We are a couple of days into the government shutdown. The GOP doesn't want to pass a continuing resolution without a concession from the Democrats, while the Democrats don't want to grant any concessions to the GOP after they gave away what they felt to be too much in previous negotiations over the federal budget and debt ceiling.
During this standoff, Obama apparently attempted to scare the markets.
Obama dismissed talk on Wall Street that Washington will solve its problems, warning that the fight this time is putting not only government operations at risk, but the debt ceiling as well.
“I think this time it’s different,” Obama said in the interview. “I think they should be concerned.”
Tyler Cowen's analysis of the situation is broadly accurate - a market panic which would result in a solution won't occur because there would be no reason for the market to panic in the first place if a solution would result from that panic. Assuming he understands the nature of markets, Obama is probably more concerned with getting Wall Street donors talking to congressmen than he is with helping cause a market panic in order to force everyone to act. When thinking about what would cause markets to panic, a conclusion we should draw from this is that the markets won't panic about the situation until and unless even a market panic has some chance of not resolving the situation. The market crash after the first TARP vote failed falls into this category. In our current situation, it means that if the political institutions require a market panic in order to act then things will probably occur on a very last minute basis, perhaps just as the Treasury is running out of ways to borrow money despite almost hitting the debt ceiling.
Right now the political situation looks like a zero sum game. Either the GOP lose by not even getting a small concession to show for their trouble or the Democrats lose by going back on their word about not negotiating until a continuing resolution is passed. Unless both sides figure out a solution they can rhetorically pass off as a victory there isn't an obvious compromise on the table.
So Warren Buffett is probably right when he says that the US will approach but not cross the point of extreme idiocy.