THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Mostly because of the hairball ideas of a billionaire hedge fund manager named Druckenmiller. He has sold the clever but not so smart Republican Teabagger caucus that the US can survive a few days in default.

The most influential of these dissidents is Stanley Druckenmiller, a billionaire former-hedge fund manager who helped George Soros build his fortune. His recent comments to the Wall Street Journal have carried the day with senior Republicans like House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (WI), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA), and Sen. Pat Toomey (PA), all of whom now say the U.S. could weather three or four days of missed interest payments, as long as the U.S. debt ceiling were quickly lifted, and a credible debt reduction plan signed into law.

Druckenmiller did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the ascent of his view alarms everyone from industry insiders to Treasury officials to economists, conservative and liberal, to non-partisan analysts who say the consequences of the U.S. missing even a single interest payment to a debt-holder would be catastrophic -- even if it was followed immediately by a legislative course correction.

"The U.S. dollar would be among the first casualties. If hot money were to flee what was once its safest haven, the dollar would sink and U.S. interest rates would rise," writes Princeton economist, and former Fed Chairman Alan Blinder, also in the Wall Street Journal. "The latter could lead us back into recession."

It's not that investors would no longer have faith in the U.S. government's technical ability to pay its bills. Nobody doubts that the U.S. can in theory manage its debt for years on the current fiscal trajectory before running into trouble with the markets. The fear is that buyers of U.S. debt would have to consider a new, previously unthinkable risk -- that the country's political system is too dysfunctional to set brinksmanship aside and steward the economy responsibly.

No one would doubt the credit of the US, but thanks to the batshit crazy legislators, uncertainty would add a large cost and faith in the US would disappear. What is not said is how much these hairball idea men stand to make if they drive the US into default?