Rumors of "Super Congress," Fitch States the Obvious, and China Property Bubble Ready to Burst

While the debt ceiling theater continues, you must continue to be weary of any tricks that get slid into what will most likely be hailed as an extraordinary compromise.  Check out this insidious proposal via HuffPost:

WASHINGTON -- Debt ceiling negotiators think they've hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public's unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.
This "Super Congress," composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers -- six from each chamber and six from each party.
Legislation approved by the Super Congress -- which some on Capitol Hill are calling the "super committee" -- would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn't be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who'd have the ability only to cast an up or down vote. With the weight of both leaderships behind it, a product originated by the Super Congress would have a strong chance of moving through the little Congress and quickly becoming law.

Unbelievable.  This so called "Super Congress" is so blatantly unconstitutional it will probably be created and approved of by the Supreme Court.  This "Super Congress" will be such a centralization of power, it will have an incredibly detrimental effect on passing liberty-vanquishing legislation.  And by detrimental, I mean it will make passing such legislation easier and quicker.  It will be the complete corruption of the slow-moving legislative system the founders of this country developed.

Essentially, a "Super Congress" will be the equivalent of hocking a luggie on James Madison's grave.

Moving over to Greece now, the obvious is finally official:

(Reuters) - Fitch ratings agency declared Greece would be in temporary default as the result of a second bailout, which Athens said had bought it breathing space. 

Of course a temporary default isn't as good as a real default so the fiscal can will continue to be kicked down the road.

Greece may be a disaster waiting to happen, but China's inhouse disaster seems to be finally unfolding:

So you thought that UK housing was unaffordable. Try Beijing and Shanghai, where as can be seen from the graphic below, prices are off the scale relative to income, the commonly used yardstick for measuring affordability. OK, so these are the boom cities of the Chinese economic miracle, but even on a nationwide basis, affordability is no lower than in the UK.

Little noticed amid the furore of the euro crisis, HSBC’S preliminary survey of China’s factories, published this week, indicated manufacturing activity in the world’s second-biggest economy actually declined in July from the month before, the first such contraction in a year. The HSBC purchasing managers index for China has been falling for months now, indicating a protracted fall off in growth as the Chinese authorities act to rein in rampant inflation.

Now we all get to see if the world economy can handle a slowing China.  My guess is no, but Fed money printing in the U.S. is starting to hit the system.  Whether it will be enough to offset China's slowing down will remain to be seen.

I will end by linking to this great graphic on how the banks in the U.S. are regulated from the Fiscal Times: