. >> joining us is allen krueger, professor of economics and public affairs at princeton and former chairident's council of economic advisers. good afternoon, sir. >> good afternoon. >> professor krueger, is the possibility of a default disaster simply the mythical creation of the media in order to entertain our viewers during the early weeks of the fall? >> absolutely not. those kinds of comments are irresponsible, they're reckless. this behavior has already cost american taxpayers billions of dollars. you know, just go back to august of 2011. and the general accounting office calculated that the shenanigans over the debt ceiling then cost the government over a billion dollars in 2011, 2012 alone. we saw a rise in short-term borrowing rates, and that's going to cause homeowners to pay more for interest rates and going to increase the government deficit. >> in its note on a possible credit downgrade tuesday, fitch rating cited the main reason as, and i'm quoting fitch, political brinksmanship, despite the fact that the u.s. economy remains more dynamic and resilient to shocks than its hig