It has been nice being away from news for a week, so I have missed a week of debt crisis dialog. I have been catching up as the countdown clock winds down, as the two sides posture to make some odd endgame work. I heard an interesting analogy about what is occurring, and it made a whole lot of sense. I doubt if anyone will learn a lesson from it because that's kind of the message that was presented.

In every great cautionary monster tale, you have the scientist who believes he can flirt with nature, who feels themselves so superior and knowledgeable about those things you cannot or shouldn't know, that they create the monster or engage in an experiment that will have terrible consequences. For all of the excitement of seemingly gaining control of the beast, be it weather, some external force or inner demon, at some point the person loses control and is consumed or destroyed by that force.

With this recent political event, the set up goes like this; there are people, the rich and influential, who are not happy with Obama. You have heard the rhetoric, the politicians who have vowed to make him a one term President, the focus on his birth certificate and eligibility of being a citizen. There was an element of the public, not exclusive to the Tea Party movement but the Tea Party did have a huge concentration of them, who also didn't like Obama for whatever reason. The money folks figured if they could harness that energy, focus it on politicians how could appeal to that passion, they could have a decisive block which could help in the removal of Obama and the power of the Democratic Party. That's why in 2010 we had a lot of off the wall candidates running, and with some surprising wins among them. Now, the money people figured they were dealing with regular politicians, who would be ruled by money. Threaten to cut off their funds and they would walk in lock step with anything they were told.

As the theory goes, the mistake the money people made was in thinking these folks were normal politicians. No, the people they placed in power are true believers. They don't have experience with government, other than what the general public has. The problem, and this seems a bit odd but is actually part of a larger picture, is that because there is no sense about the real workings of government, the thinking is with the true believers is be it a family at the table or a huge government, the general set up and execution is the same. In other words, their focus is local and not international.

That's why to get the analogies coming up about the debt crisis which equate the family dinner table to the same as international finance. I've been there. When you have bills to pay and too little money, you figure to pay some off, promise to pay others off and somehow things will work out. Unfortunately, that really doesn't work, not in the family setting or in international finance. The thing is many people advocating letting the country miss the payments needed forget that when you do this, let's say, on your home bills, you will get dinged by every creditor out there. Miss a few payments on the power, on rent and you may be able to talk to the initial entity and buy some time, like talking to the landlord about paying the money over time, but your credit rating is hit, your interest is hit. No amount of promises or using your good name is going to erase the fact on some system somewhere that you, if things get bad, will try to put off paying for things you readily accepted. You might not feel the pain now, but when you have to move, your credit will be checked and that nice pass on the down payment might not factor in. Applying for a new credit card, you might not get the low rate or you might get rejected if you missed payment. It won't matter if it happened a week ago or seven years ago, you will be tagged and it is a taint hard to remove.

That's what the United States is facing now, but the Tea Party supporters and others don't believe it will hurt us, because they use this kitchen table analogy.

Now, if they were general politicians, the money people could control them. The thinking was they were controllable but the novice politicians, feeling they are of a divine mission, are well beyond the control of the money people. They have long eaten the fruit of Mom, apple pie and good American values right or wrong. They believe in the divine nature of the country, of being the greatest nation every formed in the history of the universe. You can't tell them the rest of the world doesn't bow down at our feet. They 'know' countries would never be mean to us, other than the heathen countries, because we are the United States of America (appropriate triumphant music here). Just like the Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back, if you are an Imperial that music will make you swell up with pride; if you are a rebel that music brings fear. There are a lot more rebels than Imperials in the thinking of the universe.

So the situation is you have the money people, knowing what problems they will have if the government defaults, trying desperately to hammer out a deal and get the Tea Party folks in line. The Tea Party folks are working on another plane, speaking in a different language. Since the money people for years have fed most folks on bumper sticker slogans and homespun wisdom, trying to get them to understand to stand down is being met with a lot more opposition than the money people imagined.

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.