In response to:
High interest rates aren't the end of the world, either.
One could argue that LOW interest rates nearly were, due to their influence on the housing bubble debacle.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote a letter to Congress today that the federal government will once more hit the statutory debt ceiling on Monday, allowing an unspecified amount of time before the government will have to shut down crucial operations merely to service its debt.
In the letter, Geithner writes that the ceiling will be hit on December 31, and even though the Treasury Department will be able to undertake "extraordinary measures" to make sure the U.S. won't experience the full effect of hitting the ceiling, there's an unspecified and unknown amount of time before a government shutdown...
High interest rates in the 80's forced me out of a business that had been profitable. You evidently know nothing about economics or running a small business.