Alexander Stuart

As the United States approaches the possibility of defaulting on its debts, on August 2, 2011, according to the Treasury Department, and President Obama's White House works, as best it can, with lawmakers from both sides of Congress to simultaneously deal with the deficit and raise the nation's debt ceiling, the Huffington Post quotes Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as warning that rapidly reducing federal outlays in the event of a default "would likely push us into a double dip recession." At the same time, a Medici -like drama is unfolding in the immensely powerful House of Murdoch (two of his key executives and longtime allies, indeed almost "family members," resigned yesterday, Friday, July 15, 2011 - see The Guardian's Rupert Murdoch's Bloody Friday ) and there is a sense, at least in the case of Murdoch, and by extension his most powerful US "voice," Fox News, that some of the chickens may at last be coming home to roost.