The world today is focused on a small patch of land — 68.25 square miles to be precise —known as Washington, DC.
House Republicans, Senate Democrats, and an increasingly frustrated White House are racing to come up with a plan to raise the U.S. debt ceiling and prevent what U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has called an “economic calamity.”
They have until Tuesday, August 2, to work out a deal.
But as this debt drama unfolds in the capital of the world’s largest economy, many Americans have already suffered calamitous events of a more personal nature, including skyrocketing unemployment, a mortgage and housing collapse and diminishing savings in their 401K plans.
Here’s a photographic look of the drama, and the economic crisis in America that now threatens to get even worse if the various political sides in Washington, D.C. can’t agree upon a solution in time.
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