Noticeably sanguine Wall Street

Megan McArdle: If Wall Street was really freaking out, the markets would be down far more than they are. They're relatively calm because they simply cannot bring themselves to believe that we're not, in the end, going to raise the ceiling.

 I think Stan Collender is right: Washington, particularly the GOP bit of it, is interpreting Wall Street's lack of a reaction as a sign that it's maybe not such a big deal to breach the debt ceiling.  But the real message Wall Street is sending is "You can't be serious!  Not raising the debt ceiling would be a disaster!"

Even to the extent that they do understand that it's a problem, there's a lot of confusion about what, exactly, the problem is.  I've heard progressives arguing that "defaulting" on our Social Security obligations will somehow spook the markets, which is just nonsense.  Wall Street does not care whether Granny gets paid; they care whether they get paid.