costs and that is to cut jobs. 

So the danger here is a few-fold. One is it will cost you in your stocks, two, it's interest rates could go up. Interest rates going up could bring home prices down so it's an opportunity if you're a buyer, but if you're a seller, that's bad. But most importantly above all of that if companies start to pay more to borrow money you know they're already not hiring even though they've got money. 

If it costs them more, they could start laying off again. We could, could -- there's a danger that the failure to increase this debt ceiling, Kyra, could push us back a little bit from this recovery that we're in right now. 

All right. Dan Lothian, you're over there at the White House. You know, as for the president, what is he going to do today? 

Well, you know, first of all, nothing on the president's schedule at this point having to do with debt and deficit. He does his typical meetings with senior advisers and a whole host of other issues. But I can tell you that a senior administration official tells me that they've been having conversations with Congress. Those continue. 

And that mirrors what we've been hearing from Democratic and Republican sources that the talks are still on the way to hopefully find some area of compromise. Clearly, both sides have said, you know, they don't like each other's plans. And so maybe there's something that can be found in the middle. The White House has been optimistic all along and that optimism continues. One senior administration official telling me a short time ago that they hope that, quote, "Sanity will prevail." So that's sort of the mood here at the White House this morning as we get closer to that deadline. 

I don't know. You got a lot of people saying this is insane and they're saying it all across the world. 

Ali, Dan, thanks. 

The Norway attack suspect is a little bit surprised that he was able to pull it off and wasn't killed doing it. That's according to Anders Behring Breivik's lawyer. His client still has to undergo psychiatric testing but the lawyer says everything about the case, quote, "indicates that he's insane." 

Breivik's father also thinks his son is mentally ill and has pretty much disowned him. 

No, I'll never have more contact with him. In my darkest moments I think that rather than killing all those people, he should have taken his own life. 

Those are strong words from a father. 

They are, but thinking about what has happened, I get so upset and I still don't understand that something like this could happen. No normal human being would do something like that. 

Meantime, Glenn Beck is weighing in on the Norway tragedy, criticizing the culprit and the camp he attacked. 

Zain joins us now live from London. Zain, let's talk about what he's saying. 

His comments are creating quite the firestorm, Kyra. 

What he's basically said is to compare the Youth Political Labor Camp on Utoya Island in Norway to the Hitler youth in Germany. Listen to exactly how he puts it on his radio show. 

As the thing started to unfold and then there was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler youth or whatever. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing.